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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 Mr. Justice Stewart and Mr. Justice Powell join.
I
After nine years of litigation in the Illinois state courts, the Supreme Court of Illinois affirmed a judgment in favor of petitioner and against respondents in the amount of $7,363,500. Shortly afterwards the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois enjoined, at the behest of respondents, state proceedings to collect the judgment. 403 F. Supp. 527 (1975). The order of the United States District Court was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, 545 F. 2d 1050 (1976), and we granted certiorari to consider the important question of the relationship between state and federal courts which such an injunction raises. 429 U. S. 815 (1976)
The Illinois state-court litigation arose out of commercial dealings between petitioner and respondents. In 1959 petitioner Vendo Co., a vending machine manufacturer located in Kansas City, Mo., acquired most of the assets of Stoner Manufacturing, which was thereupon reorganized as respondent Stoner Investments, Inc. Respondent Harry H. Stoner and members of his family owned all of the stock of Stoner Manufacturing, and that of Stoner Investments. Stoner Manufacturing had engaged in the manufacture of vending machines which dispensed candy, and as a part of the acquisition agreement it undertook to refrain from owning or managing any business engaged in the manufacture or sale of vending machines. Pursuant to an employment contract, respondent Harry Stoner was employed by petitioner as a consultant for five years at a salary of $50,000, and he agreed that during the term of his contract and for five years thereafter he would not compete with petitioner in the business of manufacturing vending machines.
In 1965, petitioner sued respondents in state court for breach of these noncompetition covenants. Shortly thereafter, respondents sued petitioner in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, complaining that petitioner had violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2. Respondents alleged that the covenants against competition were unreasonable restraints of trade because they were not reasonably limited as to time and place, and that the purpose of petitioner's state-court lawsuit was to “unlawfully harass” respondents and to “eliminate the competition” of respondents. App. 22, 25.
Respondents set up this federal antitrust claim as an affirmative defense to petitioner’s state-court suit. Id., at 31-32. However, prior to any ruling by the state courts on the merits of this defense, respondents voluntarily withdrew it. Id., at 82.
The state-court litigation ran its protracted course, including two trials, two appeals to the State Appellate Court, and an appeal to the Supreme Court of Illinois. In September 1974, the latter court affirmed a judgment in favor of petitioner and against respondents in an amount exceeding $7 million. Vendo Co. v. Stoner, 58 Ill. 2d 289, 321 N. E. 2d 1. The Supreme Court of Illinois predicated its judgment on its holding that Stoner had breached a fiduciary duty owed to petitioner, rather than upon any breach of the noncompetitive covenants. This Court denied respondents' petition for a writ of certiorari. 420 U. S. 975 (1975).
During the entire nine-year course of the state-court litigation, respondents’ antitrust sdit in the District Court was, in the words of the Court of Appeals, allowed to lie “dormant.” 545 F. 2d, at 1055. But the day after a Circuit Justice of this Court had denied a stay of execution pending petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Illinois, respondents moved in the District Court for a preliminary injunction against collection of the Illinois judgment. The District Court in due course granted this motion.
That court found that it “appear [ed] that the [noncom-petition] covenants... were overly broad,” 403 F. Supp., at 533, and that there was “persuasive evidence that Vendors activities in its litigation against the Stoner interests in Illinois state court were not a genuine attempt to use the adjudicative process legitimately.” Id., at 534-535.. Recognizing that there is a “paucity of authority” on the issue, id., at 536, the District Court held that the injunctive-relief provision of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 26, constitutes an express exception to 28 U. S. C. § 2283, the “Anti-Injunction Act.” The court further found that collection efforts would eliminate two of the three plaintiffs and thus that the injunction was necessary to protect the jurisdiction of the court, within the meaning of that exception to § 2283.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that § 16 of the Clayton Act was an express exception to § 2283. The court did not reach the issue of whether an injunction was necessary to protect the jurisdiction of the District Court.
In this Court, petitioner renews its contention that principles of equity, comity, and federalism, as well as the Anti-Injunction Act, barred the issuance of the injunction by the District Court. Petitioner also asserts in its brief on the merits that the United States District Court was required to give full faith and credit to the judgment entered by the Illinois courts. Because we agree with petitioner that the District Court’s order violated the Anti-Injunction Act, we reach none of its other contentions.
Ill
The Anti-Injunction Act, 28 U. S. C. §2283, provides:
“A court of the United States may not grant an injunction to stay proceedings in a State court except as expressly authorized by Act of Congress, or where necessary in aid of its jurisdiction,' or to protect or effectuate its judgments."
The origins and development of the present Act, and of the statutes which preceded it, have been amply described in our prior opinions and need not be restated here. The most recent of these opinions are Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225 (1972), and Atlantic Coast Line R. Co. v. Locomotive Engineers, 398 U. S. 281 (1970). Suffice it to say that the Act is an absolute prohibition against any injunction of any state-court proceedings, unless the injunction falls within one of the three specifically defined exceptions in the Act. The Act’s purpose is to forestall the inevitable friction between the state and federal courts that ensues from the injunction of state judicial proceedings by a federal court. Oklahoma Packing Co. v. Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co., 309 U. S. 4, 9 (1940). Respondents’ principal contention is that, as the Court of Appeals held, § 16 of the Clayton Act, which authorizes a private action to redress violations of the antitrust laws, comes within the “expressly authorized” exception to § 2283.
We test this proposition mindful of our admonition that
“[a]ny doubts as to the propriety of a federal injunction against state court proceedings should be resolved in favor of permitting the state courts to proceed in an orderly fashion to finally determine the controversy.” Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., supra, at 297.
This cautious approach is mandated by the “explicit wording of § 2283” and the “fundamental principle of a dual system of courts.” Ibid. We have no occasion to construe the section more broadly:
“[It is] clear beyond cavil that the prohibition is not to be whittled away by judicial improvisation.” Clothing Workers v. Richman Bros. Co., 348 U. S. 511, 514 (1955).
Our inquiry, of course, begins with the language of § 16 of the Clayton Act, which is the statute claimed to “expressly authorize” the injunction issued here. It provides, in pertinent part:
“[A]ny person... shall be entitled to sue for and have injunctive relief, in any court of the United States having jurisdiction over the parties, against threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws... when and under the same conditions and principles as injunctive relief against threatened conduct that will cause loss or damage is granted by courts of equity, under the rules governing such proceedings....” 38 Stat. 737, 15 U. S. C. § 26.
On its face, the language merely authorizes private injunctive relief for antitrust violations. Not only does the statute not mention § 2283 or the enjoining of state-court proceedings, but the granting of injunctive relief under § 16 is by the terms of that section limited to “the same conditions and principles” employed by courts of equity, and by “the rules governing such proceedings.” In 1793 the predecessor to § 2283 was enacted specifically to limit the general equity powers of a federal court. Smith v. Apple, 264 U. S. 274, 279 (1924) ; Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U. S. 118, 130 n. 2 (1941). When § 16 was enacted in 1914 the bar of the Anti-Injunction Act had long constrained the equitable power of federal courts to issue injunctions. Thus, on its face, § 16 is far from an express exception to the Anti-Injunction Act, and may be fairly read as virtually incorporating the prohibitions of the Anti-Injunction Act with restrictive language not found, for example, in 42 U. S. C. § 1983. See discussion of Mitchum v. Foster, infra.
Respondents rely, as did the Court of Appeals and the District Court, on the following language from Mitchum:
.. [I]t is clear that, in order to qualify as an ‘expressly authorized' exception to the anti-injunction statute, an Act of Congress must have created a specific and uniquely federal right or remedy, enforceable in a federal court of equity, that could be frustrated if the federal court were not empowered to enjoin a state court proceeding. This is not to say that in order to come within the exception an Act of Congress must, on its face and in every one of its provisions, be totally incompatible with the prohibition of the anti-injunction statute. The test, rather, is whether an Act of Congress, clearly creating a federal right or remedy enforceable in a federal court of equity, could be given its intended scope only by the stay of a state court proceeding.” 407 U. S., at 237-238. (Emphasis added, footnote omitted.)
But we think it is clear that neither this language from Mitchum nor Mitchum’s ratio decidendi supports the result contended for by respondents.
The private action for damages conferred by the Clayton Act is a “uniquely federal right or remedy,” in that actions based upon it may be brought only in the federal courts. See General Investment Co. v. Lake Shore & Mich. So. R. Co., 260 U. S. 261, 287 (1922). It thus meets the first part of the test laid down in the language quoted from Mitchum.
But that authorization for private actions does not meet the second part of the Mitchum test; it is not an “Act of Congress... [which] could be given its intended scope only by the stay of a state court proceeding,” 407 U. S., at 238. Crucial to our determination in Mitchum that 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983 fulfilled this requirement — but wholly lacking here— was our recognition that one of the clear congressional concerns underlying the enactment of § 1983 was the possibility that state courts, as well as other branches of state government, might be used as instruments to deny citizens their rights under the Federal Constitution. This determination was based on our review of the legislative history of § 1983; similar review of the legislative history underlying § 16 demonstrates that that section does not meet this aspect of the Mitchum test.
Section 1983 on its face, of course, contains no reference to § 2283, nor does it expressly authorize injunctions against state-court proceedings. But, as Mitchum recognized, such language need not invariably be present in order for a statute to come within the “expressly authorized” exception if there exists sufficient evidence in the legislative history demonstrating that Congress recognized and intended the statute to authorize injunction of state-court proceedings. In Part IY of our opinion in Mitchum we examined in extenso the purpose and legislative history underlying § 1983, originally § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. We recounted in detail that statute’s history which made it abundantly clear that by its enactment Congress demonstrated its direct and explicit concern to make the federal courts available to protect civil rights against unconstitutional actions of state courts.
We summarized our conclusion in these words:
“This legislative history makes evident that Congress clearly conceived that it was altering the relationship between the States and the Nation with respect to the protection of federally created rights; it was concerned that state instrumentalities could not protect those rights; it realized that state officers might, in fact, be antipathetic to the vindication of those rights; and it believed that these failings extended to the state courts.” 407 U. S., at 242.
Thus, in Mitchum, absence of express language authorization for enjoining state-court proceedings in § 1983 actions was cured by the presence of relevant legislative history. In this case, however, neither the respondents nor the courts below have called to our attention any similar legislative history in connection with the enactment of § 16 of the Clayton Act. It is not suggested that Congress was concerned with the possibility that state-court proceedings would be used to violate the Sherman or Clayton Acts. Indeed, it seems safe to say that of the many and varied anticompeti-tive schemes which § 16 was intended to combat, Congress in no way focused upon a scheme using litigation in the state courts. The relevant legislative history of § 16 simply suggests that in enacting § 16 Congress was interested in extending the right to enjoin antitrust violations to private citizens. The critical aspects of the legislative history recounted in Mitchum which led us to conclude that § 1983 was within the “expressly authorized” exception to § 2283 are wholly absent from the relevant history of § 16 of the Clayton Act. This void is not filled by other evidence of congressional authorization.
Section 16 undoubtedly embodies congressional policy favoring private enforcement of the antitrust laws, and undoubtedly there exists a strong national interest in antitrust enforcement. However, contrary to certain language in the opinion of the District Court, 403 F. Supp., at 536, the importance of the federal policy to be “protected” by the injunction is not the focus of the inquiry. Presumptively, all federal policies enacted into law by Congress are important, and there will undoubtedly arise particular situations in which a particular policy would be fostered by the granting of an injunction against a pending state-court action. If we were to accept respondents’ contention that § 16 could be given its “intended scope” only by allowing such injunctions, then § 2283 would be completely eviscerated since the ultimate logic of this position can mean no less than that virtually all federal statutes authorizing injunctive relief are exceptions to § 2283. Certainly all federal injunctive statutes are enacted to provide for the suspension of activities antithetical to the federal policies underlying the injunctive statute or related statutes. If the injunction would issue under the general rules of equity practice — requiring, inter alia, a showing of irreparable injury — but for the bar of § 2283, then clearly § 2283 in some sense may be viewed as frustrating or restricting federal policy since the activity inconsistent with the federal policy may not be enjoined because of § 2283’s bar. Thus, were we to accede to respondent’s interpretation of the “intended scope” language, an exception to § 2283 would always be found to be “necessary” to give the injunctive Act its full intended scope, and § 2283 would place no additional limitation on the right to enjoin state proceedings. The Anti-Injunction Act, a fixture in federal law since 1793, would then be a virtual dead letter whenever the plaintiff seeks an injunction under a federal injunctive statute. Whether or not the state proceeding could be enjoined would rest solely upon the traditional principles of equity and comity. However, as we emphasized in Mitchum, 407 U. S., at 243, the prohibitions of § 2283 exist separate and apart from these traditional principles, and we cannot read the “intended scope” language as rendering this specific and longstanding statutory provision inoperative simply because important federal policies are fostered by the statute under which the injunction is sought. Congress itself has found that these policies, in the ordinary case, must give way to the policies underlying § 2283. Given the clear prohibition of § 2283, the courts will not sit to balance and weigh the importance of various federal policies in seeking to determine which are sufficiently important to override historical concepts of federalism underlying § 2283; by the statutory scheme it has enacted, Congress has clearly reserved this judgment unto itself.
Our conclusion that the “importance,” or the potential restriction in scope, of the federal injunction statute does not control for § 2283 purposes is consistent with the analysis of those veryjesotatutes which we have in..the.past held to be exceptions to the Anti-Injunction Act. See Mitchum, supra, at 234-235, and nn. 12-16. The original version of the Anti-Injunction Act itself was amended in 1874 to allow federal courts to enjoin state-court proceedings which interfere with the administration of a federal bankruptcy proceeding. Rev. Stat. § 720. The Interpleader Act of, 1926, 28 U. S. C, § 2361, the Frazier-Lemke Act, 11 U. S. C. § 203 (1940 ed.), and the Federal Habeas Corpus Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2251, while not directly referring to § 2283, have nonetheless explicitly, authorized injunctive relief against state-court proceedings. The Act of 1851 limiting liability of shipowners/ 46 U. S. C. § 185, provided that, after deposit of certain funds in the court by the shipowner, “all claims and proceedings against the owner with respect to the matter in question shall cease.” The statutory procedures for removal of a case from state court to federal court provide that the removal acts as a stay of the state-court proceedings. 28 U. S. C. § 1446 (e).
By limiting the statutory exceptions of § 2283 and its predecessors to these few instances, we have clearly recognized that the Act countenancing the federal injunction must necessarily interact with, or focus upon, a state judicial proceeding. Section 16 of the Clayton Act, which does not by its very>s essence contemplate or envision any necessary interaction with) state judicial proceedings, is clearly not such an Act.
IV
Although the Court of Appeals did not reach the issue, the District Court found that, in addition to being “expressly authorized,” the injunction was “necessary in aid of its jurisdiction,” a separate exception to § 2283. The rationale of the District Court was as follows:
“The Court also holds that § 2283 authorizes an injunction here because further collection efforts would eliminate two plaintiffs, Stoner Investments and Lektro-Vend Corp., as parties under the case or controversy provisions of Article III since they would necessarily be controlled by Vendo. Vendo’s offer to place the Stoner Investment and Lektro-Vend stock under control of the Court does not meet this problem because as a matter of substance Vendo would control both plaintiff and defendant, requiring dismissal under Article III. Thus the injunction is also necessary to protect the jurisdiction of the Court.” 403 F. Supp., at 536-537.
In Toucey v. New York Life Ins. Co., 314 U. S., at 134-135, we acknowledged the existence of a historical exception to the Anti-Injunction Act in cases where the federal court has obtained jurisdiction over the res, prior to the state-court action. Although the “necessary in aid of” exception to § 2283 may be fairly read as incorporating this historical in rem exception, see C. Wright, Federal Courts § 47, p. 204 (3d ed. 1976), the federal and state actions here are simply in per- sonam. The traditional notion is that in personam actions in federal and state court may proceed concurrently, without interference from either court, and there is no evidence that the exception to § 2283 was intended to alter this balance. We have never viewed parallel in personam actions as interfering with the jurisdiction of either court; as we stated in Kline v. Burke Construction Co., 260 U. S. 226 (1922):
“[A]n action brought to enforce [a personal liability] does not tend to impair or defeat the jurisdiction of the court in which a prior action for the same cause is pending. Each court is free to proceed in its own way and in its own time, without reference to the proceedings in the other court. Whenever a judgment is rendered in one of the courts and pleaded in the other, the effect of that judgment is to be determined by the application of the principles of res adjudicata....” Id., at 230 (emphasis added).
No case of this Court has ever held that an injunction to “preserve” a case or controversy fits within the “necessary in aid of its jurisdiction” exception; neither have the parties directed us to any other federal-court decisions so holding.
The District Court’s legal conclusion is not only unsupported by precedent, but the factual premises upon which it rests are not persuasive. First, even if the two corporate plaintiffs would cease to litigate the case after execution of the state-court judgment, there is no indication that Harry Stoner himself would lose his standing to vindicate his rights, or that the case could not go forward. Nor does it appear that the two corporate plaintiffs would necessarily be removed from the lawsuit. As far as the record indicates, there are currently minority shareholders in those corporations whose ownership interests would not be affected by petitioner’s acquisition of majority stock control of the corporations. Under the applicable rules for shareholder derivative actions, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23.1, the shareholders could presumably pursue the corporate rights of action, which would inure to their benefit, even if the corporations themselves chose not to do so. Finally, petitioner offered to enter a consent decree which assuredly would eliminate any possibility of petitioner’s acquiring control of the corporations. See App. 209-210, 258. The injunction in this case was therefore, even under the District Courts’ legal theory, not necessary in aid of that court’s jurisdiction.
Our conclusion that neither of the bases relied upon by the District Court constitutes an exception to § 2283 is more than consistent with the recognition that any doubt must be resolved against the finding of an exception to § 2283, Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 398 U. S., at 297; a holding that there is an exception present in this case would demonstrably involve “judicial improvisation.” Clothing Workers, 348 U. S., at 514.
Reversed and remanded.
In addition to respondents Stoner and Stoner Manufacturing, petitioner also sued respondent Lektro-Vend Corp. Lektro-Vend had developed a radically new vending machine, and it was Stoner’s relationship with Lektro-Vend that formed the basis of the lawsuit.
The Court of Appeals’ summary of the state-court litigation is illustrative:
“The suit was filed in Kane County, Illinois on August 10, 1965; the complaint charged breach of noncompetition covenants; an amended complaint also charged theft of trade secrets. After a bench trial the court on December 16, 1966 found for Vendo. Judgments against Stoner for $250,000 and against both defendants for $1,100,000 were granted. Stoner and Stoner Investments were enjoined from further acts of competition.
“An appeal was taken to the Appellate Court of Illinois. That court entered its decision on, January 30, 1969,... 105 Ill. App. 2d 261, 245 N. E. 2d 263. The court held that no trade secrets were involved, the noncompetition covenants were valid and enforceable, and the covenants had been breached by the defendants. The grant of injunctive relief was affirmed. The court also held that though the trial court erred in striking the affirmative defense based on the federal antitrust laws, it was correct in denying the defense based on the Illinois antitrust laws. The cause was remanded for a determination of damages and further proceedings.
“Upon remand the defendant withdrew its affirmative defense asserted under the federal antitrust laws. The trial court, after hearing evidence, entered judgments against Stoner and Stoner Investments which totaled $7,363,500.
“Upon a second appeal to the Illinois Appellate Court, the court decided, on September 12, 1973, 13 Ill. App. 3d 291, 300 N. E. 2d 632, that the trial court erred in the measurement of damages. The case was remanded for assessment of damages in accordance with the Appellate Court’s original opinion.
"Upon appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court on September 27, 1974,... 58 Ill. 2d 289, 321 N. E. 2d 1, the appellate court was reversed and the trial court’s judgments were affirmed. The Supreme Court in deciding the case constructed a different theory of recovery — the breach of a fiduciary obligation on the part of Stoner — than had been asserted by Vendo.” 545 F. 2d 1050, 1055 n. 4 (CA7 1976).
“Quite apart from any liability which may be predicated upon a breach of the covenants against competition contained in the sales agreement and the employment contract, it is clear that Stoner violated his fiduciary duties to plaintiff during the period when he was a director and an officer of plaintiff.” 58 Ill. 2d, at 303, 321 N. E. 2d, at 9.
This issue was not presented to this Court in the petition for cer-tiorari, and the Court of Appeals did not discuss it in its opinion.
Prior to the enactment of § 16, private injunctive relief was not authorized for antitrust violations. Paine Lumber Co. v. Neal, 244 U. S. 459 (1917). As far as the legislative history indicates, the sole purpose of § 16 (§ 14 in the original drafts) was to extend to private parties the right to sue for injunctive relief. The following passage, taken in its entirety from H. R. Rep. No. 627, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 21 (1914), demonstrates what Congress had in mind in enacting § 16:
“Section 14 authorizes a person, firm, or corporation or association to sue for and have injunctive relief against threatened loss or damage by a violation of the antitrust laws, when and under the same conditions and principles as injunctive relief against threatened conduct that will cause loss or damage is granted by courts of equity under the rules governing such proceedings. Under section 7 of the act of July 2, 1890, a person injured in his business and property by corporations or combinations acting in violation of the Sherman antitrust law, may recover loss and damage for such wrongful act. There is, however, no provision in the existing law authorizing a person, firm, corporation, or association to enjoin threatened loss or damage to his business or property by the commission of such unlawful acts, and the purpose of this section is to remedy such defect in the law. This provision is in keeping with the recommendation made by the President in his message to Congress on the subject of trusts and monopolies.”
See also S. Rep. No. 698, 63d Cong., 2d Sess., 17-18 (1914).
In California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508 (1972), this Court held that harassing and sham state-court proceedings of a repetitive nature could be part of an anticompetitive scheme or conspiracy. In Otter Tail Power Co. v. United States, 410 U. S. 366 (1973), one of the allegations was that the federal-court defendant had instituted and supported state-court litigation for anticompetitive purposes in violation of the antitrust laws. The District Court had enjoined the defendant from “[instituting, supporting or engaging in litigation, directly or indirectly, against cities and towns, and officials thereof, which have voted to establish municipal power systems....” Jurisdictional Statement, O. T. 1972, No. 71-991, p. A-115. This Court vacated and remanded to the District Court for consideration, in light of the intervening decision of California Motor Transport, of whether the state-court litigation came within the “mere sham” exception announced in Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, Inc., 365 U. S. 127 (1961). Those cases together may be cited for the proposition that repetitive, sham litigation in state courts may constitute an antitrust violation and that an injunction may he to enjoin future state-court litigation. However, neither of those cases involved the injunction of a pending state-court proceeding, and thus the bar of § 2283 was not brought into play.
Nothing that we say today cuts back in any way on the holdings of these two cases; what we must here decide is whether such a lawsuit may be enjoined by a federal court after it has been commenced, notwithstanding the bar of the Anti-Injunction Act. While we conclude that it may not, nothing in our opinion today prevents a federal court in the proper exercise of its jurisdiction from enjoining the commencement of additional state-court proceedings if it concludes from the course and outcome of the first one that such proceedings would constitute a violation of the antitrust laws. With respect to this future litigation, the injunction will prevent even the commencement of a second such action, and the principles of federalism do not require the bar of § 2283. This distinction' is totally consistent with the realization that the true bona fides of the initial state-court litigation is often not apparent :
“One claim, which a court or agency may think baseless, may go unnoticed; but a pattern of baseless, repetitive claims may emerge which leads the factfinder to conclude that the administrative and judicial processes have been abused.” California Motor Transport, supra, at 513.
Any “disadvantage” to which the federal plaintiff is put in the initial proceeding is diminished by his ability to set up the federal antitrust claim as an affirmative defense, reviewable by this Court under 28 U. S. C. § 1257 (3), and his ability to sue for treble damages resulting from the vexatious prosecution of that state-court litigation.
Petitioner has catalogued the following federal statutes, and suggests that each would be so^ affected:
“E. g., 7 U. S. C. § 216 (§ 315 of the Packers and Stockyards Act of 1921); 7 U. S. C. §2050a (Farm Labor Contractor Registration Act); 7 U. S. C. § 2305 (a) (§ 6 of the Agricultural Fair Practices Act of 1967) ; 12 U. S. C. § 1731b (i) (§ 513 of the National Housing Act); 12 U. S. C. § 1976 (Bank Holding Company Act); 15 U. S. C. § 78aa (Securities Exchange Act of 1934); 15 U. S. C. § 298 (relating to the false stamping of gold and silver); 15 U. S. C. § 433 (providing for suits by farmer’s cooperative associations against discrimination by boards of trade); 15 U. S. C. §§ 1114 (2), 1116, 1121 (providing for injunctive relief against trademark infringement); 15 U. S. C. § 2073 (Consumer Product Safety Act); 15 U. S. C. § 2102 (Hobby Protection Act); 17 U. S. C. § 112 (providing for injunctions against violation of any right sechred by the copyright laws); 26 U. S. C. § 9011 (b) (Presidential Election Campaign Fund Act); 29 U. S. C. § 412 (Labor-Management Reporting and Discl&sure Act); 42 U. S. C. §2000e-5 (Title VII (Equal Employment Opportunities) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964); 42 U. S. C. §§ 6305, 6395 (e) (Energy Policy and Conservation Act); 45 U. S. C. § 547 (Title III of the Rail Passenger Service Act of 1970); 49 U. S. C. §§ 1 (20), 322 (b)(2), 916, 1017(b) (Interstate Commerce Act); 49 U. S. C. § 1487 (a) (Federal Aviation Act). See also 16 II. S. C. § 1540 (g) (Endangered Species Act of 1973); 33 U. S. C. § 1365 (Federal Water Pollution Control Act); 33 IT. S. C. § 1415 (g) (Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972); 33 U. S. C. § 1515 (Deepwater Ports Act of 1974); 42 IT. S. C. § 300j-8 (Safe Drinking Water Act); 42 IT. S. C. § 1857h-2 (Clean Air Act); 42 IT. S. C. § 4911 (Noise Control Act of 1972).” Reply Brief for Petitioner 10-11, n. 7.
Mr. Justice SteveNs in his dissent, see post, at 649-654, would conclude that since certain types of state-court litigation may violate the antitrust laws, an injunction of such litigation while pending is “expressly authorized” under the provisions of the Anti-Injunction Act. But this conclusion does not at all follow from the premise that judicial decisions have construed the prohibition of the antitrust laws to include sham and frivolous state-court proceedings — a premise with which we do not at all disagree, see n. 6, supra. The conclusion is supportable only as a matter of policy preference, and not of statutory construction. Under Mr. Justice SteveNs’ view, all a federal court need do is find a violation of the federal statute, then by the very force of that finding “express authorization” for the statute would be presumed. But this approach flies in the face of our past decisions. For example, in Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 227 (1972), the petitioner had alleged that the state courts “were depriving him of rights protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Under Mr. Justice Stevens’ syllogistic formulation, since the state-court action is a violation of § 1983, the express authorization would be readily found on the face of the statute. However, the Court in Mitchum found no such ipso facto shortcut to the explicit prohibition of § 2283, but resorted to careful analysis of the legislative history 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: | 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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 1214, signed into law on April 24, 1996, enacted the present 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) (1994 ed., Supp. II). The issue in this case is whether that new section of the statute dealing with petitions for habeas corpus governs applications in noncapital cases that were already pending when the Act was passed. We hold that it does not.
W
Wisconsin tried Aaron Lindh on multiple charges of murder and attempted murder. In response to his insanity defense, the State called a psychiatrist who had spoken with Lindh immediately after the killings but had later, and before Lindh’s trial, come under criminal investigation by the State for sexual exploitation of some of his patients. Although, at trial, Lindh tried to ask the psychiatrist about that investigation, hoping to suggest the witness’s interest in currying favor with the State, the trial court barred the questioning. Lindh was convicted.
On direct appeal, Lindh claimed a violation of the Confrontation Clause of the National Constitution, but despite the denial of relief, Lindh sought neither review in this Court nor state collateral review. Instead, on July 9,1992, he filed a habeas corpus application in the United States District Court, in which he again argued his Confrontation Clause claim. When relief was denied in October 1995, Lindh promptly appealed to the Seventh Circuit. Shortly after oral argument there, however, the federal habeas statute was amended, and the Seventh Circuit ordered Lindh’s case be reheard en bane to see whether the new statute applied to Lindh and, if so, how his case should be treated.
The Court of Appeals held that the Act’s amendments to chapter 153 of Title 28 generally did apply to cases pending on the date of enactment. 96 F. 3d 856, 863 (1996). Since the court did not read the statute as itself answering the questions whether or how the newly amended version of § 2254(d) would apply to pending applications like Lindh’s, id., at 861-863, it turned to this Court’s recent decision in Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S. 244 (1994). Landgraf held that, where a statute did not clearly mandate an application with retroactive effect, a court had to determine whether applying it as its terms ostensibly indicated would have genuinely retroactive effect; if so, the judicial presumption against retroactivity would bar its application. The Seventh Circuit concluded that applying the new § 2254(d) to cases already pending would not have genuinely retroactive effect because it would not attach “new legal consequences” to events preceding enactment, and the court held the statute applicable to Lindh’s case. 96 F. 3d, at 863-867 (citing Landgraf, supra, at 270). On the authority of the new statute, the court then denied relief on the merits. 96 F. 3d, at 868-877.
The Seventh Circuit’s decision that the new version of § 2254(d) applies to pending, chapter 153 cases conflicts with the holdings of Edens v. Hannigan, 87 F. 3d 1109, 1112, n. 1 (CA10 1996), Boria v. Keane, 90 F. 3d 36, 37-38 (CA2 1996) (per curiam), and Jeffries v. Wood, 114 F. 3d 1484 (CA9 .1997). In accord with the Seventh Circuit is the § 2253(c) case of Hunter v. United States, 101 F. 3d 1565, 1568-1573 (CA11 1996) (en banc) (relying on Lindh to hold certain amendments to chapter 153 applicable to pending cases). We granted certiorari limited to the question whether the new § 2254(d) applies to Lindh’s case, 519 U. S. 1074 (1996), and we now reverse.
II
Before getting to the statute itself, we have to address Wisconsin’s argument that whenever a new statute on its face could apply to the litigation of events that occurred before it was enacted, there are only two alternative sources of rules to determine its ultimate temporal reach: either an “express command” from Congress or application of our Landgraf default rule. In Landgraf, we said:
“When a case implicates a federal statute enacted after the events in suit, the court’s first task is to determine whether Congress has expressly prescribed the statute’s proper reach. If Congress has done so, of course, there is no need to resort to judicial default rules. When, however, the statute contains no such express command, the court must determine whether the new statute would have retroactive effect.... If the statute would operate retroactively, our traditional presumption teaches that it does not govern absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result.” Landgraf, supra, at 280.
Wisconsin insists that this language means that, in the absence of an express command regarding temporal reach, this Court must determine that temporal reach for itself by applying its judicial default rule governing retroactivity, to the exclusion of all other standards of statutory interpretation. Brief for Respondent 9-14; see also Hunter v. United States, supra, at 1569 (suggesting that Landgraf may have announced a general clear-statement rule regarding the temporal reach of statutes).
Wisconsin’s reading, however, ignores context. The language quoted disposed of the question whether the practice of applying the law as it stands at the time of decision represented a retreat from the occasionally conflicting position that retroactivity in the application of new statutes is disfavored. The answer given was no, and the presumption against retroactivity was reaffirmed in the traditional rule requiring retroactive application to be supported by a clear statement. Landgraf thus referred to “express eom-mand[s],” “unambiguous directive[s],” and the like where it sought to reaffirm that clear-statement rule, but only there. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U. S., at 263 (“[U]n-ambiguous directive” is necessary to authorize “retroactive application”); id., at 264 (statutes “will not be construed to have retroactive effect unless their language requires this result” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); id., at 272-273 (“Requiring clear intent assures that Congress itself has affirmatively considered the potential unfairness of retroactive application”); id., at 286 (finding “no clear evidence of congressional intent” to rebut the “presumption against statutory retroactivity”); id., at 286 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) (agreeing that “a legislative enactment affecting substantive rights does not apply retroactively absent clear statement to the contrary”).
In determining whether a statute’s terms would produce a retroactive effect, however, and in determining a statute's temporal reach generally, our normal rules of construction apply. Although Landgrafs default rule would deny application when a retroactive effect would otherwise result, other construction rules may apply to remove even the possibility of retroactivity (as by rendering the statutory provision wholly inapplicable to a particular case), as Lindh argues the recognition of a negative implication would do here. In sum, if the application of a term would be retroactive as to Lindh, the term will not be applied, even if, in the absence of retroactive effect, we might find the term applicable; if it would be prospective, the particular degree of prospectivity intended in the Act will be identified in the normal course in order to determine whether the term does apply to Lindh.
III
The statute reveals Congress’s intent to apply the amendments to chapter 153 only to such cases as were filed after the statute’s enactment (except where chapter 154 otherwise makes select provisions of chapter 153 applicable to pending cases). Title I of the Act stands more or less independent of the Act’s other titles in providing for the revision of federal habeas practice and does two main things. First, in §§ 101-106, it amends § 2244 and §§ 2253-2255 of chapter 153 of Title 28 of the United States Code, governing all habeas corpus proceedings in the federal courts. 110 Stat. 1217— 1221. Then, for habeas proceedings against a State in capital cases, § 107 creates an entirely new chapter 154 with special rules favorable to the state party, but applicable only if the State meets certain conditions, including provision for appointment of postconviction counsel in state proceedings. 110 Stat. 1221-1226. In § 107(c), the Act provides that “Chapter 154... shall apply to cases pending on or after the date of enactment of this Act.” 110 Stat. 1226.
We read this provision of § 107(c), expressly applying chapter 154 to all cases pending at enactment, as indicating implicitly that the amendments to chapter 153 were assumed and meant to apply to the general run of habeas cases only when those cases had been filed after the date of the Act. The significance of this provision for application to pending cases becomes apparent when one realizes that when chapter 154 is applicable, it will have substantive as well as purely procedural effects. If chapter 154 were merely procedural in a strict sense (say, setting deadlines for filing and disposition, see 28 U. S. C. §§ 2263, 2266 (1994 ed., Supp. II); 110 Stat. 1223, 1224-1226), the natural expectation would be that it would apply to pending cases. Landgraf, supra, at 275 (noting that procedural changes “may often be applied in suits arising before their enactment without raising concerns about retroactivity”). But chapter 154 does more, for in its revisions of prior law to change standards of proof and persuasion in a way favorable to a State, the statute goes beyond “mere” procedure to affect substantive entitlement to relief. See 28 U. S. C. § 2264(b) (1994 ed., Supp. II); 110 Stat. 1223 (incorporating revised legal standard of new § 2254(d)). Landgraf did not speak to the rules for determining the temporal reach of such a statute (having no need to do so). While the statute might not have a true retroactive effect, . neither was it clearly “procedural” so as to fall within the Court’s express (albeit qualified) approval of applying such statutes to pending cases. Since Landgrafwzs the Court’s latest word on the subject when the Act was passed, Congress could have taken the opinion’s cautious statement about procedural statutes and its silence about the kind of provision exemplified by the new § 2254(d) as counseling the wisdom of being explicit if it wanted such a provision to be applied to cases already pending. While the terms of § 107(c) may not amount to the clear statement required for a mandate to apply a statute in the disfavored retroactive way, they do serve to make it clear as a general matter that chapter 154 applies to pending cases when its terms fit those eases at the particular procedural points they have reached. (As to that, of course, there may well be difficult issues, and it may be that application of Landgrafs default rule will be necessary to settle some of them.)
The next point that is significant for our purposes is that everything we have just observed about chapter 154 is true of changes made to chapter 153. As we have already noted, amended § 2254(d) (in chapter 153 but applicable to chapter 154 cases) governs standards affecting entitlement to relief. If, then, Congress was reasonably concerned to ensure that chapter 154 be applied to pending cases, it should have been just as concerned about chapter 153, unless it had the different intent that the latter chapter not be applied to the general run of pending cases.
Nothing, indeed, but a different intent explains the different treatment. This might not be so if, for example, the two chapters had evolved separately in the congressional process, only to be passed together at the last minute, after chapter 154 had already acquired the mandate to apply it to pending cases. Under those circumstances, there might have been a real possibility that Congress would have intended the same rule of application for each chapter, but in the rough-and-tumble no one had thought of being careful about chapter 153, whereas someone else happened to think of inserting a provision in chapter 154. But those are not the circumstances here. Although chapters 153 and 154 may have begun life independently and in different Houses of Congress, it was only after they had been joined together and introduced as a single bill in the Senate (S. 735) that what is now § 107(c) was added. Both chapters, therefore, had to have been in mind when § 107(c) was added. Nor was there anything in chapter 154 prior to the addition that made the intent to apply it to pending cases less likely than a similar intent to apply chapter 153. If anything, the contrary is true, as the discussion of § 2264(b) will indicate.
The insertion of § 107(c) with its different treatments of the two chapters thus illustrates the familiar rule that néga-tWe implications raised by disparate provisions are strongest when the portions of a statute treated differently had already been joined together and were being considered simultaneously when the language raising the implication was inserted. See Field v. Mans, 516 U. S. 59, 75 (1995) (“The more apparently deliberate the contrast, the stronger the inference, as applied, for example, to contrasting statutory sections originally enacted simultaneously in relevant respects ...”). When § 107(c) was added, that is, a thoughtful Member of the Congress was most likely to have intended just what the later reader sees by inference.
The strength of the implication is not diminished by the one competing explanation suggested, see Brief for Respondent 11—12, which goes as follows. Chapter 154 provides for expedited filing and adjudication of habeas applications in capital cases when a State has met certain conditions. In general terms, applications will be expedited (for a State’s benefit) when a State has made adequate provision for counsel to represent indigent habeas applicants at the State’s expense. Thus, § 2261(b) provides that “[tjhis chapter is applicable if a State establishes ... a mechanism for the appointment, compensation, and payment of reasonable litigation expenses of competent counsel in State post-conviction proceedings brought by indigent prisoners . . . .” 110 Stat. 1221-1222. There is an ambiguity in the provision just quoted, the argument runs, for it applies chapter 154 to capital cases only where “a State establishes ... a mechanism,” leaving a question whether the chapter would apply if a State had already established such a mechanism before chapter 154 was passed. The idea is that the present tense of the word “establishes” might be read to rule out a State that already had “established” a mechanism, suggesting that when § 107(c) was added to provide that the chapter would apply to “eases pending” it was meant to eliminate the ambiguity by showing that all pending cases would be treated alike.
This explanation of the significance of § 107(c) is not, however, very plausible. First, one has to strain to find the ambiguity on which the alternative explanation is supposed to rest. Why would a Congress intent on expediting capital habeas cases have wanted to disfavor a State that already had done its part to promote sound resolution of prisoners’ petitions in just the way Congress sought to encourage? It would make no sense to leave such States on the slower track, and it seems unlikely that federal courts would so have interpreted § 2261(b). Second, anyone who had seen such ambiguity lurking could have dispatched it in a far simpler and straightforward fashion than enacting § 107(c); all the drafter would have needed to do was to insert three words into § 2261(b), to make it refer to a State that “establishes or has established ... a mechanism.” It simply is not plausible that anyone so sensitive as to find the unlikely ambiguity would be so delphic as to choose § 107(c) to fix it. Indeed, § 107(c) would (on the ambiguity hypothesis) be at least as uncertain as the language it was supposed to clarify, since’ “cases pending” could be read to refer to cases pending in States that set up their mechanisms only after the effective date of the Act. The hypothesis of fixing ambiguity, then, is too remote to displace the straightforward inference that chapter 153 was not meant to apply to pending cases.
Finally, we should speak to the significance of the new § 2264(b), which Lindh cites as confirming his reading of § 107(c) of the Act. While § 2264(b) does not speak to the present issue with flawless clarity, we agree with Lindh that it tends to confirm the interpretation of § 107(c) that we adopt. Section 2264(b) is a part of the new chapter 154 and provides that “[following review subject to subsections (a), (d), and (e) of § 2254, the court shall rule on the claims [subject to expedited consideration] before it.” 110 Stat. 1223. As we have said before, § 2254 is part of chapter 153 applying to habeas cases generally, including cases under chapter 154. Its subsection (a) existed before the Act, simply providing for a habeas remedy for those held in violation of federal law. Although § 2254 previously had subsections lettered (d) and (e) (dealing with a presumption of correctness to be accorded state-court factual findings and the production of state-court records when evidentiary sufficiency is challenged, respectively) the Act eliminated the old (d) and relettered the old (e) as (f); in place of the old (d), it inserted a new (d) followed by a new (e), the two of them dealing with, among other things, the adequacy of state factual determinations as bearing on a right to federal relief, and the presumption of correctness to be given such state determinations. 110 Stat. 1219. It is to these new provisions (d) and (e), then, that § 2264(b) refers when it provides that chapter 154 determinations shall be made subject to them.
Leaving aside the reference to § 2254(a) for a moment, why would Congress have provided specifically in § 2264(b) that chapter 154 determinations shall be made subject to §§ 2254(d) and (e), given the fact that the latter are part of chapter 153 and thus independently apply to habeas generally? One argument is that the answer lies in § 2264(a), which (in expedited capital cases) specially provides an exhaustion requirement (subject to three exceptions), restricting federal habeas claims to those “raised and decided on the merits in the State courts. ...” 110 Stat. 1223. See 96 F. 3d, at 862-863. The argument assumes (and we will assume for the sake of the argument) that in expedited capital cases, this provision of § 2264(a) supersedes the requirements for exhaustion of state remedies imposed as a general matter by §§ 2254(b) and (c). The argument then goes on, that § 2264(b) is explicit in applying §§ 2254(d) and (e) to such capital cases in order to avoid any suggestion that when Congress enacted § 2264(a) to supersede §§ 2254(b) and (c) on exhaustion, Congress also meant to displace the neighboring provisions of §§ 2254(d) and (e) dealing with such things as the status of state factual determinations. But we find this unlikely. First, we find it hard to imagine why anyone would read a superseding exhaustion rule to address the applicability not just of the other exhaustion requirement but of provisions on the effect of state factual determinations. Anyone who did read the special provision for exhaustion in capital cases to supersede not only the general exhaustion provisions but evidentiary status and presumption provisions as well would have had to assume that Congress could reasonably have meant to leave the law on expedited capital cases (which is more favorable to the States that fulfill its conditions) without any presumption of the correctness of relevant state factual determinations. This would not, we think, be a reasonable reading and thus not a reading that Congress would have feared and addressed through § 2264(b). We therefore have to find a different function for the express requirement of § 2264(b) that chapter 154 determinations be made in accordance with §§ 2254(d) and (e).
Continuing on the State’s assumption that § 2264(a) replaces rather than complements § 2254’s exhaustion provisions, we can see that the function of providing that §§ 2254(d) and (e) be applicable in chapter 154 cases is, in fact, supportive of the negative implication apparent in § 107(c). There would have been no need to provide expressly that subsections (d) and (e) would apply with the same temporal reach as the entirely new provisions of chapter 154 if all the new provisions in both chapters 153 and 154 were potentially applicable to cases pending when the Act took effect, as well as to those filed later. If the special provision for applying §§ 2254(d) and (e) in cases under chapter 154 has any utility, then, it must be because subsections (d) and (e) might not apply to all chapter 154 cases; since chapter 154 and the new sections of chapter 153 unquestionably apply alike to cases filed after the Act took effect, the cases to which subsections (d) and (e) from chapter 153 would not apply without express provision must be those cases already pending when the Act took effect. The utility of § 2264(b), therefore, is in providing that when a pending case is also an expedited capital case subject to chapter 154, the new provisions of §§ 2254(d) and (e) will apply to that case. The provision thus confirms that Congress assumed that in the absence of such a provision, §§ 2254(d) and (e) (as new parts of chapter 153) would not apply to pending federal habeas cases.
This analysis is itself consistent, in turn, with Congress’s failure in § 2264(b) to make any express provision for applying §§ 2254(f), (g), (h), or (i). Subsections (f) and (g) deal with producing state-court evidentiary records and their admissibility as evidence. Congress would obviously have wanted these provisions to apply in chapter 154 pending cases, but because they were old provisions, which had already attached to “pending” capital habeas cases (only their letter designations had been amended), Congress had no need to make any special provision for their application to pending capital habeas cases that might immediately or later turn out to be covered by chapter 154. Subsections (h) and (i), however, are new; if Congress wanted them to apply to chapter 154 cases from the start it would on our hypotheses have had to make the same special provision that § 2264(b) made for subsections (d) and (e). But there are reasons why Congress need not have made any special provisions for subsections (h) and (i) to apply to the “pending” chapter 154 cases. Subsections (h) and (i) deal, respectively, with the appointment of counsel for the indigent in the federal proceeding, and the irrelevance to habeas relief of the adequacy of counsel’s performance in previous postconviction proceedings. See 110 Stat. 1219-1220. There was no need to make subsection (h) immediately available to pending cases, capital or not, because 21 U. S. C. § 848(q)(4)(B) already authorized appointment of counsel in such cases. And there was no reason to make subsection (i) immediately available for a State’s benefit in expedited capital cases, for chapter 154 already dealt with the matter in § 2261(e), see 110 Stat. 1222. There is, therefore, a good fit of the § 2264(b) references with the inference that amendments to chapter 153 were meant to apply only to subsequently filed cases; where there was a good reason to apply a new chapter 153 provision in the litigation of a chapter 154 case pending when the Act took effect, § 2264(b) made it applicable, and when there was no such reason it did no such thing.
There is only one loose end. Section 2254(a) was an old provision, without peculiar relevance to chapter 154 cases, but applicable to them without any need for a special provision; as an old provision it was just like the lettered subsections (f) and (g). Why did § 2264(b) make an express provision for applying it to chapter 154 cases? No answer leaps out at us. All we can say is that in a world of silk purses and pigs’ ears, the Act is not a silk purse of the art of statutory drafting.
The upshot is that our analysis accords more coherence to §§ 107(c) and 2264(b) than any rival we have examined. That is enough. We hold that the negative implication of § 107(c) is that the new provisions of chapter 153 generally apply only to cases filed after the Act became effective. Because Lindh’s case is not one of these, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The other titles address such issues as restitution to victims of crime (Title II), various aspects of international terrorism (Titles II, III, IV, VII, VIII), restrictions on various kinds of weapons and explosives (Titles V and VI), and miscellaneous items (Title IX). See 110 Stat. 1214-1217.
Section 103 also amends Rule 22 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. 110 Stat. 1218.
Section 108 further adds a “technical amendment” regarding expert and investigative fees for the defense under 21 U. S. C. § 848(q). 110 Stat. 1226.
In United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 34-37 (1992), this Court held that the existence of “plausible” alternative interpretations of statutory language meant that that language could not qualify as an “unambiguous” expression of a waiver of sovereign immunity. And eases where this Court has found truly “retroactive” effect adequately authorized by a statute have involved statutory language that was so clear that it could sustain only one interpretation. See Graham & Foster v. Goodcell, 282 U. S. 409, 416-420 (1931) (holding that a statutory provision “was manifestly intended to operate retroactively according to its terms” where the tax statute spelled out meticulously the circumstances that defined the claims to which it applied and where the alternative interpretation was absurd); Automobile Club of Mich. v. Commissioner, 353 U. S. 180, 184 (1957) (finding a clear statement authorizing the Commissioner of Internal Revenue to correct tax rulings and regulations “retroactively” where the statutory authorization for the Commissioner’s action spoke explicitly in terms of “retroactivity”); United States v. Zacks, 375 U. S. 59, 65-67 (1963) (declining to give retroactive effect to a new substantive tax provision by reopening claims otherwise barred by statute of limitations and observing that Congress had provided for just this sort of retroactivity for other substantive provisions by explicitly creating new grace periods in which otherwise barred claims could be brought under the new substantive law). Cf. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U. S. 44, 55-57 (1996) (finding a clear statement of congressional abrogation of Eleventh Amendment immunity where the federal statute went beyond granting federal jurisdiction to hear a claim and explicitly contemplated “the State” as defendant in federal court in numerous provisions of the Act).
Landgraf suggested that the following language from an unenacted precursor of the statute at issue in that case might possibly have qualified as a clear statement for retroactive effect: “[This Act] shall apply to all proceedings pending on or commenced after the date of enactment of this Act.” 511 U. S., at 260 (emphasis added; internal quotation marks omitted). But, even if that language did qualify, its use of the sort of absolute language absent from § 107(e) distinguishes it. Cf. United States v. Williams, 514 U. S. 527, 531-532 (1995) (finding a waiver of sovereign immunity “unequivocally expressed” in language granting jurisdiction to the courts over “[a]ny civil action against the United States for the recovery of any internal-revenue tax alleged to have been erroneously or illegally assessed or collected” (emphasis in Williams; internal quotation marks omitted)); id., at 541 (Scaua, J., concurring) (“The [clear-statement] rule does not . . . require explicit waivers to be given a meaning that is implausible ...”).
See 96 F. 3d 856, 861 (CA7 1996). Lindh concedes this much. Brief for Petitioner 23, n. 15.
Amendment 1199, offered by Senator Dole on May 25,1995, added what was then § 607(e) and now is § 107(c). See 141 Cong. Rec. 14600, 14614 (1995). A comparison of S. 735 as it stood on May 1, 1995, and S. 735 as it passed the Senate on June 7, after the substitution of Amendment 1199, reveals that the part of the bill dealing with habeas corpus reform was substantially the same before and after the amendment in all ways relevant to our interpretation of § 107(c).
There are reasons why the position that § 2264(a) replaces rather than complements §§ 2254(b) and (c) is open to doubt: Lindh argues with some force that to read § 2264(a) as replacing the exhaustion requirement of §§ 2254(b) and (c) would mean that in important classes of cases (those in the categories of three § 2264(a) exceptions), the State would not be able to insist on exhaustion in the state courts. In eases raising claims of newly discovered evidence, for example, the consequence could be that the State could not prevent the prisoner from going directly to federal court and evading §2254(e)’s presumption of correctness of state-court factual findings as well as § 2254(d)’s new, highly deferential standard for evaluating state-court rulings. It is true that a State might be perfectly content with the prisoner’s choice to go straight to federal court in some cases, but the State has been free to waive exhaustion to get that result. The State has not explained why Congress would have wanted to deprive the States of the § 2254 exhaustion tools in chapter 154 cases, and we are hard pressed to come up with a reason, especially considering the Act’s apparent general purpose to enhance the States’ capacities to control their own adjudications. It would appear that the State’s reading of § 2264(a) would also eliminate from chapter 154 eases the provisions of § 2254 that define the exhaustion requirement explicitly as requiring a claim to be raised by any and every available procedure in the State, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(c), that newly authorize federal courts to deny unexhausted claims on the merits, § 2254(b)(2), and that newly require a State’s waiver of exhaustion to be shown to be express, § 2254(b)(3). No explanation for why Congress would have wanted to deny the States these advantages is apparent or offered by the parties, which suggests that no such effects were intended at all but that § 2264(a) was meant as a supplement to rather than a replacement for §§ 2254(b) and (c).
Nevertheless, as stated in the text, we assume for the sake of argument that the State’s understanding of § 2264(a) as replacing*rather than complementing the chapter 153 exhaustion requirements for chapter 154 is the correct one. Forceful arguments can be made on each side, and we do not need to resolve the conflict here.
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.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 84 Stat. 175, as amended, was enacted, in part, “to assure that all children with disabilities have available to them ... a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs.” 20 U. S. C. § 1400(c). Consistent with this purpose, the IDEA authorizes federal financial assistance to States that agree to provide disabled children with special education and “related services.” See §§ 1401(a)(18), 1412(1). The question presented in this case is whether the definition of “related services” in § 1401(a)(17) requires a public school district in a participating State to provide a ventilator-dependent student with certain nursing services during school hours.
I
Respondent Garret E is a friendly, creative, and intelligent young man. When Garret was four years old, his spinal column was severed in a motorcycle accident. Though paralyzed from the neck down, his mental capacities were unaffected. He is able to speak, to control his motorized wheelchair through use of a puff and suck straw, and to operate a computer with a device that responds to head movements. Garret is currently a student in the Cedar Rapids Community School District (District), he attends regular classes in a typical school program, and his academic performance has been a success. Garret is, however, ventilator dependent, and therefore requires a responsible individual nearby to attend to certain physical needs while he is in school.
During Garret’s early years at school his family provided for his physical care during the schoolday. When he was in kindergarten, his 18-year-old aunt attended him; in the next four years, his family used settlement proceeds they received after the accident, their insurance, and other resources to employ a licensed practical nurse. In 1993, Garret’s mother requested the District to accept financial responsibility for the health care services that Garret requires during the schoolday. The District denied the request, believing that it was not legally obligated to provide continuous one-on-one nursing services.
Relying on both the requested a hearing before the Iowa Department of Education. An Administrative Law Judge (AU) received extensive evidence concerning Garret’s special needs, the District’s treatment of other disabled students, and the assistance provided to other ventilator-dependent children in other parts of the country. In his 47-page report, the AU found that the District has about 17,500 students, of whom approximately 2,200 need some form of special education or special services. Although Garret is the only ventilator-dependent student in the District, most of the health care services that he needs are already provided for some other students. “The primary difference between Garret’s situation and that of other students is his dependency on his ventilator for life support.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. The AU noted that the parties disagreed over the training or licensure required for the care and supervision of such students, and that those providing such care in other parts of the country ranged from nonlieensed personnel to registered nurses. However, the District did not contend that only a licensed physician could provide the services in question.
The AU explained that federal law requires that children with a variety of health impairments be provided with “special education and related services” when their disabilities adversely affect their academic performance, and that such children should be educated to the maximum extent appropriate with children who are not disabled. In addition, the ALJ explained that applicable federal regulations distinguish between “school health services,” which are provided by a “qualified school nurse or other qualified person,” and “medical services,” which are provided by a licensed physician. See 34 CFR §§ 300.16(a), (b)(4), (b)(11) (1998). The District must provide the former, but need not provide the latter (except, of course, those “medical services” that are for diagnostic or evaluation purposes, 20 U. S. C. § 1401(a)(17)). According to the AU, the distinction in the regulations does not just depend on “the title of the person providing the service”; instead, the “medical services” exclusion is limited to services that are “in the special training, knowledge, and judgment of a physician to carry out.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 51a. The AU thus concluded that the IDEA required the District to bear financial responsibility for all of the services in dispute, including continuous nursing services.
The District challenged the AU’s decision in Federal District Court, but that court approved the ALJ’s IDEA ruling and granted summary judgment against the District. Id., at 9a, 15a. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 106 F. 3d 822 (CA8 1997). It noted that, as a recipient of federal funds under the IDEA, Iowa has a statutory duty to provide all disabled children a “free appropriate public education,” which includes “related services.” See id., at 824. The Court of Appeals read our opinion in Irving Independent School Dist. v. Tatro, 468 U. S. 883 (1984), to provide a two-step analysis of the “related services” definition in §1401(a)(17) — asking first, whether the requested services are included within the phrase “supportive services”; and second, whether the services are excluded as “medical services.” 106 F. 3d, at 824-825. The Court of Appeals succinctly answered both questions in Garret’s favor. The court found the first step plainly satisfied, since Garret cannot attend school unless the requested services are available during the sehoolday. Id., at 825. As to the second step, the court reasoned that Tatro “established a bright-line test: the services of a physician (other than for diagnostic and evaluation purposes) are subject to the medical services exclusion, but services that can be provided in the school setting by a nurse or qualified layperson are not.” 106 F. 3d, at 825.
In its petition for certiorari, the District challenged only the second step of the Court of Appeals’ analysis. The District pointed out that some federal courts have not asked whether the requested health services must be delivered by a physician, but instead have applied a multifaetor test that considers, generally speaking, the nature and extent of the services at issue. See, e.g., Neely v. Rutherford County School, 68 F. 3d 965, 972-973 (CA6 1995), cert. denied, 517 U. S. 1134 (1996); Detsel v. Board of Ed. of Auburn Enlarged City School Dist., 820 F. 2d 587, 588 (CA2) (per curiam), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 981 (1987). We granted the District’s petition to resolve this conflict. 523 U. S. 1117 (1998).
b-i H — t
The District contends that § 1401(a)(17) does not require it to provide Garret with “continuous one-on-one nursing services” during the schoolday, even though Garret cannot remain in school without such care. Brief for Petitioner 10. However, the IDEA’S definition of “related services,” our decision in Irving Independent School Dist v. Tatro, 468 U. S. 883 (1984), and the overall statutory scheme all support the decision of the Court of Appeals.
The text of the “related services” definition, see n. 1, supra, broadly encompasses those supportive services that “may be required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education.” As we have already noted, the District does not challenge the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the in-sehool services at issue are within the covered category of “supportive services.” As a general matter, services that enable a disabled child to remain in school during the day provide the student with “the meaningful access to education that Congress envisioned.” Tatro, 468 U. S., at 891 (“ 'Congress sought primarily to make public education available to handicapped children’ and ‘to make such access meaningful’ ” (quoting Board of Ed. of Hendrick Hudson Central School Dist, Westchester Cty. v. Rowley, 458 U. S. 176, 192 (1982))).
This general definition of “related services” is illuminated by a parenthetical phrase listing examples of particular services that are included within the statute’s coverage. § 1401(a)(17). “[M]edieal services” are enumerated in this list, but such services are limited to those that are “for diagnostic and evaluation purposes.” Ibid. The statute does not contain a more specific definition of the “medical services” that are excepted from the coverage of § 1401(a)(17).
The scope of the “medical services” exclusion is not a matter of first impression in this Court. In Tatro we concluded that the Secretary of Education had reasonably determined that the term “medical services” referred only to services that must be performed by a physician, and not to school health services. 468 U. S., at 892-894. Accordingly, we held that a specific form of health care (clean intermittent catheterization) that is often, though not always, performed by a nurse is not an excluded medical service. We referenced the likely cost of the services and the competence of school staff as justifications for drawing a line between physician and other services, ibid., but our endorsement of that line was unmistakable. It is thus settled that the phrase “medical services” in § 1401(a)(17) does not embrace all forms of care that might loosely be described as “medical” in other contexts, such as a claim for an income tax deduction. See 26 U. S. C. § 213(d)(1) (1994 ed. and Supp. II) (defining “medical care”).
The District does not ask us to define the term so broadly. Indeed, the District does not argue that any of the items of care that Garret needs, considered individually, could be excluded from the scope of 20 U. S. C. § 1401(a)(17). It could not make such an argument, considering that one of the services Garret needs (catheterization) was at issue in Tatro, and the others may be provided competently by a school nurse or other trained personnel. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 15a, 52a. As the ALJ concluded, most of the requested services are already provided by the District to other students, and the in-school care necessitated by Garret’s ventilator dependency does not demand the training, knowledge, and judgment of a licensed physician. Id., at 51a-52a. While more extensive, the in-sehool services Garret needs are no more “medical” than was the care sought in Tatro.
Instead, the District points to the combined and continuous character of the required care, and proposes a test under which the outcome in any particular ease would “depend upon a series of factors, such as [1] whether the care is continuous or intermittent, [2] whether existing school health personnel can provide the service, [3] the cost of the service, and [4] the potential consequences if the service is not properly performed.” Brief for Petitioner 11; see also id., at 34-35.
The District’s multifaetor test is not supported by any recognized source of legal authority. The prqposed factors can be found in neither the text of the statute nor the regulations that we upheld in Tatro. Moreover, the District offers no explanation why these characteristics make one service any more “medical” than another. The continuous character of certain services associated with Garret’s ventilator dependency has no apparent relationship to “medical” services, much less a relationship of equivalence. Continuous services may be more costly and may require additional school personnel, but they are not thereby more “medical.” Whatever its imperfections, a rule that limits the medical services exemption to physician services is unquestionably a reasonable and generally workable interpretation of the statute. Absent an elaboration of the statutory terms plainly more convincing than that which we reviewed in Tatro, there is no good reason to depart from settled law.
Finally, the District raises broader concerns nancial burden that it must bear to provide the services that Garret needs to stay in school. The problem for the District in providing these services is not that its staff cannot be trained to deliver them; the problem, the District contends, is that the existing school health staff cannot meet all of their responsibilities and provide for Garret at the same time. Through its multifaetor test, the District seeks to establish a kind of undue-burden exemption primarily based on the cost of the requested services. The first two factors can be seen as examples of cost-based distinctions: Intermittent care is often less expensive than continuous care, and the use of existing personnel is cheaper than hiring additional employees. The third factor — -the cost of the service— would then encompass the first two. The relevance of the fourth factor is likewise related to cost because extra care may be necessary if potential consequences are especially serious.
The District may have legitimate financial concerns, but our role in this dispute is to interpret existing law. Defining “related services” in a manner that accommodates the cost concerns Congress may have had, cf. Tatro, 468 U. S., at 892, is altogether different from using cost itself as the definition. Given that § 1401(a)(17) does not employ cost in its definition of “related services” or excluded “medical services,” accepting the District’s cost-based standard as the sole test for determining the scope of the provision would require us to engage in judicial lawmaking without any guidance from Congress. It would also create some tension with the purposes of the IDEA. The statute may not require public schools to maximize the potential of disabled students com-mensúrate with the opportunities provided to other children, see Rowley, 458 U. S., at 200; and the potential financial burdens imposed on participating States may be relevant to arriving at a sensible construction of the IDEA, see Tatro, 468 U. S., at 892. But Congress intended “to open the door of public education” to all qualified children and “require[d] participating States to educate handicapped children with nonhandicapped children whenever possible.” Rowley, 458 U. S., at 192, 202; see id., at 179-181; see also Honig v. Doe, 484 U. S. 305, 310-311, 324 (1988); §§1412(1), (2)(C), (5)(B).
This case is about whether meaningful access to the public schools will be assured, not the level of education that a school must finance once access is attained. It is undisputed that the services at issue must be provided if Garret is to remain in school. Under the statute, our precedent, and the purposes of the IDEA, the District must fund such “related services” in order to help guarantee that students like Garret are integrated into the public schools.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Affirmed.
“The term ‘related services’ means transportation, and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services (including speech pathology and audiology, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, recreation, including therapeutic recreation, social work services, counseling services, including rehabilitation counseling, and medical services, except that such medical services shall be for diagnostic and evaluation purposes only) as may be required to assist a child with a disability to benefit from special education, and includes the early identification and assessment of disabling conditions in children.” 20 U. S. C. § 1401(a)(17).
Originally, the statute was enacted without a definition of “related services.” See Education of the Handicapped Act, 84 Stat. 175. In 1975, Congress added the definition at issue in this case. Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, § 4(a)(4), 89 Stat. 775. Aside from non-substantive changes and added examples of included services, see, e. g„ Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997, § 101, 111 Stat. 45; Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1991, §25(a)(1)(B), 105 Stat. 605; Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1990, § 101(c), 104 Stat. 1103, the relevant language in §1401(a)(17) has not been amended since 1975. All references to the IDEA herein are to the 1994 version as codified in Title 20 of the United States Code — the version of the statute in effect when this dispute arose.
In his report in this case, the Administrative Law Judge explained: “Being ventilator dependent means that [Garret] breathes only with external aids, usually an electric ventilator, and occasionally by someone else’s manual pumping of an air bag attached to his tracheotomy tube when the ventilator is being maintained. This later procedure is called ambu bagging.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 19a.
“He needs assistance with urinary bladder catheterization once a day, the suctioning of his tracheotomy tube as needed, but at least once every six hours, with food and drink at lunchtime, in getting into a reclining position for five minutes of each hour, and ambu bagging occasionally as needed when the ventilator is checked for proper functioning. He also needs assistance from someone familiar with his ventilator in the event there is a malfunction or electrical problem, and someone who can perform emergency procedures in the event he experiences autonomic hyper-reflexia. Autonomic hyperreflexia is an uncontrolled visceral reaction to anxiety or a full bladder. Blood pressure increases, heart rate increases, and flushing and sweating may occur. Garret has not experienced autonomic hyperreflexia frequently in recent years, and it has usually been alleviated by catheterization. He has not ever experienced autonomic hyperreflexia at school. Garret is capable of communicating his needs orally or in another fashion so long as he has not been rendered unable to do so by an extended lack of oxygen.” Id., at 20a.
“Included are such services as care for • eterization, food and drink, oxygen supplement positioning, and suetion-ing.” Id., at 28a; see also id., at 53a.
In addition, the ALJ’s opinion contains a thorough discussion of “other tests and criteria” pressed by the District, id, at 52a, including the burden on the District and the cost of providing assistance to Garret. Although the ALJ found no legal authority for establishing a cost-based test for determining what related services are required by the statute, he went on to reject the District’s arguments on the merits. See id, at 42a-53a. We do not reach the issue here, but the AU also found that Garret’s in-sehool needs must be met by the District under an Iowa statute as well as the IDEA. Id., at 54a-55a.
“The regulations define ‘related services’ for handicapped children to include ‘school health services,’ 34 CFR § 300.13(a) (1983), which are defined in turn as ‘services provided by a qualified school nurse or other qualified person,’ §300.13(b)(10). ‘Medical services’ are defined as ‘services provided by a licensed physician.’ § 300.13(b)(4). Thus, the Secretary has [reasonably] determined that the services of a school nurse otherwise qualifying as a ‘related service’ are not subject to exclusion as a ‘medical service,’ but that the services of a physician are excludable as such.
“. .. By limiting the ‘medical services’ exclusion to the services of a •physician or hospital, both far more expensive, the Secretary has given a permissible construction to the provision.” 468 U. S., at 892-893 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted); see also id., at 894 (“[T]he regulations state that school nursing services must be provided only if they can be performed by a nurse or other qualified person, not if they must be performed by a physician”).
Based on it seems that the Secretary’s post-ihiro view of the statute has not been entirely clear. E. g., App. to Pet. for Cert. 64a. We may assume that the Secretary has authority under the IDEA to adopt regulations that define the “medical services” exclusion by more explicitly taking into account the nature and extent of the requested services; and the Secretary surely has the authority to enumerate the services that are, and are not, fairly included within the scope of § 1407(a)(17). But the Secretary has done neither; and, in this Court, he advocates affirming the judgment of the Court of Appeals. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 7-8, 30; see also Auer v. Robbins, 519 U. S. 452, 462 (1997) (an agency’s views as amicus curiae may be entitled to deference). We obviously have no authority to rewrite the regulations, and we see no sufficient reason to revise Tairo, either.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5,12.
At oral argument, the District suggested that we first consider the nature of the requested service (either “medical” or not); then, if the service is “medical,” apply the multifactor test to determine whether the service is an excluded physician service or an included sehool nursing service under the Secretary of Education’s regulations. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 7, 13-14. Not only does this approach provide no additional guidance for identifying “medical” services, it is also disconnected from both the statutory text and the regulations we upheld in Irving Independent School Dist. v. Tatro, 468 U. S. 883 (1984). “Medical” services are generally excluded from the statute, and the regulations elaborate on that statutory term. No authority cited by the District requires an additional inquiry if the requested service is both “related” and non-“medieaI.” Even if § 1401(a)(17) demanded an additional step, the factors proposed by the District are hardly more useful in identifying “nursing” services than they are in identifying “medical” services; and the District cannot limit educational access simply by pointing to the limitations of existing staff! As we noted in Tatro, the IDEA requires schools to hire specially trained personnel to meet disabled student needs. Id., at 893.
See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5, 13; Brief for Petitioner 6-7, 9. The District, however, will not necessarily need to hire an additional employee to meet Garret’s needs. The District already employs a one-on-one teacher associate (TA) who assists Garret during the schoolday. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a-27a. At one time, Garret’s TA was a licensed practical nurse (LPN). In light of the state Board of Nursing’s recent ruling that the District’s registered nurses may decide to delegate Garret’s care to an LPN, see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 9-10 (filed Apr. 22, 1998), the dissent’s future-cost estimate is speculative. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a, 58a-60a (if the District could assign Garret’s care to a TA who is also an LPN, there would be "a minimum of additional expense”).
The dissent’s approach, which seems to be even broader than the District’s, is unconvincing. The dissent’s rejection of our unanimous decision in Tatro comes 15 years too late, see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172-178 (1989) (stare decisis has “special force” in statutory interpretation), and it offers nothing constructive in its place. Aside from rejecting a “provider-specific approach,” the dissent cites unrelated statutes and offers a circular definition of “medical services.” Post, at 81 (opinion of Thomas, J.) (“ ‘services’ that are ‘medical’ in ‘nature’ ”). Moreover, the dissent’s approach apparently would exclude most ordinary school nursing services of the kind routinely provided to npndisabled children; that anomalous result is not easily attributable to congressional intent. See Tatro, 468 U. S., at 893.
In a later discussion the dissent does offer a specific proposal: that we now interpret (or rewrite) the Secretary’s regulations so that school districts need only provide disabled children with “health-related services that school nurses can perform as part of their normal duties.” Post, at 85. The District does not dispute that its nurses “can perform” the requested services, so the dissent’s objection is that District nurses would not be performing their “normal duties” if they met Garret’s needs. That is, the District would need an “additional employee.” Ibid. This proposal is functionally similar to a proposed regulation — ultimately withdrawn — that would have replaced the “school health services” provision. See 47 Fed. Reg. 33838, 33854 (1982) (the statute and regulations may not be read to affect legal obligations to make available to handicapped, children services, including school health services, made available to nonhand-ieapped children). The dissent’s suggestion is unacceptable for several reasons. Most important, such revisions of the regulations are better left to the Secretary, and an additional staffing need is generally not a sufficient objection to the requirements of § 1401(a)(17). See n. 8, 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: | 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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 621 et seq., creates an exemption for employer actions “otherwise prohibited” by the ADEA but “based on reasonable factors other than age” (RFOA). § 623(f)(1). The question is whether an employer facing a disparate-impact claim and planning to defend on the basis of RFOA must not only produce evidence raising the defense, but also persuade the factfinder of its merit. We hold that the employer must do both.
I
The National Government pays private companies to do some of the work maintaining the Nation’s fleet of nuclear-powered warships. One such contractor is respondent KAPL, Inc. (Knolls), the operator of the Government’s Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, which has a history dating back to the first nuclear-powered submarines in the 1950s. The United States Navy and the Department of Energy jointly fund Knolls’s operations, decide what projects it should pursue, and set its annual staffing limits. In recent years, Knolls has been charged with designing prototype naval nuclear reactors and with training Navy personnel to run them.
The demands for naval nuclear reactors changed with the end of the Cold War, and for fiscal year 1996 Knolls was ordered to reduce its work force. Even after 100 or so employees chose to take the company’s ensuing buyout offer, Knolls was left with 30-some jobs to cut. Petitioners (Meacham, for short) are among those laid off in the resulting “involuntary reduction in force.” Brief for Petitioners 6. In order to select those for layoff, Knolls told its managers to score their subordinates on three scales, “performance,” “flexibility,” and “critical skills.” The scores were summed, along with points for years of service, and the totals determined who should be let go.
Of the 31 salaried employees laid off, 30 were at least 40 years old. Twenty-eight of them sued, raising both disparate-treatment (discriminatory intent) and disparate-impact (discriminatory result) claims under the ADEA and state law, alleging that Knolls “designed and implemented its workforce reduction process to eliminate older employees and that, regardless of intent, the process had a discriminatory impact on ADEA-protected employees.” Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, 381 F. 3d 56, 61 (CA2 2004) (Meacham I). To show a disparate impact, the workers relied on a statistical expert's testimony to the effect that results so skewed according to age could rarely occur by chance; and that the scores for “flexibility” and “criticality,” over which managers had the most discretionary judgment, had the firmest statistical ties to the outcomes. Id., at 65.
The jury found for Meacham on the disparate-impact claim (but not on the disparate-treatment claim). The Court of Appeals affirmed, after examining the verdict through the lens of the so-called “burden shifting” scheme of inference spelled out in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U. S. 642 (1989). See Meacham I, supra, at 74-76. After Knolls sought certiorari, we vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings in light of Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U. S. 228 (2005), decided while Knolls’s petition was pending, see 544 U. S. 957 (2005).
On remand, the same Court of Appeals panel ruled in favor of Knolls, over a dissent. 461 F. 3d 134 (CA2 2006) (Meacham II) (case below). The majority found its prior ruling “untenable” because it had applied the Wards Cove “business necessity” standard rather than a “reasonableness” test, contrary to City of Jackson; and on the latter standard, Meacham, the employee, had not carried the burden of persuasion. 461 F. 3d, at 140-141, 144 (internal quotation marks omitted). In dissent, Judge Pooler took issue with the majority for confusing business justifications under Wards Cove with the statutory RFOA exemption, which she read to be an affirmative defense with the burden of persuasion falling on defendants. 461 F. 3d, at 147, 149-152.
Meacham sought certiorari, noting conflicting decisions assigning the burden of persuasion on the reasonableness of the factor other than age; the Court of Appeals in this case placed it on the employee (to show the non-age factor unreasonable), but the Ninth Circuit in Criswell v. Western Airlines, Inc., 709 F. 2d 544, 552 (1983), had assigned it to the employer (to show the factor was a reasonable one). In fact it was in Criswell that we first took up this question, only to find it not well posed in that case. Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell, 472 U. S. 400, 408, n. 10 (1985). We granted certiorari, 552 U. S. 1162 (2008), and now vacate the judgment of the Second Circuit and remand.
II
A
The ADEA’s general prohibitions against age discrimination, 29 U. S. C. §§623(a)-(c), (e), are subject to a separate provision, § 623(f), creating exemptions for employer practices “otherwise prohibited under subsections (a), (b), (c), or (e).” The RFOA exemption is listed in § 623(f) alongside one for bona fide occupational qualifications (BFOQ): “It shall not be unlawful for an employer... to take any action otherwise prohibited under subsections (a), (b), (c), or (e)... where age is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of the particular business, or where the differentiation is based on reasonable factors other than age....” § 623(f)(1).
Given how the statute reads, with exemptions laid out apart from the prohibitions (and expressly referring to the prohibited conduct as such), it is no surprise that we have already spoken of the BFOQ and RFOA provisions as being among the ADEA’s “five affirmative defenses,” Trans World Airlines, Inc. v. Thurston, 469 U. S. 111, 122 (1985). After looking at the statutory text, most lawyers would accept that characterization as a matter of course, thanks to the familiar principle that “[w]hen a proviso... carves an exception out of the body of a statute or contract those who set up such exception must prove it.” Javierre v. Central Altagracia, 217 U. S. 502, 508 (1910) (opinion for the Court by Holmes, J.); see also FTC v. Morton Salt Co., 334 U. S. 37, 44-45 (1948) (“[T]he burden of proving justification or exemption under a special exception to the prohibitions of a statute generally rests on one who claims its benefits... ”); United States v. First City Nat. Bank of Houston, 386 U. S. 361, 366 (1967) (citing Morton Salt Co., supra, at 44-45). That longstanding convention is part of the backdrop against which the Congress writes laws, and we respect it unless we have compelling reasons to think that Congress meant to put the burden of persuasion on the other side. See Schaffer v. Weast, 546 U. S. 49, 57-58 (2005) (“Absent some reason to believe that Congress intended otherwise, therefore, we will conclude that the burden of persuasion lies where it usually falls, upon the party seeking relief”).
We have never been given any reason for a heterodox take on the RFOA clause’s nearest neighbor, and our prior cases recognize that the BFOQ clause establishes an affirmative defense against claims of disparate treatment. See, e.g., City of Jackson, 544 U. S., at 233, n. 3; Western Air Lines, Inc., supra, at 414-419, and nn. 24, 29. We have likewise given the affirmative defense construction to the exemption in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 for pay differentials based on “any other factor other than sex,” Corning Glass Works v. Brennan, 417 U. S. 188, 196 (1974) (internal quotation marks omitted); and there, we took account of the particular weight given to the interpretive convention already noted, when enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), id., at 196-197 (“[T]he general rule [is] that the application of an exemption under the [FLSA] is a matter of affirmative defense on which the employer has the burden of proof”). This focus makes the principle of construction the more instructive in ADEA cases: “in enacting the ADEA, Congress exhibited both a detailed knowledge of the FLSA provisions and their judicial interpretation and a willingness to depart from those provisions regarded as undesirable or inappropriate for incorporation,” Lorillard v. Pons, 434 U. S. 575, 581 (1978). And we have remarked and relied on the “significant indication of Congress’ intent in its directive that the ADEA be enforced in accordance with the ‘powers, remedies, and procedures’ of the FLSA.” Id., at 580 (quoting 29 U. S. C. § 626(b); emphasis deleted); see also Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U. S. 517, 528 (1994) (applying reasoning of Lorillard); Thurston, supra, at 126 (same). As against this interpretive background, there is no hint in the text that Congress meant § 623(f)(1) to march out of step with either the general or specifically FLSA default rules placing the burden of proving an exemption on the party claiming it.
With these principles and prior cases in mind, we find it impossible to look at the text and structure of the ADEA and imagine that the RFOA clause works differently from the BFOQ clause next to it. Both exempt otherwise illegal conduct by reference to a further item of proof, thereby creating a defense for which the burden of persuasion falls on the “one who claims its benefits,” Morton Salt Co., supra, at 44-45, the “party seeking relief,” Schaffer, supra, at 57-58, and here, “the employer,” Corning Glass Works, supra, at 196.
If there were any doubt, the stress of the idiom “otherwise prohibited,” prefacing the BFOQ and RFOA conditions, would dispel it. The implication of affirmative defense is underscored by contrasting § 623(f)(1) with the section of the ADEA at issue in Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio v. Betts, 492 U. S. 158 (1989), and by the way Congress responded to our decision there. In Betts, we said the issue was whether a provision in a former version of § 623(f)(2), one about employee benefit plans, merely “redefine[d] the elements of a plaintiff’s prima facie case,” or instead “established] a defense” to what “otherwise would be a violation of the Act.” Id., at 181. Although the provision contained no “otherwise prohibited” kind of language, we said that it “appears on first reading to describe an affirmative defense.” Ibid. We nonetheless thought that this more natural view (which we had taken in Thurston) was overridden by evidence of legislative history, by the peculiarity of a pretext-revealing condition in the phrasing of the provision (that a benefit plan “not [be] a subterfuge to evade the purposes” of the ADEA), and by the parallel with a prior case construing an “analogous provision of Title VII” of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (analogous because it also contained a pretext-revealing condition). 492 U. S., at 181. A year later, however, Congress responded to Betts by enacting the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, 104 Stat. 978, avowedly to “restore the original congressional intent” that the ADEA’s benefits provision be. read as an affirmative defense, id., § 101. What is instructive on the question at hand is that, in clarifying that § 623(f)(2) specifies affirmative defenses, Congress not only set the burden in so many words but also added the phrase “otherwise prohibited” as a part of the preface (just as in the text of § 623(f)(1)). Congress thus confirmed the natural implication that we find in the “otherwise prohibited” language in § 623(f)(1): it refers to an excuse or justification for behavior that, standing alone, violates the statute’s prohibition. The amendment in the aftermath of Betts shows that Congress understands the phrase the same way we naturally read it, as a clear signal that a defense to what is “otherwise prohibited” is an affirmative defense, entirely the responsibility of the party raising it.
B
Knolls ventures that, regardless, the RFOA provision should be read as mere elaboration on an element of liability. Because it bars liability where action is taken for reasons “other than age,” the argument goes, the provision must be directed not at justifying age discrimination by proof of some extenuating fact but at negating the premise of liability under § 623(a)(2), “because of... age.”
The answer to this argument, however, is City of Jackson, where we confirmed that the prohibition in § 623(a)(2) extends to practices with a disparate impact, inferring this result in part from the presence of the RFOA provision at issue here. We drew on the recognized distinction between disparate-treatment and disparate-impact forms of liability, and explained that “the very definition of disparate impact” was that “an employer who classifies his employees without respect to age may still be liable under the terms of this paragraph if such classification adversely affects the employee because of that employee’s age.” 544 U. S., at 236, n. 6 (plurality opinion); id., at 243 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (expressing agreement with “all of the Court’s reasoning” in the plurality opinion, but finding it a basis for deference to the EEOC rather than for independent judicial decision). We emphasized that these were the kinds of employer activities, “otherwise prohibited” by § 623(a)(2), that were mainly what the statute meant to test against the RFOA condition: because “[i]n disparate-impact cases... the allegedly ‘otherwise prohibited’ activity is not based on age,” it is “in cases involving disparate-impact claims that the RFOA provision plays its principal role by precluding liability if the adverse impact was attributable to a nonage factor that was ‘reasonable.’ ” Id., at 239 (plurality opinion).
Thus, in City of Jackson, we made it clear that in the typical disparate-impact case, the employer’s practice is “without respect to age” and its adverse impact (though “because of age”) is “attributable to a nonage factor”; so action based on a “factor other than age” is the very premise for disparate-impact liability in the first place, not a negation of it or a defense to it. The RFOA defense in a disparate-impact case, then, is not focused on the asserted fact that a non-age factor was at work; we assume it was. The focus of the defense is that the factor relied upon was a “reasonable” one for the employer to be using. Reasonableness is a justification categorically distinct from the factual condition “because of age” and not necessarily correlated with it in any particular way: a reasonable factor may lean more heavily on older workers, as against younger ones, and an unreasonable factor might do just the opposite.
III
The Court of Appeals majority rejected the affirmative defense reading and arrived at its position on the burden of proof question by a different route: because it read our decision in City of Jackson as ruling out the so-called “business necessity” enquiry in ADEA cases, the court concluded that the RFOA defense “replaces” it and therefore must conform to its burden of persuasion resting on the complaining party. But the court’s premise (that City of Jackson modified the “business necessity” enquiry) is mistaken; this alone would be reason enough to reject its approach. And although we are now satisfied that the business necessity test should have no place in ADEA disparate-impact cases, we agree with the Government that this conclusion does not stand in the way of our holding that the RFOA exemption is an affirmative defense. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25-27.
To begin with, when the Court of Appeals further inferred from the City of Jackson reference to Wards Cove that the Wards Cove burden of persuasion (on the employee, for the business necessity enquiry) also applied to the RFOA defense, it gave short shrift to the reasons set out in Part II-A, supra, for reading RFOA as an affirmative defense (with the burden on the employer). But we think that even on its own terms, City of Jackson falls short of supporting the Court of Appeals’s conclusion.
Although City of Jackson contains the statement that “ Wards Cove’s pre-1991 interpretation of Title VII’s identical language remains applicable to the ADEA,” 544 U. S., at 240, City of Jackson made only two specific references to aspects of the Wards Cove interpretation of Title VII that might have “remain[ed] applicable” in ADEA cases. One was to the existence of disparate-impact liability, which City of Jackson explained was narrower in ADEA cases than under Title VII. The other was to a plaintiff-employee’s burden of identifying which particular practices allegedly cause an observed disparate impact, which is the employee’s burden under both the ADEA and the pre-1991 Title VII. See 544 U. S., at 241. Neither of these references, of course, is at odds with the view of RFOA as an affirmative defense.
If, indeed, City of Jackson’s reference to Wards Cove could be read literally to include other aspects of the latter case, beyond what mattered in City of Jackson itself, the untoward consequences of the broader reading would rule it out. One such consequence is embraced by Meacham, who argues both that the Court of Appeals was wrong to place the burden of persuasion for the RFOA defense on the employee, and that the court was right in thinking that City of Jackson adopted the Wards Cove burden of persuasion on what Meacham views as one element of an ADEA impact claim. For Meacham takes the position that an impact plaintiff like himself has to negate business necessity in order to show that the employer’s actions were “otherwise prohibited”; only then does the RFOA (with the burden of persuasion on the employer) have a role to play. To apply both tests, however, would force the parties to develop (and the court or jury to follow) two overlapping enquiries: first, whether the employment practice at issue (based on a factor other than age) is supported by a business justification; and second, whether that factor is a reasonable one. Depending on how the first enquiry proceeds, a plaintiff might directly contest the force of the employer’s rationale, or else try to show that the employer invoked it as a pretext by pointing (for example) to alternative practices with less of a disparate impact. See Wards Cove, 490 U. S., at 658 (“first, a consideration of the justifications an employer offers for his use of these practices; and second, the availability of alternative practices to achieve the same business ends, with less racial impact”); see also id., at 658-661. But even if the plaintiff succeeded at one or the other, in Meacham’s scheme the employer could still avoid liability by proving reasonableness.
Here is what is so strange: as the Government says, “[i]f disparate-impact plaintiffs have already established that a challenged practice is a pretext for intentional age discrimination, it makes little sense then to ask whether the discriminatory practice is based on reasonable factors other than age.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 26 (emphasis in original). Conversely, proving the reasonableness defense would eliminate much of the point a plaintiff would have had for showing alternatives in the first place: why make the effort to show alternative practices with a less discriminatory effect (and besides, how would that prove pretext?), when everyone knows that the choice of a practice relying on a “reasonable” non-age factor is good enough to avoid liability? At the very least, developing the reasonableness defense would be substantially redundant with the direct contest over the force of the business justification, especially when both enquiries deal with the same, narrowly specified practice. It is not very fair to take the remark about Wards Cove in City of Jackson as requiring such a wasteful and confusing structure of proof.
Nor is there any good way to read the same line from City of Jackson as implying that the burden of proving any business-related defense falls on the plaintiff; most obviously, this would entail no longer taking the BFOQ clause to be an affirmative defense, which City of Jackson confirmed that it is, see 544 U. S., at 233, n. 3. What is more, City of Jackson could not have had the RFOA clause in mind as “identical” to anything in Title VII (for which a Wards Cove’s reading might be adopted), for that statute has no like-worded defense. And as Wards Cove did not purport to construe any statutory defenses under Title VII, only an over-reading of City of Jackson would find lurking in it an assumption that Wards Cove has anything to say about statutory defenses in the ADEA (never mind one that Title VII does not have).
IV
As mentioned, where City of Jackson did get help from our prior reading of Title VII was in relying on Wards Cove to repeat that a plaintiff falls short by merely alleging a disparate impact, or “pointing] to a generalized policy that leads to such an impact.” City of Jackson, 544 U. S., at 241. The plaintiff is obliged to do more: to “isolat[e] and identif[y] the specific employment practices that are allegedly responsible for any observed statistical disparities.” Ibid, (quoting Wards Cove, supra, at 656; emphasis in original; internal quotation marks omitted). The aim of this requirement, as City of Jackson said, is to avoid the “result [of] employers being potentially liable for ‘the myriad of innocent causes that may lead to statistical imbalances.’” 544 U. S., at 241 (quoting Wards Cove, supra, at 657; some internal quotation marks omitted). And as the outcome in that case shows, the requirement has bite: one sufficient reason for rejecting the employees’ challenge was that they “ha[d] done little more than point out that the pay plan at issue [was] relatively less generous to older workers than to younger workers,” and “ha[d] not identified any specific test, requirement, or practice within the pay plan that ha[d] an adverse impact on older workers.” City of Jackson, supra, at 241.
Identifying a specific practice is not a trivial burden, and it ought to allay some of the concern raised by Knolls’s amici, who fear that recognizing an employer’s burden of persuasion on an RFOA defense to impact claims will encourage strike suits or nudge plaintiffs with marginal cases into court, in turn inducing employers to alter business practices in order to avoid being sued. See, e. g., Brief for General Electric Co. as Amicus Curiae 18-31. It is also to the point that the only thing at stake in this case is the gap between production and persuasion; nobody is saying that even the burden of production should be placed on the plaintiff. Cf. Schaffer, 546 U. S., at 56 (burden of persuasion answers “which party loses if the evidence is closely balanced”); id., at 58 (“In truth, however, very few cases will be in evidentiary equipoise”). And the more plainly reasonable the employer’s “factor other than age” is, the shorter the step for that employer from producing evidence raising the defense, to persuading the factfinder that the defense is meritorious. It will be mainly in cases where the reasonableness of the nonage factor is obscure for some reason, that the employer will have more evidence to reveal and more convincing to do in going from production to persuasion.
That said, there is no denying that putting employers to the work of persuading factfinders that their choices are reasonable makes it harder and costlier to defend than if employers merely bore the burden of production; nor do we doubt that this will sometimes affect the way employers do business with their employees. But at the end of the day, amici’s concerns have to be directed at Congress, which set the balance where it is, by both creating the RFOA exemption and writing it in the orthodox format of an affirmative defense. We have to read it the way Congress wrote it.
* * *
As we have said before, Congress took account of the distinctive nature of age discrimination, and the need to preserve a fair degree of leeway for employment decisions with effects that correlate with age, when it put the RFOA clause into the ADEA, “significantly narrow[ing] its coverage.” City of Jackson, 544 U. S., at 233. And as the outcome for the employer in City of Jackson shows, “it is not surprising that certain employment criteria that are routinely used may be reasonable despite their adverse impact on older workers as a group.” Id., at 241. In this case, we realize that the Court of Appeals showed no hesitation in finding that Knolls prevailed on the RFOA defense, though the court expressed its conclusion in terms of Meacham’s failure to meet the burden of persuasion. Whether the outcome should be any different when the burden is properly placed on the employer is best left to that court in the first instance. 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 Breyer took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The naval reactors program had lowered Knolls’s staffing limit by 108 people; as Knolls also had to hire 35 new employees for work existing personnel could not do, a total of 143 jobs would have to go.
The “performance” score was based on the worker’s two most recent appraisals. The “flexibility” instruction read: “Rate the employee’s flexibility within the Laboratory. Can his or her documented skills be used in other assignments that will add value to current or future Lab work? Is the employee retrainable for other Lab assignments?” The “critical skills” instruction read: “How critical are the employee’s skills to continuing work in the Lab? Is the individual’s skill a key technical resource for the [naval reactors] program? Is the skill readily accessible within the Lab or generally available from the external market?” App. 94-95 (emphasis in original).
For comparison: after the voluntary buyouts, 1,203 out of 2,063 salaried workers (or 58%) were at least 40 years old; and of the 245 who were at risk of involuntary layoff, and therefore included in the rankings scheme, 179 (or 73%) were 40 or over. Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory, 185 F. Supp. 2d 193, 203 (NDNY 2002).
The expert cut the data in different ways, showing the chances to be 1 in 348,000 (based on a population of all 2,063 salaried workers); 1 in 1,260 (based on a population of the 245 workers at risk of layoff); or 1 in 6,639 (when the analysis was broken down by sections of the company). Meacham I, 381 F. 3d, at 64-65.
Taking the Wards Cove steps in turn, the Court of Appeals concluded that the “jury could have found that the degree of subjective decision making allowed in the [layoff procedure] created the disparity,” 381 F. 3d, at 74; that the employer had answered with evidence of a “facially legitimate business justification,” a need “to reduce its workforce while still retaining employees with skills critical to the performance of [Knolls’s] functions,” ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted); and that petitioners would prevail nonetheless because “[a]t least one suitable alternative is clear from the record,” that Knolls “could have designed [a procedure] with more safeguards against subjectivity, in particular, tests for criticality and flexibility that are less vulnerable to managerial bias,” id., at 75.
Distinguishing the two tests mattered, the Court of Appeals explained, because even though “[t]here may have been other reasonable ways for [Knolls] to achieve its goals (as we held in [Meacham I]),... the one selected was not unreasonable.” Meacham II, 461 F. 3d, at 146 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). The burden of persuasion for either test was said to fall on the plaintiff, however, because “the employer is not to bear the ultimate burden of persuasion with respect to the legitimacy of its business justification.” Id., at 142 (citing Wards Cove, 490 U. S., at 659-660; internal quotation marks omitted). The majority took note of the textual signs that the RFOA was an affirmative defense, but set them aside because “City of Jackson... emphasized that there are reasonable and permissible employment criteria that correlate with age,” thereby leaving it to plaintiffs to prove that a criterion is not reasonable. 461 F. 3d, at 142-143.
In Judge Pooler’s view, a jury “could permissibly find that defendants had not established a RFOA based on the unmonitored subjectivity of [Knolls’s] plan as implemented.” Id., at 153 (dissenting opinion).
Petitioners also sought certiorari as to “[wjhether respondents’ practice of conferring broad discretionary authority upon individual managers to decide which employees to lay off during a reduction in force constituted a'reasonable factor other than age’ as a matter of law.” Pet. for Cert. i. We denied certiorari on this question and express no views on it here.
We do not need to seek further relief from doubt by looking to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) regulations on burdens of proof in ADEA cases. The parties focus on two of them, but we think neither clearly answers the question here. One of them the Government has disavowed as overtaken by our decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, 544 U. S. 228 (2005), Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16, n. 1 (noting that 29 CFR § 1625.7(d) (2007) “takes a position that does not survive” City of Jackson), for the regulation seems to require a showing of business necessity as a part of the RFOA defense. Compare 29 CFR § 1625.7(d) (“When an employment practice, including a test, is claimed as a basis for different treatment... on the grounds that it is a ‘factor other than’ age, and such a practice has an adverse impact on individuals within the protected age group, it can only be justified as a business necessity”) with City of Jackson, supra, at 243 (“Unlike the business necessity test, which asks whether there are other ways for the employer to achieve its goals that do not result in a disparate impact on a protected class, the reasonableness inquiry includes no such requirement”). And the second regulation would take a bit of stretching to cover disparate-impact cases, for its text speaks in terms of disparate treatment. See 29 CFR § 1625.7(e) (concerning use of the RFOA defense against an “individual claim of discriminatory treatment”). The EEOC has lately proposed rulemaking that would revise both of these regulations, eliminating any reference to “business necessity” and placing the burden of proof on the employer “[w]henever the exception of ‘a reasonable factor other than age’ is raised.” 73 Fed. Reg. 16807-16809 (2008) (proposed 29 CFR § 1625.7(e)).
The provision read: “It shall not be unlawful for an employer... to observe the terms of... any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of this chapter... because of the age of such individual.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2) (1982 ed.).
Congress surely could not have meant this phrase to contradict its express allocation of the burden, in the same amendment. But that would be the upshot of Knolls’s suggestion that the only way to read the word “otherwise” as not redundant in the phrase “otherwise prohibited under subsections (a), (b), (c), or (e)” is to say that the word must refer only to § 623(f)(1) (2000 ed.) itself, implying that § 623(f)(1) must be a liability-creating provision for which the burden falls on the plaintiff. Brief for Respondents 33, and n. 7. Besides, this argument proves too much, for it implies that even the BFOQ exemption is not an affirmative defense.
In doing so, we expressly rejected the so-called “safe harbor” view of the RFOA provision. See City of Jackson, 544 U. S., at 238-239 (plurality opinion); id., at 252-253 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment) (describing “safe harbor” view).
The factual causation that § 623(a)(2) describes as practices that “deprive or tend to deprive... or otherwise adversely affect [employees]... because of... age” is typically shown by looking to data revealing the impact of a given practice on actual employees. See, e. g., City of Jackson, supra, at 241 (opinion of the Court); cf. Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U. S. 642, 657, 658-659 (1989) (under Title VII, “specific causation” is shown, and a “prima facie case” is “establish[ed],” when plaintiff identifies a specific employment practice linked to a statistical disparity); Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487 U. S. 977, 995 (1988) (plurality opinion) (in Title VII cases, “statistical disparities must be sufficiently substantial that they raise... an inference of causation”).
This enquiry would be muddled if the value, “reasonableness,” were to become a factor artificially boosting or discounting the factual strength of the causal link, or the extent of the measured impact. It would open the door to incoherent undershooting, for example, if defendants were heard to say that an impact is “somewhat less correlated with age, seeing as the factor is a reasonable one”; and it would be overshooting to make them show that the impact is “not correlated with age, and the factor is reasonable, besides.”
See
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 Blackmun
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and IV, and an opinion with respect to Part III .
The issue in this case is whether the Court of Appeals may continue to exercise jurisdiction in an in rem civil forfeiture proceeding after the res, then in the form of cash, is removed by the United States Marshal from the judicial district and deposited in the United States Treasury.
1 — I
In February 1988, the Government instituted an action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking forfeiture of a specified single-family residence in Coral Gables. The complaint alleged that Indalecio Iglesias was the true owner of the property; that he had purchased it with proceeds of narcotics trafficking; and that the property was subject to forfeiture to the United States pursuant to § 511(a)(6) of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, as amended, 92 Stat. 3777, 21 U. S. C. § 881(a)(6). A warrant for the arrest of the property was issued, and the United States Marshal seized it.
In response to the complaint, Thule Holding Corporation, a Panama corporation, filed a claim asserting that it was the owner of the res in question. Petitioner Republic National Bank of Miami (Bank) filed a claim asserting a lien interest of $800,000 in the property under a mortgage recorded in 1987. Thule subsequently withdrew its claim. At the request of the Government, petitioner Bank agreed to a sale of the property. With court approval, the residence was sold for $1,050,000. The sale proceeds were retained by the marshal pending disposition of the case. See App. 6, n. 2.
After a trial on the merits, the District Court entered judgment denying the Bank’s claim with prejudice and forfeiting the sale proceeds to the United States pursuant to § 881(a)(6). Id., at 25. The court found probable cause to believe that Iglesias had purchased the property and completed the construction of the residence thereon with drug profits. It went on to reject the Bank’s innocent-owner defense to forfeiture. United States v. One Single Family Residence Located at 6960 Miraflores Avenue, Coral Gables, Florida, 731 F. Supp. 1563 (SD Fla. 1990). Petitioner Bank filed a timely notice of appeal, but did not post a supersedeas bond or seek to stay the execution of the judgment.
Thereafter, at the request of the Government, the United States Marshal transferred the proceeds of the sale to the Assets Forfeiture Fund of the United States Treasury. The Government then moved to dismiss the appeal for want of jurisdiction. App. 4.
The Court of Appeals granted the motion. 932 F. 2d 1433 (CA11 1991). Relying on its 6-to-5 en banc decision in United States v. One Lear Jet Aircraft, Serial No. 35A-280, Registration No. YN-BVO, 836 F. 2d 1571, cert. denied, 487 U. S. 1204 (1988), the court held that the removal of the proceeds of the sale of the residence terminated the District Court’s in rem jurisdiction. 932 F. 2d, at 1435-1436. The court also rejected petitioner Bank’s argument that the District Court had personal jurisdiction because the Government had served petitioner with the complaint of forfeiture. Id., at 1436-1437. Finally, the court ruled that the Government was not estopped from contesting the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals because of its agreement that the United States Marshal would retain the sale proceeds pending order of the District Court. Id., at 1437.
In view of inconsistency and apparent uncertainty among the Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari. 502 U. S. 1090 (1992).
II
A civil forfeiture proceeding under §881 is an action in rem, “which shall conform as near as may be to proceedings in admiralty.” 28 U. S. C. § 2461(b). In arguing that the transfer of the res from the judicial district deprived the Court of Appeals of jurisdiction, the Government relies on what it describes as a settled admiralty principle: that jurisdiction over an in rem forfeiture proceeding depends upon continued control of the res. We, however, find no such established rule in our cases. Certainly, it long has been understood that a valid seizure of the res is a prerequisite to the initiation of an in rem civil forfeiture proceeding. United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U. S. 354, 363 (1984); Taylor v. Carryl, 20 How. 583, 599 (1858); 1 S. Friedell, Benedict on Admiralty §222, p. 14-39 (7th ed. 1992); H. Hawes, The Law Relating to the Subject of Jurisdiction of Courts § 92 (1886). See also Supplemental Rules for Certain Admiralty and Maritime Claims C(2) and C(3). The bulk of the Government’s cases stands merely for this unexceptionable proposition, which comports with the fact that, in admiralty, the “seizure of the res, and the publication of the monition or invitation to appear, is regarded as equivalent to the particular service of process in the courts of law and equity.” Taylor v. Carryl, 20 How., at 599.
To the extent that there actually is a discernible rule on the need for continued presence of the res, we find it expressed in cases such as The Rio Grande, 23 Wall. 458 (1875), and United States v. The Little Charles, 26 F. Cas. 979 (No. 15,612) (CC Va. 1818). In the latter case, Chief Justice Marshall, sitting as Circuit Justice, explained that “continuance of possession” was not necessary to maintain jurisdiction over an in rem forfeiture action, citing the “general principle, that jurisdiction, once vested, is not divested, although a state of things should arrive in which original jurisdiction could not be exercised.” Id., at 982. The Chief Justice noted that in some cases there might be an exception to the rule, where the release of the property would render the judgment “useless” because “the thing could neither be delivered to the libellants, nor restored to the claimants.” Ibid. He explained, however, that this exception “will not apply to any case where the judgment will have any effect whatever.” Ibid. Similarly, in The Rio Grande, this Court held that improper release of a ship by a marshal did not divest the Circuit Court of jurisdiction. “We do not understand the law to be that an actual and continuous possession of the res is required to sustain the jurisdiction of the court. When the vessel was seized by the order of the court and brought within its control the jurisdiction was complete.” 23 Wall., at 463. The Court there emphasized the impropriety of the ship’s release. The Government now suggests that the case merely announced an “injustice” exception to the requirement of continuous control. But the question is one of jurisdiction, and we do not see why the means of the res’ removal should make a difference.
Only once, in The Brig Ann, 9 Cranch 289, 290 (1815), has this Court found that events subsequent to the initial seizure destroyed jurisdiction in an in rent forfeiture action. In that case, a brig was seized in Long Island Sound and brought into the port of New Haven, where the collector took possession of it as forfeited to the United States. Several days later, the collector gave written orders for the release of the brig and its cargo from the seizure. Before the ship could leave, however, the District Court issued an information, and the brig and cargo were taken by the marshal into his possession. This Court held that, because the attachment was voluntarily released before the libel was filed and allowed, the District Court had no jurisdiction. Writing for the Court, Justice Story explained that judicial cognizance of a forfeiture in rem requires
“a good subsisting seizure at the time when the libel or information is filed and allowed. If a seizure be completely and explicitly abandoned, and the property restored by the voluntary act of the party who has made the seizure, all rights under it are gone. Although judicial jurisdiction once attached, it is divested by the subsequent proceedings; and it can be revived only by a new seizure. It is, in this respect, like a case of capture, which, although well made, gives no authority to the prize Court to proceed to adjudication, if it be voluntarily abandoned before judicial proceedings are instituted.” Id., at 291 (emphasis added).
Fairly read, The Brig Ann simply restates the rule that the court must have actual or constructive control of the res when an in rem forfeiture suit is initiated. If the seizing party abandons the attachment prior to filing an action, it, in effect, has renounced its claim. The result is “to purge away all the prior rights acquired by the seizure,” ibid., and, unless a new seizure is made, the case may not commence. The Brig Ann stands for nothing more than this.
The rule invoked by the Government thus does not exist, and we see no reason why it should. The fictions of in rem forfeiture were developed primarily to expand the reach of the courts and to furnish remedies for aggrieved parties, see Continental Grain Co. v. Barge FBL-585, 364 U. S. 19, 23 (1960); Harmony v. United States, 2 How. 210, 233 (1844), not to provide a prevailing party with a means of defeating its adversary’s claim for redress. Of course, if a “defendant ship stealthily absconds from port and leaves the plaintiff with no res from which to collect,” One Lear Jet, 836 F. 2d, at 1579 (Vance, J., dissenting), a court might determine that a judgment would be “useless.” Cf. The Little Charles, 26 F. Cas., at 982. So, too, if the plaintiff abandons a seizure, a court will not proceed to adjudicate the case. These exceptions, however, are closely related to the traditional, theoretical concerns of jurisdiction: enforceability of judgments and fairness of notice to parties. See 1 R. Casad, Jurisdiction in Civil Actions § 1.02, pp. 1-13 to 1-14 (2d ed. 1991); cf. Miller v. United States, 11 Wall. 268, 294-295 (1871) (“Confessedly the object of the writ was to bring the property under the control of the court and keep it there, as well as to give notice to the world. These objects would have been fully accomplished if its direction had been nothing more than to hold the property subject to the order of the court, and to give notice”). Neither interest depends absolutely upon the continuous presence of the res in the district.
Stasis is not a general prerequisite to the maintenance of jurisdiction. Jurisdiction over the person survives a change in circumstances, Leman v. Krentler-Arnold Hinge Last Co., 284 U. S. 448, 454 (1932) (“[Ajfter a final decree a party cannot defeat the jurisdiction of the appellate tribunal by removing from the jurisdiction, as the proceedings on appeal are part of the cause,” citing Nations v. Johnson, 24 How. 195 (1861)), as does jurisdiction over the subject matter, Louisville, N. A. & C. R. Co. v. Louisville Trust Co., 174 U. S. 652, 566 (1899) (midsuit change in the citizenship of a party does not destroy diversity jurisdiction); St. Paul Mercury Indemnity Co. v. Red Cab Co., 303 U. S. 283, 289-290 (1938) (jurisdiction survives reduction of amount in controversy). Nothing in the nature of in rem jurisdiction suggests a reason to treat it differently.
If the conjured rule were genuine, we would have to decide whether it had outlived its usefulness, and whether, in any event, it could ever be used by a plaintiff — the instigator of the in rem action — to contest the appellate court’s jurisdiction. The rule’s illusory nature obviates the need for such inquiries, however, and a lack of justification undermines any argument for its creation. We agree with the late Judge Vance’s remark in One Lear Jet, 836 F. 2d, at 1577: “Although in some circumstances the law may require courts to depart from what seems to be fairness and common sense, such a departure in this case is unjustified and unsupported by the law of forfeiture and admiralty.” We have no cause to override common sense and fairness here. We hold that, in an in rem forfeiture action, the Court of Appeals is not divested of jurisdiction by the prevailing party’s transfer of the res from the district.
hH HH HH
The Government contends, however, that this res no longer can be reached, because, having been deposited in the United States Treasury, it may be released only by congressional appropriation. If so, the case is moot, or, viewed another way, it falls into the “useless judgment” exception noted above, to appellate in rent jurisdiction.
The Appropriations Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, § 9, cl. 7, provides: “No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” In Knote v. United States, 95 U. S. 149 (1877), this Court held that the President could not order the Treasury to repay the proceeds from the sale of property forfeited by a convicted traitor who had been pardoned. But the Government — implicitly in its brief and explicitly at oral argument, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 37-39 — now goes further, maintaining that, absent an appropriation, any funds that find their way into a Treasury account must remain there, regardless of their origin or ownership. Such a rule would lead to seemingly bizarre results. The Ninth Circuit recently observed: “If, for example, an agent of the United States had scooped up the cash in dispute and, without waiting for a judicial order, had run to the nearest outpost of the Treasury and deposited the money ... it would be absurd to say that only an act of Congress could restore the purloined cash to the court.” United States v. Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00) in United States Currency, 860 F. 2d 1511, 1514 (1988). Yet that absurdity appears to be the logical consequence of the Government’s position.
Perhaps it is not so absurd. In some instances where a private party pays money to a federal agency and is later deemed entitled to a refund, an appropriation has been assumed to be necessary to obtain the money. See 55 Comp. Gen. 625 (1976); United States General Accounting Office, Principles of Federal Appropriations Law 5-80 to 5-81 (1982). Congress, therefore, has passed a permanent indefinite appropriation for “ ‘Refund of Moneys Erroneously Received and Covered’ and other collections erroneously deposited that are not properly chargeable to another appropriation.” 31 U. S. C. § 1322(b)(2). This appropriation has been interpreted to authorize, for example, the refund of charges assessed to investment advisers by the Securities and Exchange Commission and deposited in the Treasury, after those charges were held to be erroneous in light of decisions of this Court. See 55 Comp. Gen. 243 (1975); see also National Presto Industries, Inc. v. United States, 219 Ct. Cl. 626, 630 (1979) (suggesting that prior version of § 1322(b)(2) authorized refund of sum deposited in Treasury during litigation). Section 1322(b)(2) arguably applies here.
Petitioner offers a different suggestion. It identifies 28 U. S. C. § 2465 as an appropriation. That statute states: “Upon the entry of judgment for the claimant in any proceeding to condemn or forfeit property seized under any Act of Congress, such property shall be returned forthwith to the claimant or his agent.” That is hardly standard language of appropriation. Cf. 31 U. S. C. § 1301(d). Yet I have difficulty imagining how an “appropriation” of funds determined on appeal not to belong to the United States could ever be more specific.
In part for that reason, however, I believe that a formal appropriation is not required in these circumstances. The Appropriations Clause governs only the disposition of money that belongs to the United States. The Clause “assurefs] that public funds will be spent according to the letter of the difficult judgments reached by Congress.” Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, 496 U. S. 414, 428 (1990) (emphasis added); see also Stith, Congress’ Power of the Purse, 97 Yale L. J. 1343, 1358, and n. 67 (1988) (Clause encompasses only funds that belong to the United States); 2 Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1348 (3d ed. 1858) (object of the Clause “is to secure regularity, punctuality, and fidelity, in the disbursements of the public money” (emphasis added)). I do not believe that funds held in the Treasury during the course of an ongoing in rem forfeiture proceeding — the purpose of which, after all, is to determine the ownership of the res, see, e. g., The Propeller Commerce, 1 Black 574, 580-581 (1862); The Maggie Hammond, 9 Wall. 435, 456 (1870); Jennings v. Carson, 4 Cranch 2, 23 (1807) — can properly be considered public money. The Court in Tyler v. Defrees, 11 Wall. 331, 349 (1871), explained that once a valid seizure of forfeitable property has occurred and the court has notice of the fact, “[n]o change of the title or possession [can] be made, pending the judicial proceedings, which would defeat the final decree.”
Contrary to the Government’s broad submission here, the Comptroller General long has assumed that, in certain situations, an erroneous deposit of funds into a Treasury account can be corrected without a specific appropriation. See 53 Comp. Gen. 580 (1974); 45 Comp. Gen. 724 (1966); 3 Comp. Gen. 762 (1924); 12 Comp. Dec. 733, 735 (1906); Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, at 5-79 to 5-81. Most of these cases have arisen where money intended for one account was accidentally deposited in another. It would be unrealistic, for example, to require congressional authorization before a data processor who misplaces a decimal point can “undo” an inaccurate transfer of Treasury funds. The Government’s absolutist view of the scope of the Appropriations Clause is inconsistent with these commonsense understandings.
I would hold that the Constitution does not forbid the return without an appropriation of funds held in the Treasury during the course of an in rem forfeiture proceeding to the party determined to be their owner. Because the funds therefore could be disgorged if petitioner is adjudged to be their rightful owner, a judgment in petitioner’s favor would not be “useless.”
IV
In a civil forfeiture proceeding, where the Government has the power to confiscate private property on a showing of mere probable cause, the right to appeal is a crucial safeguard against abuse. No settled rule requires continuous control of the res for appellate jurisdiction in an in rem forfeiture proceeding. Nor does the Appropriations Clause place the money out of reach. Accordingly, we hold that the Court of Appeals did not lose jurisdiction when the funds were transferred from the Southern District of Florida to the Assets Forfeiture Fund of the United States Treasury. 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 Stevens- and Justice O’Connor join this opinion in its entirety.
Title 21 U. S. C. §881(a) reads in pertinent part:
“The following shall be subject to forfeiture to the United States and no property right shall exist in them:
“(6) All moneys, negotiable instruments, securities, or other things of value furnished or intended to be furnished by any person in exchange for a controlled substance in violation of this subchapter, all proceeds traceable to such an exchange, and all moneys, negotiable instruments, and securities used or intended to be used to facilitate any violation of this subchapter, except that no property shall be forfeited under this paragraph, to the extent of the interest of an owner, by reason of any act or omission established by that owner to have been committed or omitted without the knowledge or consent of that owner.”
The Government also had argued that the “relation-back” doctrine precluded the Bank from raising an innocent-owner defense. See 731 F. Supp., at 1567. That issue is pending before this Court in No. 91-781, United States v. A Parcel of Land, Rumson, N. J, argued October 13, 1992.
Compare United States v. One Lot of $25,721.00 in Currency, 938 F. 2d 1417 (CA1 1991); United States v. Aiello, 912 F. 2d 4 (CA2 1990), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 1048 (1991); United States v. $95,94-5.18, United States Currency, 913 F. 2d 1106 (CA4 1990), with United States v. Cadillac Sedan Deville, 1988, 933 F. 2d 1010 (CA6 1991) (appeal dism’d); United States v. Tit’s Cocktail Lounge, 873 F. 2d 141 (CA7 1989); United States v. $29,959.00 U S. Currency, 931 F. 2d 549 (CA9 1991); and the Court of Appeals’ opinion in the present case. Compare also United States v. $57,480.05 United States Currency and Other Coins, 722 F. 2d 1467 (CA9 1984), with United States v. Aiello, 912 F. 2d, at 7, and United States v. $95,945.18, United States Currency, 913 F. 2d, at 1110, n. 4.
See also The Bolina, 3 F. Cas. 811, 813-814 (No. 1,608) (CC Mass. 1812) (Story, J., as Circuit Justice) (“[0]nce a vessel is libelled, then she is considered as in the custody of the law, and at the disposal of the court, and monitions may be issued to persons having the actual custody, to obey the injunctions of the court.... The district court of the United States derives its jurisdiction, not from any supposed possession of its officers, but from the act and place of seizure for the forfeiture. . . . And when once it has acquired a regular jurisdiction, I do not perceive how any subsequent irregularity would avoid it. It may render the ultimate decree ineffectual in certain events, but the regular results of the adjudication must remain”); 1 J. Wells, A Treatise on the Jurisdiction of Courts 276 (1880) (An actual or constructive seizure provides jurisdiction in an admiralty forfeiture action. "And, having once acquired regular jurisdiction, no subsequent irregularity can defeat it; or accident, as, for example, an accidental fire”).
We note that on October 28, 1992, the President signed the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, 106 Stat. 3672. Section 1521 of that Act (part of Title XV, entitled the Annunzio-Wylie Anti-Money Laundering Act) significantly amended 28 U. S. C. § 1356 to provide, among other things:
“In any case in which a final order disposing of property in a civil forfeiture action or proceeding is appealed, removal of the property by the prevailing party shall not deprive the court of jurisdiction. • Upon motion of the appealing party, the district court or the court of appeals shall issue any order necessary to preserve the right of the appealing party to the full value of the property at issue, including a stay of the judgment of the district court pending appeal or requiring the prevailing party to post an appeal bond.” 106 Stat. 4062-4063.
Needless to say, we do not now interpret that statute or determine the issue of its retroactive application to the present case.
The Chief Justice, writing for the Court on this question, post, p. 93, would find an appropriation in the judgment fund, 31 U. S. C. § 1304. While plausible, his analysis is nevertheless problematic. The judgment fund is understood to apply to money judgments only. See, e. g., 58 Comp. Gen. 311 (1979). A final judgment in petitioner’s favor, however, would be in the nature of a financial “acquittal” — a simple ruling that the res is not forfeitable. Unless we were to require the bank to sue on its judgment of nonforfeitability for return of a sum equivalent to the retained res, The Chief Justice’s approach would seem to open the judgment fund to payment on nonmoney judgments. Moreover, as The Chief Justice acknowledges, see post, at 96, “the property subject to forfeiture in this case has been converted to proceeds now resting in the Assets Forfeiture Fund of the Treasury.” Title 28 U. S. C. §2465 can “be construed as authorizing the return of proceeds in such a case.” Post, at 96. But a payment from the judgment fund would not achieve that purpose. The res is not in the judgment fund. A payment from that account, while no doubt entirely acceptable to petitioner, would not be a return of the forfeited property, and at the end of the episode (although I have no doubt that the Comptroller would manage to balance the books) the Assets Forfeiture Fund would be some $800,000 richer, and the judgment fund correspondingly diminished.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether petitioner, Rudolph Schware, has been denied a license to practice law in New Mexico in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
New Mexico has a system for the licensing of persons to practice law similar to that in effect in most States. A Board of Bar Examiners determines if candidates for admission to the bar have the necessary qualifications. When the Board concludes that an applicant qualifies it recommends to the State Supreme Court that he be admitted. If the court accepts the recommendation, the applicant is entitled to practice law upon taking an oath to support the constitutions and laws of the United States and New Mexico. An applicant must pass a bar examination before the Board will give him its recommendation. The Board can refuse to permit him to take this examination unless he demonstrates that he has “good moral character.”
In December 1953, on the eve of his graduation from the University of New Mexico School of Law, Schware filed an application with the Board of Bar Examiners requesting that he be permitted to take the bar examination scheduled for February 1954. His application was submitted on a form prescribed by the Board that required answers to a large number of questions. From the record, it appears that he answered these questions in detail. Among other things, he disclosed that he had used certain aliases between 1933 and 1937 and that he had been arrested on several occasions prior to 1940. When he appeared to take the examination, the Board informed him that he could not do so. He later requested a formal hearing on the denial of his application. The Board granted his request. At the hearing the Board told him for the first time why it had refused to permit him to take the bar examination. It gave him a copy of the minutes of the meeting at which it had voted to deny his application. These minutes read:
“No. 1309, Rudolph Schware. It is moved by Board Member Frank Andrews that the application of Rudolph Schware to take the bar examination be denied for the reason that, taking into consideration the use of aliases by the applicant, his former connection with subversive organizations, and his record of arrests, he has failed to satisfy the Board as to the requisite moral character for admission to the Bar of New /Mexico. Whereupon said motion is duly-seconded- by Board Member Ross L. Malone, and unanimously passed.”
At the hearing petitioner called his wife, the rabbi of his synagogue, a local attorney and the secretary to the dean of the law school to testify about his character. He took the stand himself and was thoroughly examined under oath by the Board. His counsel introduced a series of letters that petitioner had written his wife from 1944 through 1946 while he was on duty in the Army. Letters were also introduced from every member of petitioner’s law school graduating class except one who did not comment. And all of his law school professors who were then available wrote in regard to his moral character. The Board called no witnesses and introduced no evidence.
The record of the formal hearing shows the following facts relevant to Schware’s moral character. He was born in a poor section of New York City in 1914 and grew up in a neighborhood inhabited primarily by recent immigrants. His father was an immigrant and like many of his neighbors had a difficult time providing for his family. Schware took a job when he was nine years old and throughout the remainder of school worked to help provide necessary income for his family. After 1929, the economic condition of the Schware family and their neighbors, as well as millions of others, was greatly worsened. Schware was then at a formative stage in high school. He was interested in and enthusiastic for socialism and trade-unionism as was his father. In 1932, despairing at what he considered lack of vigor in the socialist movement at a time when the country was in the depths of the great depression, he joined the Young Communist League. At this time he was 18 years old and in the final year of high school.
From the time he left school until 1940 Schware, like many others, was periodically unemployed. He worked at a great variety of temporary and ill-paying jobs. In 1933, he found work in a glove factory and there he participated in a successful effort to unionize the employees. Since these workers were principally Italian, Schware assumed the name Rudolph Di Caprio to forestall the effects of anti-Jewish prejudice against him, not only in securing and retaining a job but in assisting in the organization of his fellow employees. In 1934 he went to California where he secured work on the docks. He testified that he continued to use the name Rudolph Di Caprio because Jews were discriminated against in employment for this work. Wherever Schware was employed he was an active advocate of labor organization. In 1934 he took part in the great maritime strikes on the west coast which were bitterly fought on both sides. While on strike in San Pedro, California, he was arrested twice on “suspicion of criminal syndicalism.” He was never formally charged nor tried and was released in each instance after being held for a brief period. He testified that the San Pedro police in a series of mass arrests jailed large numbers of the strikers.
At the time of his father’s death in 1937 Schware left the Communist Party but later he rejoined. In 1940 he was arrested and indicted for violating the Neutrality Act of 1917. He was charged with attempting to induce men to volunteer for duty on the side of the Loyalist Government in the Spanish Civil War. Before his case came to trial the charges were dismissed and he was released. Later in 1940 he quit the Communist Party. The Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 had greatly disillusioned him and this disillusionment was made complete as he came to believe that certain leaders in the Party were acting to advance their own selfish interests rather than the interests of the working class which they purported to represent.
In 1944 Schware entered the armed forces of the United States. While in the service he volunteered for duty as a paratrooper and was sent to New Guinea. While serving in the Army here and abroad he wrote a number of letters to his wife. These letters show a desire to serve his country and demonstrate faith in a free democratic society. They reveal serious thoughts about religion which later led him and his wife to associate themselves with a synagogue when he returned to civilian life. He was honorably discharged from the Army in 1946.
After finishing college, he entered the University of New Mexico law school in 1950. At the beginning he went to the dean and told him of his past activities and his association with the Communist Party during the depression and asked for advice. The dean told him to remain in school and put behind him what had happened years before. While studying law Schware operated a business in order to support his wife and two children and to pay the expenses of a professional education. During his three years at the law school his conduct was exemplary.
At the conclusion of the hearing the Board reaffirmed its decision denying Schware the right to take the bar examination. He appealed to the New Mexico Supreme Court. That court upheld the denial with one justice dissenting. 60 N. M. 304, 291 P. 2d 607. In denying a motion for rehearing the court stated that:
“[Schware’s membership in the Communist Party], together with his other former actions in the use of aliases and record of arrests, and his present attitude toward those matters, were the considerations upon which [we approved the denial of his application].”
Schware then petitioned this Court to review his case alleging that he had been denied an opportunity to qualify for the practice of law contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We granted certiorari. 352 U. S. 821. Cf. In re Summers, 325 U. S. 561, 562, 564-569. And see Konigsberg v. State Bar of California, post, p. 252, decided this day.
A State cannot exclude a person from the practice of law or from any other occupation in a manner or for reasons that contravene the Due Process or Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dent v. West Virginia, 129 U. S. 114. Cf. Slochower v. Board of Education, 350 U. S. 551; Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183. And see Ex parte Secombe, 19 How. 9, 13. A State can require high standards of qualification, such as good moral character or proficiency in its law, before it admits an applicant to the bar, but any qualification must have a rational connection with the applicant’s fitness or capacity to practice law. Douglas v. Noble, 261 U. S. 165; Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, 319-320. Cf. Nebbia v. New York, 291 U. S. 502. Obviously an applicant could not be excluded merely because he was a Republican or a Negro or a member of a particular church. Even in applying permissible standards, officers of a State cannot exclude an applicant when there is no basis for their finding that he fails to meet these standards, or when their action is invidiously discriminatory. Cf. Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U. S. 356.
Here the State concedes that Schware is fully qualified to take the examination in all respects other than good moral character. Therefore the question is whether the Supreme Court of New Mexico on the record before us could reasonably find that he had not shown good moral character.
There is nothing in the record which suggests that Schware has engaged in any conduct during the past 15 years which reflects adversely on his character. The New Mexico Supreme Court recognized that he “presently enjoys good repute among his teachers, his fellow students and associates and in his synagogue.” Schware’s professors, his fellow students, his business associates and the rabbi of the synagogue of which he and his family are members, all gave testimony that he is a good man, a man who is imbued with a sense of deep responsibility for his family, who is trustworthy, who respects the rights and beliefs of others. From the record it appears he is a man of religious conviction and is training his children in the beliefs and practices of his faith. A solicitude for others is demonstrated by the fact that he regularly read the Bible to an illiterate soldier while in the Army and law to a blind student while at the University of New Mexico law school. His industry is depicted by the fact that he supported his wife and two children and paid for a costly professional education by operating a business separately while studying law. He demonstrated candor by informing the Board of his personal history and by going to the dean of the law school and disclosing his past. The undisputed evidence in the record shows Schware to be a man of high ideals with a deep sense of social justice. Not a single witness testified that he was not a man of good character.
Despite Schware’s showing of good character, the Board and court below thought there were certain facts in the record which raised substantial doubts about his moral fitness to practice law.
(1) Aliases. — From 1934 to 1937 Schware used certain aliases. He testified that these aliases were adopted so he could secure a job in businesses which discriminated against Jews in their employment practices and so that he could more effectively organize non-Jewish employees at plants where he worked. Of course it is wrong to use an alias when it is done to cheat or defraud another but it can hardly be said that Schware’s attempt to forestall anti-Semitism in securing employment or organizing his fellow workers was wrong. He did give an assumed name to police in 1934 when he was picked up in a mass arrest during a labor dispute. He said he did this so he would not be fired as a striker. This is certainly not enough evidence to support an inference that petitioner has bad moral character more than 20 years later.
(2) Arrests. — In response to the questions on the Board’s application form Schware stated that he had been arrested on several occasions:
1. In 1934, while he was participating in a bitter labor dispute in the California shipyards, petitioner was arrested at least two times on “suspicion of criminal syndicalism.” After being held for a brief period he was released without formal charges being filed against him. He was never indicted nor convicted for any offense in connection with these arrests.
The mere fact that a man has been arrested has very little, if any, probative value in showing that he has engaged in any misconduct. An arrest shows nothing more than that someone probably suspected the person apprehended of an offense. When formal charges are not filed against the arrested person and he is released without trial, whatever probative force the arrest may have had is normally dissipated. Moreover here, the special facts surrounding the 1934 arrests are relevant in shedding light on their present significance. Apparently great numbers of strikers were picked up by police in a series of arrests during the strike at San Pedro and many of these were charged with “criminal syndicalism.” The California syndicalism statutes in effect in 1934 were very broad and vague. There is nothing in the record which indicates why Schware was arrested on “suspicion” that he had violated this statute. There is no suggestion that he was using force or violence in an attempt to overthrow the state or national government. Again it should be emphasized that these arrests were made more than 20 years ago and petitioner was never formally charged nor tried for any offense related to them.
2. In 1940 Schware was arrested for violating the Neutrality Act of 1917 which makes it unlawful for a person within the United States to join or to hire or retain another to join the army of any foreign state. He was indicted but before the case came to trial the prosecution dropped the charges. He had been charged with recruiting persons to go overseas to aid the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War. Schware testified that he was unaware of this old law at the time. From the facts in the record it is not clear that he was guilty of its violation. But even if it be assumed that the law was violated, it does not seem that such an offense indicated moral turpitude — even in 1940. Many persons in this country actively supported the Spanish Loyalist Government. During the prelude to World War II many idealistic young men volunteered to help causes they believed right. It is commonly known that a number of Americans joined air squadrons and helped defend China and Great Britain prior to this country’s entry into the war. There is no record that any of these volunteers were prosecuted under the Neutrality Act. Few Americans would have regarded their conduct as evidence of moral turpitude. In determining whether a person’s character is good the nature of the offense which he has committed must be taken into account.
In summary, these arrests are wholly insufficient to support a finding that Schware had bad moral character at the time he applied to take the bar examination. They all occurred many years ago and in no case was he ever tried or convicted for the offense for which he was arrested.
(3) Membership in the Communist Party. — Schware admitted that he was a member of the Communist Party from 1932 to 1940. Apparently the Supreme Court of New Mexico placed heavy emphasis on this past membership in denying his application. It stated:
“We believe ope who has knowingly given his loyalties to [the Communist Party] for six to seven years during a period of responsible adulthood is a person of questionable character.” 60 N. M., at 319, 291 P. 2d, at 617.
The court assumed that in the 1930’s when petitioner was a member of the Communist Party, it was dominated by a foreign power and was dedicated to the violent overthrow of the Government and that every member was aware of this. It based this assumption primarily on a view of the nature and purposes of the Communist Party as of 1950 expressed in a concurring opinion in American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 422. However that view did not purport to be a factual finding in that case and obviously it cannot be used as a substitute for evidence in this case to show that petitioner participated in any illegal activity or did anything morally reprehensible as a member of that Party. During the period when Schware was a member, the Communist Party was a lawful political party with candidates on the ballot in most States. There is nothing in the record that gives any indication that his association with that Party was anything more than a political faith in a political party. That faith may have been unorthodox. But as counsel for New Mexico said in his brief, “Mere unorthodoxy [in the field of political and social ideas] does not as a matter of fair and logical inference, negative ‘good moral character.’ ”
Schware joined the Communist Party when he was a young man during the midst of this country’s greatest depression. Apparently many thousands of other Americans joined him in this step. During the depression when millions were unemployed and our economic system was paralyzed many turned to the Communist Party out of desperation or hope. It proposed a radical solution to the grave economic crisis. Later the rise of fascism as a menace to democracy spurred others who feared this form of tyranny to align with the Communist Party. After 1935, that Party advocated a “Popular Front” of “all democratic parties against fascism.” Its platform and slogans stressed full employment, racial equality and various other political and economic changes.
During the depression Schware was led to believe that drastic changes needed to be made in the existing economic system. There is nothing in the record, however, which indicates that he ever engaged in any actions to overthrow the Government of the United States or of any State by force or violence, or that he even advocated such actions. Assuming that some members of the Communist Party during the period from 1932 to 1940 had illegal aims and engaged in illegal activities, it cannot automatically be inferred that all members shared their evil purposes or participated in their illegal conduct. As this Court declared in Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183, 191: “Indiscriminate classification of innocent with knowing activity must fall as an assertion of arbitrary power.” Cf. Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 136. And finally, there is no suggestion that Schware was affiliated with the Communist Party after 1940 — more than 15 years ago. We conclude that his past membership in the Communist Party does not justify an inference that he presently has bad moral character.
The State contends that even though the use of aliases, the arrests, and the membership in the Communist Party would not justify exclusion of petitioner from the New Mexico bar if each stood alone, when all three are combined his exclusion was not unwarranted. We cannot accept this contention. In the light of petitioner’s forceful showing of good moral character, the evidence upon which the State relies — the arrests for offenses for which petitioner was neither tried nor convicted, the use of an assumed name many years ago, and membership in the Communist Party during the 1930’s — cannot be said to raise substantial doubts about his present good moral character. There is no evidence in the record which rationally justifies a finding that Schware was morally unfit to practice law.
On the record before us we hold that the State of New Mexico deprived petitioner of due process in denying him the opportunity to qualify for the practice of law. The judgment below is reversed and the case remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Whittaker took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Generally, see N. M. Stat. Ann., 1953, § 18-1-8 and the Rules Governing Admission to the Bar appended thereto.
Apparently the Board had received confidential information that Schware had once been a member of the Communist Party. The Board’s application form did not request disclosure of such information and so Schware did not mention it in his application. At the hearing he testified at length about his membership. The Board refused to let petitioner see the confidential information against him, although it appears that its initial denial of his application was partially based on this information. While this secret evidence was- not made a part of the record of the hearing, counsel for petitioner contends that the Board was influenced by it in adhering to its view that petitioner was not qualified. In the New Mexico Supreme Court the members of the majority did not look at the confidential information. And while that court passed on petitioner’s qualifications in the exercise of its original jurisdiction, the majority placed considerable reliance on the Board’s recommendations. Therefore, petitioner contends, the Board’s use of confidential information deprived him of procedural due process. Cf. Goldsmith v. United States Bd. of Tax Appeals, 270 U. S. 117; Bratton v. Chandler, 260 U. S. 110; Minkoff v. Payne, 93 U. S. App. D. C. 123, 210 F. 2d 689, 691; In re Carter, 89 U. S. App. D. C. 310, 192 F. 2d 15, cert. denied, 342 U. S. 862. We find it unnecessary to consider this contention.
The dean was on sabbatical leave and not available.
At times during 1932 more than 12,060,000 of the nation’s 51,000,000 working persons were unemployed. Statistical Abstract of the United States (1956) 197.
We need not enter into a discussion whether the practice of law is a “right” or “privilege.” Regardless of how the State’s grant of permission to engage in this occupation is characterized, it is sufficient to say that a person cannot be prevented from practicing except for valid reasons. Certainly the practice of law is not a matter of the State’s grace. Ex parte Garland, 4 Wall. 333, 379.
Arrest, by itself, is not considered competent evidence at either a criminal or civil trial to prove that a person did certain prohibited acts. Cf. Wigmore, Evidence, § 980a.
Petitioner testified that during a two-month period about 2,000 persons were arrested in connection with the strike. Generally, for criticism of these arrests and the conduct of the police during these and related strikes see S. Rep. No. 1150, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 35, 131, 133-141.
“The term ‘criminal syndicalism’ as used in this act is hereby defined as any doctrine or precept advocating, teaching or aiding and abetting the commission of crime, sabotage (which word is hereby defined as meaning wilful and malicious physical damage or injury to physical property), or unlawful acts of force and violence or unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of accomplishing a change in industrial ownership or control, or effecting any political change.” Cal. Stat. 1919, c. 188, § 1. See also De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U. S. 353, where application of a similar statute was held unconstitutional.
40 Stat. 39, now 18 U. S. C. § 959 (a).
See Kiker, J. (dissenting), 60 N. M. 304, 321, 291 P. 2d 607, 618.
For example, New Mexico makes conviction of a felony or a misdemeanor grounds for disbarment only if it involves moral turpitude. N. M. Stat. Ann., 1953, § 18-1-17 (1). Compare In re Burch, 73 Ohio App. 97, 54 N. E. 2d 803, where, in a disbarment proceeding, conviction for violation of a federal statute for failing to register as an agent of the German Government in 1941 was held not to evidence moral turpitude.
In 1941 Schware was arrested by police in Texas while driving a friend’s ear to the west coast. Apparently the police suspected the car was stolen. After a brief delay they became convinced that the car was rightfully in petitioner’s possession and he was allowed to go on his way. This detention offers no proof of bad moral character and the State does not rely on it here.
Petitioner argues that a State constitutionally cannot consider his membership in a lawful political party in determining whether he is qualified for admission to the bar. He contends that a denial based on such membership abridges the right of free political assoeiation guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. Because of our disposition of this case, we find it unnecessary to pass on this contention.
For example in 1936 its presidential nominee was on the ballot in 35 States, including New Mexico. Statistical Abstract of the United States (1937) 159.
In West Virginia State Board v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 642, this Court declared:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
According to figures of the Communist Party it had 14,000 members in 1932, 26,000 in 1934, 41,000 in 1936. W. Z. Foster, From Bryan to Stalin (1937), 303. It has been estimated that more than 700,000 persons in this country have been members of the Communist Party at one time or another between 1919 and 1951. Ernst and Loth, Report on The American Communist (1952), 14.
For the numerous and varied reasons why individuals have joined the Communist Party, see Taylor, Grand Inquest (1955), 155-159; Ernst and Loth, Report ..on The American Communist (1952); Almond, The Appeals of Communism (1954); Crossman, The God That Failed (1949); Department of Defense, Know Your Communist Enemy: Who Are Communists and Why?, DOD PAM 4-6, Dec. 8, 1955. Many of these reasons are not indicative of bad moral character.
See Moore, The Communist Party of the U. S. A.; An Analysis of a Social Movement, 39 Am. Pol. Sei. Rev. 31, 32-33.
And see Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 136, where this Court stated:
. . under our traditions beliefs are personal and not a matter of mere association, and that men in adhering to a political party or other organization notoriously do not subscribe unqualifiedly to all of its platforms or asserted principles.”
It must be borne in mind that if petitioner otherwise qualifies for the practice of law and is admitted to the bar, the State has ample means to discipline him for any future misconduct. N. M. Stat. Ann., 1953, §§ 18-1-15 to 18-1-18.
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.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Teachers sometimes ask students to score each other’s tests, papers, and assignments as the teacher explains the correct answers to the entire class. Respondent contends this practice, which the parties refer to as peer grading, violates the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA or Act), 88 Stat. 571, 20 U. S. C. § 1232g. We took this case to resolve the issue.
h — I
Under FERPA, schools and educational agencies receiving federal financial assistance must comply with certain conditions. § 1232g(a)(3). One condition specified in the Act is that sensitive information about students may not be released without parental consent. The Act states that federal funds are to be withheld from school districts that have “a policy or practice of permitting the release of education records (or personally identifiable information contained therein ...) of students without the written consent of their parents.” § 1232g(b)(l). The phrase “education records” is defined, under the Act, as “records, files, documents, and other materials” containing information directly related to a student, which “are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.” § 1232g(a)(4)(A). The definition of education records contains an exception for “records of instructional, supervisory, and administrative personnel. .. which are in the sole possession of the maker thereof and which are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a substitute.” § 1232g(a)(4)(B)(i). The precise question for us is whether peer-graded classroom work and assignments are education records.
Three of respondent Kristja J. Falvo’s children are enrolled in Owasso Independent School District No. I — Oil, in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The children’s teachers, like many teachers in this country, use peer grading. In a typical case the students exchange papers with each other and score them according to the teacher’s instructions, then return the work to the student who prepared it. The teacher may ask the students to report their own scores. In this case it appears the student could either call out the score or walk to the teacher’s desk and reveal it in confidence, though by that stage, of course, the score was known at least to the one other student who did the grading. Both the grading and the system of calling out the scores are in contention here.
Respondent claimed the peer grading embarrassed her children. She asked the school district to adopt a uniform policy banning peer grading and requiring teachers either to grade assignments themselves or at least to forbid students from grading papers other than their own. The school district declined to do so, and respondent brought a class action pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1994 ed., Supp. V), against the school district, Superintendent Dale Johnson, Assistant Superintendent Lynn Johnson, and Principal Rick Thomas (petitioners). Respondent alleged the school district’s grading policy violated FERPA and other laws not relevant here. The United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma granted summary judgment in favor of the school district’s position. The court held that grades put on papers by another student are not, at that stage, records “maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution,” 20 U. S. C. § 1232g(a)(4)(A), and thus do not constitute “education records” under the Act. On this reasoning it ruled that peer grading does not violate FERPA.
The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed. 233 F. 3d 1203 (2000). FERPA is directed to the conditions schools must meet to receive federal funds, and as an initial matter the court considered whether the Act confers a private right of action upon students and parents if the conditions are not met. Despite the absence of an explicit authorization in the Act conferring a cause of action on private parties, the court held respondent could sue to enforce FERPA’s terms under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. 233 F. 3d, at 1211-1213. Turning to the merits, the Court of Appeals held that peer grading violates the Act. The grades marked by students on each other’s work, it held, are education records protected by the statute, so the very act of grading was an impermissible release of the information to the student grader. Id., at 1216.
We granted certiorari to decide whether peer grading violates FERPA. 533 U. S. 927 (2001). Finding no violation of the Act, we reverse.
II
At the outset, we note it is an open question whether FERPA provides private parties, like respondent, with a cause of action enforceable under § 1983. We have granted certiorari on this issue in another case. See Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, post, p. 1103. The parties, furthermore, did not contest the §1983 issue before the Court of Appeals. That court raised the issue sua sponte, and petitioners did not seek certiorari on the question. We need not resolve the question here as it is our practice “to decide cases on the grounds raised and considered in the Court of Appeals and included in the question on which we granted certiorari.” Bragdon v. Abbott, 524 U. S. 624, 638 (1998). In these circumstances we assume, but without so deciding or expressing an opinion on the question, that private parties may sue an educational agency under § 1983 to enforce the provisions of FERPA here at issue. Though we leave open the § 1983 question, the Court has subject-matter jurisdiction because respondent’s federal claim is not so “completely devoid of merit as not to involve a federal controversy.” Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 89 (1998) (citation omitted). With these preliminary observations concluded, we turn to the merits.
The parties appear to agree that if an assignment becomes an education record the moment a peer grades it, then the grading, or at least the practice of asking students to call out their grades in class, would be an impermissible release of the records under § 1232g(b)(l). Tr. of Oral Arg. 21. Without deciding the point, we assume for the purposes of our analysis that they are correct. The parties disagree, however, whether peer-graded assignments constitute education records at all. The papers do contain information directly related to a student, but they are records under the Act only when and if they “are maintained by an educational agency or institution or by a person acting for such agency or institution.” § 1232g(a)(4)(A).
Petitioners, supported by the United States as amicus curiae, contend the definition covers only institutional records — namely, those materials retained in a permanent file as a matter of course. They argue that records “maintained by an educational agency or institution” generally would include final course grades, student grade point averages, standardized test scores, attendance records, counseling records, and records of disciplinary actions — but not student homework or classroom work. Brief for Petitioners 17; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14.
Respondent, adopting the reasoning of the Court of Appeals, contends student-graded assignments fall within the definition of education records. That definition contains an exception for “records of instructional, supervisory, and administrative personnel. . . which are in the sole possession of the maker thereof and which are not accessible or revealed to any other person except a substitute.” § 1232g(a)(4)(B)(i). The Court of Appeals reasoned that if grade books are not education records, then it would have been unnecessary for Congress to enact the exception. Grade books and the grades within, the court concluded, are “maintained” by a teacher and so are covered by FERPA. 233 F. 3d, at 1215. The court recognized that teachers do not maintain the grades on individual student assignments until they have recorded the result in the grade books. It reasoned, however, that if Congress forbids teachers to disclose students’ grades once written in a grade book, it makes no sense to permit the disclosure immediately beforehand. Id., at 1216. The court thus held that student graders maintain the grades until they are reported to the teacher. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals’ logic does not withstand scrutiny. Its interpretation, furthermore, would effect a drastic alteration of the existing allocation of responsibilities between States and the National Government in the operation of the Nation’s schools. We would hesitate before interpreting the statute to effect such a substantial change in the balance of federalism unless that is the manifest purpose of the legislation. This principle guides our decision.
Two statutory indicators tell us that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that an assignment satisfies the definition of education records as soon as it is graded by another student. First, the student papers are not, at that stage, “maintained” within the meaning of § 1232g(a)(4)(A). The ordinary meaning of the word “maintain” is “to keep in existence or continuance; preserve; retain.” Random House Dictionary of the English Language 1160 (2d ed. 1987). Even assuming the teacher’s grade book is an education record— a point the parties' contest and one we do not decide here— the score on a student-graded assignment is not “contained therein,” § 1232g(b)(l), until the teacher records it. The teacher does not maintain the grade while students correct their peers’ assignments or call out their own marks. Nor do the student graders maintain the grades within the meaning of § 1232g(a)(4)(A). The word “maintain” suggests FERPA records will be kept in a filing cabinet in a records room at the school or on a permanent secure database, perhaps even after the student is no longer enrolled. The student graders only handle assignments'for a few moments as the teacher calls out the answers. It is fanciful to say they maintain the papers in the same way the registrar maintains a student’s folder in a permanent file.
The Court of Appeals was further mistaken in concluding that each student grader is “a person acting for” an educational institution for purposes of § 1232g(a)(4)(A). 233 F. 3d, at 1216. The phrase “acting for” connotes agents of the school, such as teachers, administrators, and other school employees. Just as it does not accord with our usual understanding to say students are “acting for” an educational institution when they follow their teacher’s direction to take a quiz, it is equally awkward to say students are “acting for” an educational institution when they follow their teacher’s direction to score it. Correcting a classmate’s work can be as much a part of the assignment as taking the test itself. It is a way to teach material again in a new context, and it helps show students how to assist and respect fellow pupils. By explaining the answers to the class as the students correct the papers, the teacher not only reinforces the lesson but also discovers whether the students have understood the material and are ready to move on. We do not think FERPA prohibits these educational techniques. We also must not lose sight of the fact that the phrase “by a person acting for [an educational] institution” modifies “maintain.” Even if one were to agree students are acting for the teacher when they correct the assignment, that is different from saying they are acting for the educational institution in maintaining it.
Other sections of the statute support our interpretation. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989) (“It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme”). FERPA, for example, requires educational institutions to “maintain a record, kept with the education records of each student.” § 1232g(b)(4)(A). This record must list those who have requested access to a student’s education records and their reasons for doing so. Ibid. The record of access “shall be available only to parents, [and] to the school official and his assistants who are responsible for the custody of such records.” Ibid.
Under the Court of Appeals’ broad interpretation of education records, every teacher would have an obligation to keep a separate record of access for each student’s assignments. Indeed, by that court’s logic, even students who grade their own papers would bear the burden of maintaining records of access until they turned in the assignments. We doubt Congress would have imposed such a weighty administrative burden on every teacher, and certainly it would not have extended the mandate to students.
Also, FERPA requires “a record” of access for each pupil. This single record must be kept “with the education records.” This suggests Congress contemplated that education records would be kept in one place with a single record of access. By describing a “school official” and “his assistants” as the personnel responsible for the custody of the records, FERPA implies that education records are institutional records kept by a single central custodian, such as a registrar, not individual assignments handled by many student graders in their separate classrooms.
FERPA also requires recipients of federal funds to provide parents with a hearing at which they may contest the accuracy of their child’s education records. § 1232g(a)(2). The hearings must be conducted “in accordance with regulations of the Secretary,” ibid., which in turn require adjudication by a disinterested official and the opportunity for parents to be represented by an attorney. 34 CFR § 99.22 (2001). It is doubtful Congress would have provided parents with this elaborate procedural machinery to challenge the accuracy of the grade on every spelling test and art project the child completes.
Respondent’s construction of the term “education records” to cover student homework or classroom work would impose substantial burdens on teachers across the country. It would force all instructors to take time, which otherwise could be spent teaching and in preparation, to correct an assortment of daily student assignments. Respondent’s view would make it much more difficult for teachers to give students immediate guidance. The interpretation respondent urges would force teachers to abandon other customary practices, such as group grading of team assignments. Indeed, the logical consequences of respondent’s view are all but unbounded. At argument, counsel for respondent seemed to agree that if a teacher in any of the thousands of covered classrooms in the Nation puts a happy face, a gold star, or a disapproving remark on a classroom assignment, federal law does not allow other students to see it. Tr. of Oral Arg. 40.
We doubt Congress meant to intervene in this drastic fashion with traditional state functions. Under the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of FERPA, the federal power would exercise minute control over specific teaching methods and instructional dynamics in classrooms throughout the country. The Congress is not likely to have mandated this result, and we do not interpret the statute to require it.
For these reasons, even assuming a teacher’s grade book is an education record, the Court of Appeals erred, for in all events the grades on students’ papers would not be covered under FERPA at least until the teacher has collected them and recorded them in his or her grade book. We limit our holding to this narrow point, and do not decide the broader question whether the grades on individual student assignments, once they are turned in to teachers, are protected by the Act.
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.
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.
Justice Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In these consolidated cases, we review a decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois barring petitioners in No. 90-1126 (petitioners) from appearing under the name of the Harold Washington Party on the November 1990 ballot for Cook County offices. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
I
Under Illinois law, citizens organizing a new political party must canvass the electoral area in which they wish to field candidates and persuade voters to sign their nominating petitions. Organizers seeking to field candidates for statewide office must collect the signatures of 25,000 eligible voters, Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 46, § 10-2 (1989), and, if they wish to run candidates solely for offices within a large “political subdivision” like Cook County, they need 25,000 signatures from the subdivision. Ibid. If, however, the subdivision itself comprises large separate districts from which some of its officers are elected, party organizers seeking to fill such offices must collect 25,000 signatures from each district. Ibid. If the organizers collect enough signatures to place their candidates on the ballot, their organization becomes a “new political party” under Illinois law, and if the party succeeds , in gathering 5% of the vote in the next election, it becomes an “established political party,” freed from the signature requirements of § 10-2. Ibid. A political party that has not engaged in a statewide election, however, can be “established” only in a political subdivision where it has fielded candidates. A party is not established in Cook County, for example, merely because it has fared well in Chicago’s municipal elections.
The Harold Washington Party (HWP or Party), named after the late mayor of Chicago, has been established in the city of Chicago since 1989. Petitioners were the principal organizers of an effort to expand the Party by establishing it in Cook County, and, as candidates for county office, they sought to run under the Party name in the November 1990 elections.
Cook County comprises two electoral districts: the area corresponding to the city of Chicago (city district) and the rest of the county (suburban district). Although some county officials are elected at large by citizens of the entire county, members of the county board of commissioners are elected separately by the citizens of each district to fill county board seats specifically designated for that district. While certain petitioners wished to run for offices filled by election at large, others sought to capture the county board seats representing the city and suburban districts of Cook County.
Because the Party had previously engaged solely in Chicago municipal elections, petitioners were obliged to qualify as a “new party” in Cook County in order to run under the Party name. Accordingly, §10-2 required them to obtain 25,000 nominating signatures in order to designate candidates for the at-large offices. And since petitioners wished to field candidates for the county board seats allocated to the separate districts, they also had to collect 25,000 signatures from each district. Petitioners gathered 44,000 signatures on the city-district component of their petition, but only 7,800 on the suburban component.
After petitioners filed the petition with the county authorities and presented their slate of candidates for both at-large and district-specific seats, respondent Dorothy Reed and several other interested voters (collectively, Reed) filed objections to the slate with the Cook County Officers Electoral Board (Board or Electoral Board). The Board rejected most of Reed’s claims. First, it dismissed her contention that, because there was already an established political party named the “Harold Washington Party” in the city of Chicago, petitioners could not run under that name for the various county offices. Reed relied on the provision of Illinois law that a “new political party,” which petitioners sought to form, “shall not bear the same name as, nor include the name of any established political party . . . .” Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 46, § 10-5 (1989). The Board, however, suggested that a literal reading of § 10-5 would effectively forbid a political party established in one political subdivision to expand into others, and held that the provision’s true purpose was “to prevent persons who are not affiliated with a party from ‘latching on’ to the popular party name, thereby promoting voter confusion and denigrating party cohesiveness.” The Board found no such dangers here, as Timothy Evans, the only HWP candidate to run in Chicago’s most recent municipal election, had authorized petitioners to use the Party name.
The Board also rejected Reed’s claim that petitioners had failed to gather enough nominating signatures to run as a party for any Cook County office. While the Board found that their failure to gather 25,000 signatures from the suburbs disqualified those who wished to run for the suburban-district commissioner seats, it held that this failure was no reason under §10-2 to disqualify the candidates running under the Party name for city-district and countywide offices. The Board observed that construing the statute to disqualify the entire Cook County slate on this basis would advance no valid state interest and would raise serious constitutional concerns.
Finally, the Board rejected Reed’s claim that, under § 10-2, petitioners’ failure to designate Party candidates for any of the judicial seats designated for either the city district, the suburban district, or the county at large disqualified the entire slate of candidates running under the Party name for all county offices. It decided, among other things, that § 10-2 did not apply because the judgeships at issue were not offices of the same “political subdivision” as nonjudicial offices within Cook County.
On appeal, the Circuit Court of Cook County affirmed the Board’s ruling on the use of the HWP name, but on grounds different from the Board’s. It ruled that while Evans had no statutory power to authorize the use of the Party name, § 10-2 implicitly confined the scope of § 10-5 to cases where two parties seeking to use the same name coexist in the same political subdivision. Since Cook County and the city of Chicago are separate subdivisions, the Circuit Court found no violation of the Election Code.
The Circuit Court nonetheless held that under the plain language of § 10-2, petitioners’ failure to obtain 25,000 signatures for the suburban-district candidates doomed the entire slate, and it alternatively held that petitioners’ failure to list Party candidates for judicial office compelled the same result. For these two independent reasons, the Circuit Court reversed the Board.
On review, the Supreme Court of Illinois held in a brief written order that § 10-5 prohibited petitioners from using the HWP name, and that their failure to gather enough signatures for the candidates in the suburban-district races disqualified the entire slate. It expressly declined “to discuss other points raised on the appeal” and thus chose not to address the effect of petitioners’ failure to list candidates for county judgeships. Three of the court’s seven members dissented on the ground that the majority’s construction of Illinois law irrationally and unconstitutionally suppressed the development of new political parties. The majority justices indicated that they would issue an explanatory opinion, but they never have.
Petitioners then applied for a stay from Justice Stevens, who, in his capacity as Circuit Justice, ordered the mandate of the Illinois Supreme Court to be “stayed or, if necessary, recalled” pending further review by this Court. Order in No. A-309 (Oct. 22, 1990). On October 25, 1990, the full Court granted petitioners’ application for stay pending the filing and disposition of a petition for certiorari, 498 U. S. 931, thereby effectively reviving the Electoral Board’s decision and permitting petitioners to run under the Party name in the November 6, 1990, Cook County election. According to the undisputed representation of the Board, see Brief for Petitioners in No. 90-1435, p. 10, while none of the HWP candidates was elected, several did receive over 5% of the vote, thus fulfilling, if the election stands, a necessary and apparently sufficient condition for the Party’s qualification as an “established political party” within all or part of Cook County at the next election.
In due course, petitioners filed a petition for certiorari in No. 90-1126, and the Board, a respondent in that action, filed its own petition in No. 90-1435. We granted each on May 20, 1991. 500 U. S. 931 (1991).
II
We start with Reed s contention that we should treat the controversy as moot because the election is over. We should not. Even if the issue before us were limited to petitioners’ eligibility to use the Party name on the 1990 ballot, that issue would be worthy of resolution as “ ‘capable of repetition, yet evading review.’” Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814, 816 (1969). There would be every reason to expect the same parties to generate a similar, future controversy subject to identical time constraints if we should fail to resolve the constitutional issues that arose in 1990.
The matter before us carries a potential of even greater significance, however. As we have noted, the 1990 electoral results would entitle the HWP to enter the next election as an established party in all or part of Cook County, freed from the petition requirements of § 10-2, so long as its candidates were entitled to the places on the ballot that our stay order effectively gave them. This underscores the vitality of the questions posed, even though the election that gave them life is now behind us.
III
For more than two decades, this Court has recognized the constitutional right of citizens to create and develop new political parties. The right derives from the First and Fourteenth Amendments and advances the constitutional interest of like-minded voters to gather in pursuit of common political ends, thus enlarging the opportunities of all voters to express their own political preferences. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780, 793-794 (1983); Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173, 184 (1979); Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U. S. 23, 30-31 (1968). To the degree that a State would thwart this interest by limiting the access of new parties to the ballot, we have called for the demonstration of a corresponding interest sufficiently weighty to justify the limitation, see Anderson, supra, at 789, and we have accordingly required any severe restriction to be narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of compelling importance. See Socialist Workers Party, supra, at 184, 186. By such lights we now look to whether §§ 10-2 and 10-5, as construed by the Supreme Court of Illinois, violate petitioners’ right of access to the Cook County ballot.
A
Reversing the judgment of the Circuit Court, the State Supreme Court held, under §10-5, that the Cook County candidates could not claim to represent the HWP because there already was a party by that name in the city of Chicago. The court gave no reasons for so concluding beyond declaring that “petitioner^’] use of the Harold Washington Party name in their petition . . . violate[d] the provisions of section 10-5,” which, the court noted, “prohibits use of the name of an established political party.” Thus, the issue on review is not whether the Chicago HWP and the Cook County HWP are in some sense “separate parties,” but whether and how candidates running for county office may adopt the name of a party established only in the city.
While the Board based its answer to this question on a determination that the city HWP had authorized petitioners to use the Party name, the State Supreme Court’s order seems to exclude the very possibility of authorization, reading the prohibition on the “use of the name of an established political party” so literally as to bar candidates running in one political subdivision from ever using the name of a political party established only in another. As both the dissent below and the opinion of the Board suggest, however, this Draconian construction of the statute would obviously foreclose the development of any political party lacking the resources to run a statewide campaign. Just as obviously, § 10-5, as the State’s highest court apparently construed it, is far broader than necessary to serve the State’s asserted interests.
To prevent misrepresentation and electoral confusion, Illinois may, of course, prohibit candidates running for office in one subdivision from adopting the name of a party established in another if they are not in any way affiliated with the party. The State’s interest is particularly strong where, as here, the party and its self-described candidates coexist in the same geographical area. But Illinois could avoid these ills merely by requiring the candidates to get formal permission to use the name from the established party they seek to represent, a simple expedient for fostering an informed electorate without suppressing the growth of small parties. Thus, the State Supreme Court’s inhospitable reading of § 10-5 sweeps broader than necessary to advance electoral order and accordingly violates the First Amendment right of political association. See Anderson, supra, at 793-794; Williams, supra, at 30-34.
For her part, when Reed argues that the county Party, led by R. Eugene Pincham, is “different from” the Party established in the city of Chicago under the leadership of Timothy Evans, she may indeed be suggesting that the city Party failed to authorize the Cook County candidates to use the Party name. But Reed offers no support at all for that assumption, which stands at odds with what few relevant facts the record reveals. The Electoral Board found that Timothy Evans, the Party’s most recent mayoral candidate in the city of Chicago, had specifically authorized petitioners' use of the Party name in Cook County. While acknowledging that Evans was not the statutory chairman of the Chicago Party, the Board ruled, and Reed does not dispute, that Evans, “as the only candidate of the Chicago HWP,” was “the only person empowered by the Election Code to act in any official capacity for the HWP.” We have no authoritative ruling on Illinois law to the contrary, and Reed advances no legal argument for the insufficiency of Evans’ authorization.
To be sure, it is not ours to say that Illinois law lacks any constitutional procedural mechanism that petitioners might have been required to, but did not, follow before using the Party name. Our review of §10-2 reveals the possibility that Illinois law empowers a newly established party’s candidate or candidates (here, Evans) merely to appoint party “committeemen,” whose authority to “manage and control the affairs” of the party might include an exclusive right to authorize the use of its name outside the party’s original political subdivision. It seems unlikely, however, that the Supreme Court of Illinois had such reasoning in mind. Any limitation on Evans’s power to authorize like-minded candidates to use the Party name would have had to arise under § 10-2, whereas the order below held simply that petitioners’ use of the Party name “violate[d] the provisions of section 10-5.” In any event, it is not this Court’s role to review a state-court decision on the basis of inconclusive and unar-gued theories of state law that the state court itself found unworthy of mention.
B
As an alternative basis for prohibiting petitioners from running together under the Party name, the Supreme Court of Illinois invoked the statutory requirement of § 10-2 that “[e]ach component of the petition for each district ... be signed by [25,000] qualified voters of the district....” The court apparently held that disqualification of a party’s entire slate of candidates is the appropriate penalty for failing to meet this requirement, and it accordingly treated petitioners’ failure to collect enough signatures for their suburban-district candidates as an adequate ground for disqualifying every candidate running under the HWP name in Cook County.
This is not our first time to consider the constitutionality of an Illinois law governing the number of nominating signatures the organizers of a new party must gather to field candidates in local elections. In Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173 (1979), we examined Illinois’s earlier ballot-access scheme, under which party organizers seeking to field candidates in statewide elections were (as they still are) effectively required to gather 25,000 signatures. See §10-2. At that time, the statute separately required those organizing new parties in political subdivisions to collect signatures totaling at least 5% of the number of people voting at the previous election for offices of that subdivision. In the city of Chicago, the subdivision at issue in Socialist Workers Party, the effect of that provision was to require many more than 25,000 signatures. Although this Court recognized the State’s interest in restricting the ballot to parties with demonstrated public support, the Court took the requirement for statewide contests as an indication that the more onerous standard for local contests was not the least restrictive means of advancing that interest. Id., at 186.
The Illinois Legislature responded to this ruling by amending its statute to cap the 5% requirement for “any district or political subdivision” at 25,000 signatures. Thus, if organizers of a new party wish to field candidates in a large county without separate districts, and if 5% of the number of voters at the previous county election exceeds 25,000, the party now needs to gather only 25,000 signatures.
Under the interpretation of § 10-2 rendered below, however, Illinois law retains the constitutional flaw at issue in Socialist Workers Party by effectively increasing the signature requirement applicable to elections for at least some offices in subdivisions with separate districts. Under that interpretation, the failure of a party’s organizers to obtain 25,000 signatures for each district in which they run candidates disqualifies the party’s candidates in all races within the subdivision. Thus, a prerequisite to establishing a new political party in such multidistrict subdivisions is some multiple of the number of signatures required of new statewide parties. Since petitioners chose to field candidates for the county board seats allocated to the separate districts and, as required by state law, used the “component” (i e., district-specific) form of nominating petition, the State Supreme Court’s construction of §10-2 required petitioners to accumulate 50,000 signatures (25,000 from the city district and another 25,000 from the suburbs) to run any candidates in Cook County elections. The State may not do this in the face of Socialist Workers Party, which forbids it to require petitioners to gather twice as many signatures to field candidates in Cook County as they would need statewide.
Reed nonetheless tries to skirt Socialist Workers Party by advancing what she claims to be a state interest, not addressed by the earlier case, in ensuring that the electoral support for new parties in a multidistrict political subdivision extends to every district. Accepting the legitimacy of the interest claimed would not, however, excuse the requirement’s unconstitutional breadth. Illinois might have compelled the organizers of a new party to demonstrate a distribution of support throughout Cook County without at the same time raising the overall quantum of needed support above what the State expects of new parties fielding candidates only for statewide office. The State might, for example, have required some minimum number of signatures from each of the component districts while maintaining the total signature requirement at 25,000. But cf. Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814 (1969). While we express no opinion as to the constitutionality of any such requirement, what we have said demonstrates that Illinois has not chosen the most narrowly tailored means of advancing even the interest that Reed suggests.
Nor is that the only weakness of Reed’s rationale. Illinois does not require a new party fielding candidates solely for statewide office to apportion its nominating signatures among the various counties or other political subdivisions of the State. See § 10-2; Communist Party of Illinois v. State Bd. of Elections, 518 F. 2d 517 (CA7), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 986 (1975). Organizers of a new party could therefore win access to the statewide ballot, but not the Cook County ballot, by collecting all 25,000 signatures from the county’s city district. But if the State deems it unimportant to ensure that new statewide parties enjoy any distribution of support, it requires elusive logic to demonstrate a serious state interest in demanding such a distribution for new local parties. Thus, as in Socialist Workers Party, the State’s requirements for access to the statewide ballot become criteria in the first instance for judging whether rules of access to local ballots are narrow enough to pass constitutional muster. Reed has adduced no justification for the disparity here.
c
Up to this point, the positions of petitioners and the Board have coincided. They diverge on only one matter: whether requiring the candidates for the suburban-district commissioner seats to obtain 25,000 nominating signatures from the suburbs unduly burdens their right to run for those seats under the Party name. Although petitioners suggest that their showing of support in the city district should qualify their candidates to represent the Party in all races within Cook County, in the absence of any claim that the division of Cook County into separate districts is itself unconstitutional, our precedents foreclose the argument. According to the Board’s uncontested arithmetic, the 25,000 signature rule requires the support of only slightly more than 2% of suburban voters, see Brief for Respondent Board in No. 90-1126, p. 9, and n. 7, a considerably more lenient restriction than the one we upheld in Jenness v. Fortson, 403 U. S. 431 (1971) (involving a 5% requirement). Just as the State may not cite the Party’s failure in the suburbs as reason for disqualifying its candidates in urban Cook County, neither may the Party cite its success in the city district as a sufficient condition for running candidates in the suburbs.
>
These cases present one final issue, which we are unable to resolve. Some of Cook County’s judges are elected by citizens of the entire county, and others by citizens of the separate districts. In responding to Reed’s objection that the HWP had not fielded candidates for any elected judicial offices in Cook County, the Circuit Court held that, under § 10-2, “the exclusion of judicial candidates on the slate was a failure to fulfill the ‘complete slate requirement’ of the Election Code.” The court then overruled the Electoral Board and treated this failure as an alternative ground for invalidating the Party’s entire slate.
We decline to consider whether that ruling was constitutional. The Supreme Court of Illinois itself did not address it and therefore did not decide whether, under Illinois law, the Party’s omission of judicial candidates doomed the entire slate. We therefore remand these cases to that court for its prompt resolution of this issue. See Bacchus Imports, Ltd. v. Dias, 468 U. S. 263, 277 (1984); see also McCluney v. Jos. Schlitz Brewing Co., 454 U. S. 1071, 1073-1074 (1981) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
The judgment of the State Supreme Court is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cases are remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
More precisely, they must collect the signatures of 25,000 voters or 1% of the number of voters at the preceding statewide general election, whichever is less. Ill. Rev. Stat., ch. 46, § 10-2 (1989). Given the State’s population, the 26,000 signature requirement applies.
The statute reads in relevant part:
“In the case of a petition to form a new political party within a political subdivision in which officers are to be elected from districts and at-large, such petition shall consist of separate components for each district from which an officer is to be elected. Each component shall be circulated only within a district of the political subdivision and signed only by qualified electors who are residents of such district. Each sheet of such petition must contain a complete list of the names of the candidates of the party for all offices to be filled in the political subdivision at large, but' the sheets comprising each component shall also contain the names of those candidates to be elected from the particular district. Each component of the petition for each district from which an officer is to be elected must be signed by qualified voters of the district equalling in number not less than 5% of the number of voters who voted at the next preceding regular election in such district at which an officer was elected to serve the district. The entire petition, including all components, must be signed by a total of qualified voters of the entire political subdivision equalling in number not less than 5% of the number of voters who voted at the next preceding regular election in such political subdivision at which an officer was elected to serve the political subdivision at large.”
The statute caps the 5% requirement for both district and subdivision petitions at 25,000 signatures, the number effectively required on statewide petitions. Cook County and its districts are so large that this cap applies to each.
These are the current districts of Cook County. We have learned that in a November 1990 referendum, the voters of Cook County adopted an ordinance providing for the division of the county by 1994 into 17 districts, each of which will send one commissioner to the county board. This Court has been unable to secure any official record of the new ordinance, however. In any event, the parties have not treated this issue as having any bearing on our disposition of these cases, and we do not see how it could have.
Reed based her argument on what the parties call the “complete slate requirement” of § 10-2. The parties occasionally use the same term in their discussion of a separate issue, whether petitioners’ failure to collect sufficient signatures in the suburban district voids their entire slate. For clarity, we avoid using the term altogether.
The Circuit Court also held that petitioners’ failure to gather 25,000 signatures for the candidates running under the Party name for office in the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District disqualified those candidates, but not the rest of the slate, because the Water Reclamation District was a separate political subdivision from Cook County. This ruling was not appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court and is not before this Court.
Three of the four justices in the majority have left the court since the date of the order.
Under Illinois practice, if the Board’s decision is appealed, it joins the prevailing party in support of its own decision.
As in Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U. S. 780 (1983), “we base our conclusions directly on the First and Fourteenth Amendments and do not engage in a separate Equal Protection Clause analysis. We rely, however, on the analysis in a number of our prior election cases resting on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 786-787, n. 7.
Reed did seem to make a version of this argument in her brief to the Illinois Supreme Court. See Brief for Appellees Reed et al. in No. 70833 (Sup. Ct. Ill.), pp. 20-21. Moreover, in the one sentence that it devotes to the topic, the Circuit Court makes a similar observation: “While Timothy C. Evans was the only candidate of the Harold Washington Party, his only power, pursuant to § 10-2 of the Election Code, was the ability to appoint interim committeemen.” See App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 90-1435, p. 19a. Nonetheless, these passages are inadequate to prove that the Illinois Supreme Court adopted the argument, particularly since Reed arguably waived it by not raising it in her original “Objector’s Petition” to the Electoral Board. See App. 14-15. There, she claimed only that petitioners’ use of the Party name violated § 10-5.
To an extent, history explains the anomaly. Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U. S. 814 (1969), together with the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Communist Party of Illinois v. State Bd. of Elections, 618 F. 2d 517 (1975), left the ballot-access requirements for statewide elections less stringent, for the first time, than the requirements for any local ballot. These were the same legal developments, in fact, that led to the anomaly at issue in Illinois Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U. S. 173 (1979). Yet, as we noted there, an explanation is not the same as a justification. Id., at 187; see also id., at 189 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); id., at 190-191 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in judgment). “Historical accident, without more, cannot constitute a compelling state interest.” Id., at 187.
Among other possibilities, the Supreme Court of Illinois might agree with the Board’s conclusion that the judgeships at issue are not offices of the same “political subdivision” as nonjudicial offices within Cook County. That court might also construe the decision in Anderson v. Schneider, 67 Ill. 2d 166, 366 N. E. 2d 900 (1977), to hold that an omission of judicial candidates should not invalidate the rest of the slate.
To restate our conclusion, any rule, whether or not denominated the “complete slate” requirement, see, e. g., post, at 298, 299 (dissenting opinion’s use of the term in this context); App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 90-1435, pp. 23a-24a (Circuit Court’s use of the term in this context), that disqualifies petitioners’ entire slate for failure to collect 25,000 signatures wholly from the suburban district would be unconstitutional for the reasons given in Part III-B above. We express no opinion as to the constitutionality of a “complete slate requirement” that would invalidate petitioners’ slate for their failure to field judicial candidates.
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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Douglas,
announced by Mr. Justice Harlan.
Petitioner, a native of Hungary, was admitted to citizenship by a decree of the District Court in 1940. Respondent filed a complaint to revoke and set aside that order as authorized by § 340 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 260, as amended, 68 Stat. 1232, 8 U. S. C. § 1451 (a), on the ground that it had been procured “by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation.” The complaint stated that petitioner had falsely denied membership in the Communist Party and that by virtue of that membership he lacked the requisite attachment to the Constitution, etc., and the intent to renounce foreign allegiance. It also alleged that petitioner had procured his naturalization by concealing and misrepresenting a record of arrests. The District Court cancelled petitioner’s naturalization, finding that he had concealed and misrepresented three matters — his arrests, his membership in the Communist Party, and his allegiance. The Court of Appeals affirmed, reaching only the question of the concealment of the arrests. 270 F. 2d 179. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 362 U. S. 901.
One question, on a form petitioner filled out in connection with his petition for naturalization, asked if he had ever been “arrested or charged with violation of any law of the United States or State or any city ordinance or traffic regulation” and if so to give full particulars. To this question petitioner answered “no.” There was evidence that when he was questioned under oath by an examiner he gave the same answer. There was also evidence that if his answer had been “yes,” the investigative unit of the Immigration Service would check with the authorities at the places where the arrests occurred “to ascertain . . . whether the full facts were stated.”
The District Court found that from 10 to 11 years before petitioner was naturalized he had been arrested three times as follows:
(1) On July 30, 1929, he was arrested for distributing handbills in New Haven, Connecticut, in violation of an ordinance. He pleaded not guilty and was discharged.
(2) On December 21, 1929, he was arrested for violating the park regulations in New Haven, Connecticut, by making “an oration, harangue, or other public demonstration in New Haven Green, outside of the churches.” Petitioner pleaded not guilty. Disposition of the charge is not clear, the notation on the court record reading “Found J. S.” which respondent suggests may mean “Judgment Suspended” after a finding of guilt.
(3) On March 11, 1930, he was again arrested in New Haven and this time charged with “General Breach of the Peace.” He was found guilty by the City Court and fined $25. He took an appeal and the records show “nolled April 7, 1930.”
Acquisition of American citizenship is a solemn affair. Full and truthful response to all relevant questions required by the naturalization procedure is, of course, to be exacted, and temporizing with the truth must be vigorously discouraged. Failure to give frank, honest, and unequivocal answers to the court when one seeks naturalization is a serious matter. Complete replies are essential so that the qualifications of the applicant or his lack of them may be ascertained. Suppressed or concealed facts, if known, might in and of themselves justify denial of citizenship. Or disclosure of the true facts might have led to the discovery of other facts which would justify denial of citizenship.
On the other hand, in view of the grave consequences to the citizen, naturalization decrees are not lightly to be set aside — the evidence must indeed be “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” and not leave “the issue ... in doubt.” Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118, 125, 158; Baumgartner v. United States, 322 U. S. 665, 670. The issue in these cases is so important to the liberty of the citizen that the weight normally given concurrent findings of two lower courts does not preclude reconsideration here, for we deal with “judgments lying close to opinion regarding the whole nature of our Government and the duties and immunities of citizenship.” Baumgartner v. United States, supra, 671. And see Klapprott v. United States, 335 U. S. 601, 612 and (concurring opinion) 617.
While disclosure of them was properly exacted, the arrests in these cases were not reflections on the character of the man seeking citizenship. The statute in force at the time of his naturalization required that “he has behaved as a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States” during the previous five years. These arrests were made some years prior to the critical five-year period. They did not, moreover, involve moral turpitude within the meaning of the law. Cf. Jordan v. De George, 341 U. S. 223. No fraudulent conduct was charged. They involved distributing handbills, making a speech, and a breach of the peace. In one instance he was discharged, in one instance the prosecution was “nolled,” and in the other (for making a speech in a park in violation of city regulations) he apparently received a suspended sentence. The totality of the circumstances surrounding the offenses charged makes them of extremely slight consequence. Had they involved moral turpitude or acts directed at the Government, had they involved conduct which even peripherally touched types of activity which might disqualify one from citizenship, a different case would be presented. On this record the nature of these arrests, the crimes charged, and the disposition of the cases do not bring them, inherently, even close to the requirement of “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence that naturalization was illegally procured within the meaning of § 340 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
It is argued, however, that disclosure of the arrests made in New Haven, Connecticut, in the years 1929 and 1930 would have led to a New Haven investigation at which leads to other evidence — more relevant and material than the arrests — might have been obtained. His residence in New Haven was from February 1929 to November 1930. Since that period was more than five years before his petition for naturalization, the name of his employer at that time was not required by the form prepared by the Service. It is now said, however, that if the arrests had been disclosed and investigated, the Service might well have discovered that petitioner in 1929 was “a district organizer” of the Communist Party in Connecticut. One witness in this denaturalization proceeding testified that such was the fact. An arrest, though by no means probative of any guilt or wrongdoing, is sufficiently significant as an episode in a man’s life that it may often be material at least to further enquiry. We do not minimize the importance of that disclosure. In this case, however, we are asked to base materiality on the tenuous line of investigation that might have led from the arrests to the alleged communistic affiliations, when as a matter of fact petitioner in this same application disclosed that he was an employee and member of the International Workers’ Order, which is said to be controlled by the Communist Party. In connection with petitioner’s denial of such affiliations, respondent argues that since it was testified that the IWO was an organization controlled and dominated by the Communist Party, it is reasonable to infer that petitioner had those affiliations at the time of the application. But by the same token it would seem that a much less tenuous and speculative nexus with the Communist Party, if it be such, was thereby disclosed and was available for further investigation if it had been deemed appropriate at the time. Cf. United States v. Anastasio, 226 F. 2d 912. It is said that IWO did not become tainted with Communist control until 1941. We read the record differently. If the Government’s case is made out, that taint extended back at least as far as 1939. Had that disclosure not been made in the application, failure to report the arrests would have had greater significance. It could then be forcefully argued that failure to disclose the arrests was part and parcel of a project to conceal a Communist Party affiliation. But on this record, the failure to report the three arrests occurring from 10 to 11 years previously is neutral. We do not speculate as to why they were not disclosed. We only conclude that, in the circumstances of this case, the Government has failed to show by “clear, unequivocal, and convincing” evidence either (1) that facts were suppressed which, if known, would have warranted denial of citizenship or (2) that their disclosure might have been useful in an investigation possibly leading to the discovery of other facts warranting denial of citizenship.
There are issues in the case which we do not reach and which were not passed upon by the Court of Appeals. Accordingly the judgment will be reversed and the cause remanded to it so that the other questions raised in the appeal may be considered.
It is so ordered.
The section provides in relevant part:
“It shall be the duty of the United States attorneys for the respective districts, upon affidavit showing good cause therefor, to institute proceedings in any court specified in subsection (a) of section 310 of this title [§ 1421 of 8 U. S. C.] in the judicial district in which the naturalized citizen may reside at the time of bringing suit, for the purpose of revoking and setting aside the order admitting such person to citizenship and canceling the certificate of naturalization on the ground that such order and certificate of naturalization were procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation, and such revocation and setting aside of the order admitting such person to citizenship and such canceling of certificate of naturalization shall be effective as of the original date of the order and certificate, respectively
Section 4 of the Naturalization Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 598, as amended, 45 Stat. 1513-1514.
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 judgment of the Court, and delivered an opinion,
in which Mr. Justice Frankfurter, Mr. Justice Clark, and Mr. Justice Whittaker join.
We are called upon in this case to weigh in a particular context two considerations of high importance which now and again come into sharp conflict — on the one hand, the protection of the individual citizen against pecuniary damage caused by oppressive or malicious action on the part of officials of the Federal Government; and on the other, 'the protection of the public interest by shielding responsible governmental officers against the harassment and inevitable hazards of vindictive or ill-founded damage suits brought on account of action taken in the exercise of their official responsibilities.
This is a libel suit, brought in the District Court of the District of Columbia by respondents, former employees of the Office of Rent Stabilization. The alleged libel was contained in a press release issued by the office on February 5, 1953, at the direction of petitioner, then its Acting Director. The circumstances which gave rise to the issuance of the release follow.
In 1950 the statutory existence of the Office of Housing Expediter, the predecessor agency of the Office of Rent Stabilization, was about to expire. Respondent Madigan, then Deputy. Director in charge of personnel and fiscal matters, and respondent Matteo, chief of the personnel branch, suggested to the Housing Expediter a plan designed to utilize some $2,600,000 of agency funds earmarked in the agency’s appropriation for the fiscal year 1950 exclusively for terminal-leave payments. The effect of the plan would have been to obviate the possibility that the agency might have to make large terminal-leave payments during the next fiscal year out of general agency funds, should the life of the agency be extended by Congress. In essence, the mechanics of the plan were that agency employees would be discharged, paid accrued annual leave out of the $2,600,000 earmarked for terminal-leave payments, rehired immediately as temporary employees, and restored to permanent status should the agency’s life in fact be extended.
Petitioner, at the time General Manager of the agency, opposed.respondents! plan-on the ground that it violated the spirit of the Thomas Amendment, 64 Stat. 768, and expressed his opposition to the Housing Expediter. The Expediter decided against general adoption of the plan, but at respondent Matteo’s request gave permission for its use in connection with approximately fifty employees, including both respondents, on a voluntary basis. Thereafter the life of the agency was in fact extended.
Some two and a half years later, on January 28, 1953, the Office of Rent Stabilization received a letter from Senator John J. Williams of Delaware, inquiring about the terminal-leave payments made under the plan in 1950. Respondent Madigan drafted a reply to the letter, which he did not attempt to bring to the attention of petitioner, and then prepared a reply which he sent to petitioner’s office for his signature as Acting Director of the agency. Petitioner was out.of the office, and a secretary signed the submitted letter, which was then delivered by Madigan to Senator Williams on the morning of February 3, 1953.
On February 4, 1953, Senator Williams delivered a' speech on the floor of the Senate strongly criticizing the plan, stating that “to say the least it is an unjustifiable raid on the Federal Treasury, and heads of every agency in the Government who have condoned this practice should be called to task.”. The letter above referred to was ordered printed in the Congressional Record. Other Senators joined in the attack on the plan. Their comments were widely, reported in the press on February 5, 1953, and petitioner, in his capacity as Acting Director of the agency, received a' large number of inquiries from newspapers and other, news. media as to the agency’s position on the matter. ^
On that day petitioner served upon respondents letters expressing his intention to suspend them from duty, and at the same time ordered issuance by the office of the press release which is the subject of .this litigation, and the text of which appears in the margin.
Respondents sued, charging that the press release, in itself and as coupled with the contemporaneous news reports of senatorial reaction to the plan, defamed them to their injury, and alleging that its publication and terms had been actuated by malice on the part of petitioner. Petitioner defended, inter alia, on the ground that the issuance of the press release was protected by either a qualified or an absolute privilege. The trial court overruled these contentions, and instructed the jury to return a verdict for respondents if fit found the release defamatory. The jury found for respondents.
Petitioner appealed, raising only the issue of absolute privilege. The judgment of the trial court was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, which held that “in explaining his decision [to suspend respondents] to the general public [petitioner] . . . went entirely outside his line of duty” and that thus the absolute privilege, assumed otherwise to be available, did not attach. 100 U. S. App. D. C. 319, 244 F. 2d 767. We granted certiorari, vacated the Court of Appeals’ judgment, and remanded the case “with directions . to pass upon petitioner’s claim of a qualified privilege.” 355 U. S. 171, 173. .On remand the Court of Appeals held that the press release was protected by a qualified privilege, but that there was evidence from which a jury could reasonably conclude that petitioner had acted maliciously, or had spoken with lack of reasonable grounds for believing that his statement was true, and that either conclusion would defeat the qualified privilege. Accordingly it remanded the case to the District Court for retrial. 103 U. S. App. D. C. 176, 256 F. 2d 890. At this point petitioner again sought, and we again granted certiorari, 358 U. S. 917, to determine whether in the circumstances of this case petitioner’s claim of absolute privilege should have stood as a bar to maintenance of the suit despite the allegations of malice made in the complaint.
The law of privilege as a defense by officers of government to civil damage suits for defamation and kindred torts has in large part been of judicial making, although the Constitution itself gives an absolute privilege to members of both Hoiises of Congress in respect to any speech, debate, vote, report, or action doné in session. This Court early held that judges of courts of superior or general authority are absolutely privileged as respects civil suits to recover for actions taken by them in the exercise of their judicial functions, irrespective of the motives with which those acts are alléged to have been performed, Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, and that a. like immunity extends to other officers of government whose duties are related to the judicial process. Yaselli v. Goff, 12 F. 2d 396, aff’d per curiam, 275 U. S. 503, involving a Special Assistant to the Attorney General. Nor has the privilege been confined to officers of the legislative and judicial branches of the Government and executive officers of the kind involved in Yaselli. In Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U. S. 483, petitioner brought suit against the Postmaster General, alleging that the latter had maliciously circulated widely among postmasters, past and present, information which he knew to be false and which was intended to deceive the postmasters to the detriment of the plaintiff. This Court sustained a plea by the Postmaster General of absolute privilege, stating that (498-499):
“In exercising the functions of his office; the head of an Executive Department, keeping within the limits of his authority, should not be under an apprehension that the motives that control his official conduct may, at any time, become the subject of inquiry in a civil suit for damages. It would seriously cripple the proper and effective administration of public affairs as entrusted to the executive branch of the government, if he 'were subjected to any such restraint. He may have legal authority to act, but he may have such large discretion in the premises that it will not always be his absolute duty to exercise the authority with which he is invested. But if he acts, having authority, his conduct cannot be made the foundation of a suit against him personally for damages, even if the circumstances show that he is not disagreeably impressed by the fact that his action injuriously affects the claims of particular individuals.”
The reasons for the recognition of the privilege have been often stated. It has been thought important that officials of government should, be free to exercise their duties unembarrassed by the feap of damage suits in respect of acts done in the course of those duties — suits which would consume time and energies which would otherwise be devoted to governmental service and the threat of which might appreciably inhibit the fearless, vigorous, and effective administration of policies of government. The matter has been admirably expressed by Judge Learned Hand:
“It does indeed go without saying that an official, who is in fact guilty of using his powers to vent his spleen upon others, or for any other personal motive not connected with the public good, should not escape liability for the injuries he may so cause; and, if it were possible in practice to confine such complaints to the guilty, it would be monstrous to deny recovery. The justification for doing so is that it is impossible to know whether the claim is well founded until the case has been tried, and that to submit, all officials, the innocent as well as the guilty, to the burden of a trial and to the inevitable danger of its outcome, would dampen the ardor of all but the. most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties. Again and again the public interest calls for action which may turn out to be founded on a mistake, in the face of which an official may later .find himself hard put to it to satisfy a jury of his good faith. There must indeed be means of punishing public officers who have been truant to their duties; but thai/is quite another matter from exposing such ás have^been honestly mistaken to suit by anyone who has suffered from their errors. As is so often the case, the answer must be found in a balance between the evils inevitable in either alternative. In this instance it has been thought in the end better to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation.....
“The decisions have, indeed, always imposed as a limitation upon, the immunity that the official’s act must have been within the scope of his powers; and' it can be argued that official powers^ since they exist only for the public good, never cover occasions where the public good, is not their aim, and hence that to exercise a power dishonestly is necessarily to overstep its bounds. A moment’s reflection shows, however, that that cannot be the meaning of the limitation without defeating the whole doctrine. What is meant by saying that the officer must be acting .within his power <|annot be more than that the occasion must be such ¿s would have justified the act, if he had been using his power for any of the purposes on whose account it was vested in him. . . .” Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581.
We do not think that the principle announced-iii Vilas can properly be restricted to executive officers of cabinet rank, and in fact it never has been so restricted by thte lower federal courts. The privilege is not a badge or. emolument of exalted office, but an expression of a policy designed to aid in the effective functioning of government. The complexities and magnitude of governmental activity have become so great that there must of necessity be a delegation • and redelegation of authority as to many functions, and we cannot say that these functions become less important simply because they are exercised by officers of lower rank in the executive hierarchy.
To be sure, the occasions upon which the acts of the head of an executive department will be protected by the privilege are jloübtless far broader than in the case of an officer with less sweeping functions. But that is because the higher the post, the broader the range of responsibilities and duties, and the wider the scope, of discretion, it entails. It is not the title of his office but the duties with which the particular officer sought to be made to respond in damages is entrusted — the relation of the. act complained of to “matters committed by law to his control or supervision,” Spalding v. Vilas, supra, at 498 — which must provide the guide in delineating the scope of the rule which clothes the official acts of- the executive officer with immunity from civil defamation suits.
Judged by these standards, we hold that petitioner’s plea of absolute privilege in defense of the alleged libel published at his direction must be sustained. The question is a close one, but we cannot say that it was not an appropriate exercise of the discretion with which an executive officer of petitioner’s rank is necessarily clothed to publish the press release here at issue in the circumstances disclosed by this record. Petitioner was the Acting Director of an important agency of government, and was clothed by redelegation with “all powers, duties, and functions conferred on the President by Title II of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947 . . . .’•’ The integrity of the internal operations of the agency which he headed, and thus his own integrity in his public capacity, had been directly and severely challenged in charges made on the floor of the Senate and given wide publicity; and without his knowledge correspondence which couíd reasonably be read as impliedly defending a position very different from that which he had from the beginning taken in the matter had been sent to a Senator over his signature and incorporated in the Congressional Record. The. issuance of press releases was standard agency practice, as it has become with many governmental agencies in these times. We think that under these circumstances a publicly expressed statement of the position of the agency head, announcing personnel action which he planned to take in reference to the charges so widely disseminated to the public, was an appropriate exercise of the discretion which an officer of that rank must possess if the public service is to function effectively. It would be an unduly restrictive view of the scope of the’duties of a policy-making executive official to hold that a public statement of agency policy in respect to matters of wide public interest , and concern is not action in the line of duty. That petitioner was not required by law or by direction of his superiors to speak out cannot- be controlling in the case of an official, of policy-making rank, for the same considerations which underlie the recognition .of the priv-. ilege as to acts done in connection with a mandatory duty apply with equal force to discretionary acts at those levels of government where the concept of duty encompasses the sound exercise of discretionary authority.
The fact that the action here taken was within the outer perimeter of petitioner’s line of duty is enough to render the privilege applicable, despite the allegations of malice in the complaint, for as this Court has said of legislative privilege:
“The claim of an unworthy purpose does not destroy the privilege. Legislators are immune from deterrents to the uninhibited discharge of their legislative duty, not for their private indulgence but for the public good. One must not expect uncommon courage even in legislators. The privilege would be of little value if they could be subjected to the cost and inconvenience and distractions of a trial upon a conclusion of the pleader, or to the hazard of a judgment against them based upon a jury’s speculation as to motives.” Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U. S. 367, 377.
We are told that we should' forbear from sanctioning any such rule of absolute privilege lest it open the door to wholesale oppression and abuses on the part of unscrupulous government officials. It is perhaps enough to say that fears of this sort have not been realized within the wide area of government where a judicially formulated absolute privilege of broad scope has long existed. It seems to us wholly chimerical to suggest that what hangs in the balance here is the maintenance of high standards of conduct among those in the public service. To be sure, as with any rule of law which attempts to reconcile fundamentally antagonistic social policies, there may be occasional instances of actual injustice which will go unredressed, but we think that price a necessary one to pay for the greater good. And there are of course other sanctions than civil tort suits available to deter the executive official who may be prone to exercise his functions in an unworthy and irresponsible manner. We think that we should not be deterred from establishing the rule which we announce today by any'such remote forebodings.
Reversed.
Petitioner was appointed Acting Director of the agency effective February 9, 1953. On February 5 he occupied that position by designation of the retiring Director, who was absent from the city.
This statute, part of.the General Appropriation Act of 1951, provided' that:
“No part of the funds of, or available for expenditure by any corporation or agency included in this Act, including the government of the District of Columbia,.shall be .available to pay for annual leave accumulated by any civilian officer or employee during the calendar year 1950 and unused at the close of business on June 30, 1951
The General Accounting Office subsequently ruled that the payments were illégal, and respondents were required to return them. Respondent Madigan challenged this determination- in the Court of Claims, which held that the plan was not in violation of law. Madigan v. United States, 142 Ct. Cl. 641.
The-plan was referred to1 by various. Senators as "a highly questionable procedure,” a “raid on the Federal Treasury,” “a conspiracy to defraud the Government of funds,” “a new racket,” and. as “definitely involving] criminal action.” It was suggested that i't might constitute “a conspiracy by the head of an agency to defraud the Government 'of money,” and that “it is highly irregular, if not actually immoral, for the heads of agencies to use any such device . . . .” 99 Cong. Rec. 868-871.
“William G. Barr, Acting Director of Rent Stabilization today served notice of suspension on the two officials of the agency who in June 1950 were responsible for the plan which allowed 53 of the agency’s 2,681 .employees to take their accumulated annual leave in cash.
“Mr. Barr’s appointment as Acting Director becomes effective Monday, February 9, 1953, and the suspension of these employees will be his first act of duty. The employees are John J. Madigan, Deputy Director for Administration, and Linda Matteo, Director of Personnel.
“ ‘In June 1950,’ Mr. Barr stated, ‘my position in the agency was not one of authority which would have permitted me to stop •the action. Furthermore, I did hot know.about it until it was almost completed.
“ ‘When I did learn that certain employees were receiving ■ cash annual leave settlements and being returned to agency employment on a temporary basis, I specifically notified the employees under my supervision that if they applied for such cash settlements I would demand their resignations and the record will show that my immediate employees complied with my request.
“ 'While I was advised that the action was legal, I took the position that it violated the spirit of the Thomas Amendment and I violently opposed it. Monday, February -9th, when my appointment as Acting Director becomes effective, will be the first time my position in the agency has permitted me to take any action on this matter, and-the suspension of these employees will be the first official act I shall take.’
“Mr. Barr also revealed that he has written to Senator Joseph McCarthy, Chairman of the Committee on Government Operations, and to Representative John Phillips, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Independent Offices Appropriations, requesting an opportunity to be heard on the entire matter.”
U. S. Const., Art. I, § 6. See Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U. S. 168.
See also Cooper v. O’Connor, 69 App. D. C. 100, 99 F. 2d 135;compare Brown v. Shimabukuro, 73 App. D. C. 194, 118 F. 2d 17.
The communication in Spalding v. Vilas was not distributed to the general public, but only to a particular segment thereof which had a special interest in the subject matter. • Statements issued at the direction of Cabinet officers and disseminated to the press in the form of press releases have- also been accorded' an absolute privilege, so long as their contents and the occasion for their issuance relate to the- duties and functions of the particular department. Mellon v. Brewer, 57 App. D. C. 126, 18 F. 2d 168; Glass v. Ickes, 73 App. D. C. 3, 117 F. 2d 273.
As to suits for defamation see, e. g., Taylor v. Glotfelty, 201 F. 2d 51; Smith v. O’Brien, 66 App. D. C. 387, 88 F. 2d 769; De Arnaud v. Ainsworth, 24 App. D. C. 167; Farr v. Valentine, 38 App. D. C. 413; United States to use of Parravicino v. Brunswick, 63 App. D. C. 65, 69 F. 2d 383; Carson v. Behlen, 136 F. Supp. 222; Tinkoff v. Campbell, 86 F. Supp. 331; Miles v. McGrath, 4 F. Supp. 603. See also, as to other torts, Jones v. Kennedy, 73 App. D. C. 292, 121 F. 2d 40; Adams v. Home Owners’ Loan Corp., 107 F. 2d 139; Gregoire v. Biddle, supra; De Busk v. Harvin, 212 F. 2d 143; Lang v. Wood, 67 App. D. C. 287, 92 F. 2d 211.
See the striking description in Cummings and McFarland, Federal Justice (1937), pp. 80-81, quoted in Cooper v. O’Connor, supra, 69 App. D. C. 100, 107, 99 F. 2d 135, 142, n. 28, of the-office of Attorney General of the United States in the' early days of the Republic:
“Not only were there no records but the government provided - neither an office nor clerical assistance. As far back as December 1791, Attorney General Randolph, through President Washington, without success had urged Congress to provide á clerk. President Madison, when it became evident that residence at Washington had greatly increased the Attorney General’s labor, in 1816 urged that he be supplied with ‘the usual appurtenances to a public office.’ A bill to provide offices and a clerk came to the Senate floor on January 10, 1817. . . . Thirty years had passed since the federal government was first organized. Now, Congress-provided offices in the Treasury and a clerk at $1,000 a year, with an additional small contingent fund of $500 for such essentials as stationery, fuel, and ‘a boy to attend the menial duties.’ ”
The record indicates that in 1950 the Office of Housing Expediter had some 2,500 employees.
61 Stat. 193.' See 16 Fed.-Reg. 7630.
Compare United States v. Macdaniel, 7 Pet. 1, 14; United States v. Birdsall, 233 U. S. 223, 230-231.
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is well settled under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments that a search conducted without a warrant issued upon probable cause is “per se unreasonable... subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions.” Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347, 357; Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U. S. 443, 454-455; Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42, 51. It is equally well settled that one of the specifically established exceptions to the requirements of both a warrant and probable cause is a search that is conducted pursuant to consent. Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, 593-594; Zap v. United States, 328 U. S. 624, 630. The constitutional question in the present case concerns the definition of “consent” in this Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment context.
I
The respondent was brought to trial in a California court upon a charge of possessing a check with intent to defraud. He moved to suppress the introduction of certain material as evidence against him on the ground that the material had been acquired through an unconstitutional search and seizure. In response to the motion, the trial judge conducted an evidentiary hearing where it was established that the material in question had been acquired by the State under the following circumstances:
While on routine patrol in Sunnyvale, California, at approximately 2:40 in the morning, Police Officer James Rand stopped an automobile when he observed that one headlight and its license plate light were burned out. Six men were in the vehicle. Joe Alcala and the respondent, Robert Bustamonte, were in the front seat with Joe Gonzales, the driver. Three older men were seated in the rear. When, in response to the policeman's question, Gonzales could not produce a driver’s license, Officer Rand asked if any of thé other five had any evidence of identification. Only Alcala produced a license, and he explained that the car was his brother’s. After the six occupants had stepped out of the car at the officer’s request and after two additional policemen had arrived, Officer Rand asked Alcala if he could search the car. Alcala replied, “Sure, go ahead.” Prior to the search no one was threatened with arrest and, according to Officer Rand’s uncontradicted testimony, it “was all very congenial at this time.” Gonzales testified that Alcala actually helped in the search of the car, by opening the trunk and glove compartment. In Gonzales’ words: “[T]he police officer asked Joe [Alcala], he goes, 'Does the trunk open?’ And Joe said, 'Yes.’ He went to the car and got the keys and opened up the trunk.” Wadded up under the left rear seat, the police officers found three checks that had previously been stolen from a car wash.
The trial judge denied the motion to suppress, and the checks in question were admitted in evidence ar Bustamonte’s trial. On the basis of this and other evidence he was convicted, and the California Court of Appeal for the First Appellate District affirmed the conviction. 270 Cal. App. 2d 648, 76 Cal. Rptr. 17. In agreeing that the search and seizure were constitutionally valid, the appellate court applied the standard earlier formulated by the Supreme Court of California in an opinion by then Justice Traynor: “Whether in a particular case an apparent consent was in fact voluntarily given or was in submission to an express or implied assertion of authority, is a question of fact to be determined in the light of all the circumstances.” People v. Michael, 45 Cal. 2d 751, 753, 290 P. 2d 852, 854. The appellate court-found that “[i]n the instant case the prosecution met the necessary burden of showing consent... since there were clearly circumstances from which the trial court could ascertain that consent had been freely given without coercion or submission to authority. Not only officer Rand, but Gonzales, the driver of the automobile, testified that Alcala’s assent to the search of his brother’s automobile was freely, even casually given. At the time of the request to search the automobile the atmosphere, according to Rand, was ‘congenial’ and there had been no discussion of any crime. As noted, Gonzales said Alcala even attempted to aid in the search.” 270 Cal. App. 2d, at 652, 76 Cal. Rptr., at 20. The California Supreme Court denied review.
Thereafter, the respondent sought a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court. It was denied. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, relying on its prior decisions in Ciprés v. United States, 343 F. 2d 95, and Schoepflin v. United States, 391 F. 2d 390, set aside the District Court’s order. 448 F. 2d 699. The appellate court reasoned that a consent was a waiver of a person’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and that the State was under an obligation to demonstrate, not only that the consent had been uncoerced, but that it had been given with an understanding that it could be freely and effectively withheld. Consent could not be found, the court held, solely from the absence of coercion and a verbal expression of assent. Since the District Court had not determined that Alcala had known that his consent could have been withheld and that he could have refused to have his vehicle searched, the Court of Appeals vacated the order denying the writ and remanded the case for further proceedings. We granted certiorari to determine whether the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require the showing thought necessary by the Court of Appeals. 405 U. S. 953.
II
It is important to make it clear at the outset what is not involved in this case. The respondent concedes that a search conducted pursuant to a valid consent is constitutionally permissible. In Katz v. United States, 389 U. S., at 358, and more recently in Vale v. Louisiana, 399 U. S. 30, 35, we recognized that a search authorized by consent is wholly valid. See also Davis v. United States, 328 U. S., at 593-594; Zap v. United States, 328 U. S., at 630. And similarly the State concedes that “[w]hen a prosecutor seeks to rely upon consent to justify the lawfulness of a search, he has the burden of proving that the consent was, in fact, freely and voluntarily given.” Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S. 543, 548. See also Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313.
The precise question in this case, then, is what must the prosecution prove to demonstrate that a consent was “voluntarily” given. And upon that question there is a square conflict of views between the state and federal courts that have reviewed the search involved in the case before us. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that it is an essential part of the State’s initial burden to prove that a person knows he has a right to refuse consent. The California courts have followed the rule that voluntariness is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances, and that the state of a defendant’s knowledge is only one factor to be taken into account in assessing the voluntariness of a consent. See, e. g., People v. Tremayne, 20 Cal. App. 3d 1006, 98 Cal. Rptr. 193; People v. Roberts, 246 Cal. App. 2d 715, 55 Cal. Rptr. 62.
A
The most extensive judicial exposition of the meaning of “voluntariness” has been developed in those cases in which the Court has had to determine the “voluntariness” of a defendant’s confession for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment. Almost 40 years ago, in Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, the Court held that a criminal conviction based upon a confession obtained by brutality and violence was constitutionally invalid under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In some 30 different cases decided during the era that intervened between Brown and Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S. 478, the Court was faced with the necessity of determining whether in fact the confessions in issue had been “voluntarily” given. It is to that body of case law to which we turn for initial guidance on the meaning of “voluntariness” in the present context.
Those cases yield no talismanic definition of “volun-tariness,” mechanically applicable to the host of situations where the question has arisen. “The notion of ‘voluntariness,’ ” Mr. Justice Frankfurter once wrote, “is itself an amphibian.” Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U. S. 568, 604-605. It cannot be taken literally to mean a “knowing” choice. “Except where a person is unconscious or drugged or otherwise lacks capacity for conscious choice, all incriminating statements — even those made under brutal treatment — are ‘voluntary’ in the sense of representing a choice of alternatives. On the other hand, if ‘voluntariness’ incorporates notions of ‘but-for’ cause, the question should be whether the statement would have been made even absent inquiry or other official action. Under such a test, virtually no statement would be voluntary because very few people give incriminating statements in the absence of official action of some kind.” It is thus evident that neither linguistics nor epistemology will provide a ready definition of the meaning of “voluntariness.”
Rather, “voluntariness” has reflected an accommodation of the complex of values implicated in police questioning of a suspect. At one end of the spectrum is the acknowledged need for police questioning as a tool for the effective enforcement of criminal laws. See Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, at 578-580. Without such investigation, those who were innocent might be falsely accused, those who were guilty might wholly escape prosecution, and many crimes would go unsolved. In short, the security of all would be diminished. Haynes v. Washington, 373 U. S. 503, 515. At the other end of the spectrum is the set of values reflecting society’s deeply felt belief that the criminal law cannot be used as an instrument of unfairness, and that the possibility of unfair and even brutal police tactics poses a real and serious threat to civilized notions of justice. “[I]n cases involving involuntary confessions, this Court enforces the strongly felt attitude of our society that important human values are sacrificed where an agency of the government, in the course of securing a conviction, wrings a confession out of an accused against his will.” Blackburn v. Alabama, 361 U. S. 199, 206-207. See also Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, at 581-584; Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, 235-238.
This Court’s decisions reflect a frank recognition that the Constitution requires the sacrifice of neither security nor liberty. The Due Process Clause does not mandate that the police forgo all questioning, or that they be given carte blanche to extract what they can from a suspect. “The ultimate test remains that which has been the only clearly established test in Anglo-American courts for two hundred years: the test of voluntariness. Is the confession the product of an essentially free and unconstrained choice by its maker? If it is, if he has willed to confess, it may be used against him. If it is not, if his will has been overborne and his capacity for self-determination critically impaired, the use of his confession offends due process.” Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, at 602.
In determining whether a defendant’s will was overborne in a particular case, the Court has assessed the totality of all the surrounding circumstances — both the characteristics of the accused and the details of the interrogation. Some of the factors taken into account have included the youth of the accused, e. g., Haley v. Ohio, 332 U. S. 596; his lack of education, e. g., Payne v. Arkansas, 356 U. S. 560; or his low intelligence, e. g., Fikes v. Alabama, 352 U. S. 191; the lack of any advice to the accused of his constitutional rights, e. g., Davis v. North Carolina, 384 U. S. 737; the length of detention, e. g., Chambers v. Florida, supra; the repeated and prolonged nature of the questioning, e. g., Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143; and the use of physical punishment such as the deprivation of food or sleep, e. g., Reck v. Pate, 367 U. S. 433. In all of these cases, the Court determined the factual circumstances surrounding the confession, assessed the psychological impact on the accused, and evaluated the legal significance of how the accused reacted. Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, at 603.
The significant fact about all of these decisions is that none of them turned on the presence or absence of a single controlling criterion; each reflected a careful scrutiny of all the surrounding circumstances. See Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 508 (Harlan, J., dissenting) ; id., at 534-535 (White, J., dissenting). In none of them did the Court rule that the Due Process Clause required the prosecution to prove as part of its initial burden that the defendant knew he had a right to refuse to answer the questions that were put. While the state of the accused's mind, and the failure of the police to advise the accused of his rights, were certainly factors to be evaluated in assessing the “voluntariness” of an accused's responses, they were not in and of themselves determinative. See, e. g., Davis v. North Carolina, supra; Haynes v. Washington, supra, at 510-511; Culombe v. Connecticut, supra, at 610; Turner v. Pennsylvania, 338 U. S. 62, 64.
B
Similar considerations lead us to agree with the courts of California that the question whether a consent to a search was in fact “voluntary” or was the product of duress or coercion, express or implied, is a question of fact to be determined from the totality of all the circumstances. While knowledge of the right to refuse consent is one factor to be taken into account, the government need not establish such knowledge as the sine qua non of an effective consent. As with police questioning, two competing concerns must be accommodated in determining the meaning of a “voluntary” consent — the legitimate need for such searches and the equally important requirement of assuring the absence of coercion.
In situations where the police have some evidence of illicit activity, but lack probable cause to arrest or search, a search authorized by a valid consent may be the only means of obtaining important and reliable evidence. In the present case for example, while the police had reason to stop the car for traffic violations, the State does not contend that there was probable cause to search the vehicle or that the search was incident to a valid arrest of any of the occupants. Yet, the search yielded tangible evidence that served as a basis for a prosecution, and provided some assurance that others, wholly innocent of the crime, were not mistakenly brought to trial. And in those cases where there is probable cause to arrest or search, but where the police lack a warrant, a consent search may still be valuable. If the search is conducted and proves fruitless, that in itself may convince the police that an arrest with its possible stigma and embarrassment is unnecessary, or that a far more extensive search pursuant to a warrant is not justified. In short, a search pursuant to consent may result in considerably less inconvenience for the subject of the search, and, properly conducted, is a constitutionally permissible and wholly legitimate aspect of effective police activity.
But the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments require that a consent not be coerced, by explicit or implicit means, by implied threat.or covert force. For, no matter how subtly the coercion was applied, the resulting “consent” would be no more than a pretext for the unjustified police intrusion against which the Fourth Amendment is directed. In the words of the classic admonition in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 635:
“It may be that it is the obnoxious thing in its mildest and least repulsive form; but illegitimate and unconstitutional practices get their first footing in that way, namely, by silent approaches and slight deviations from legal modes of procedure. This can only be obviated by adhering to the rule that constitutional provisions for the security of person and property should be liberally construed. A close and literal construction deprives them of half their efficacy, and leads to gradual depreciation of the right, as if it consisted more in sound than in substance. It is the duty of courts to be watchful for the constitutional rights of the citizen, and against any stealthy encroachments thereon.”
The problem of reconciling the recognized legitimacy of consent searches with the requirement that they be free from any aspect of official coercion cannot be resolved by any infallible touchstone. To approve such searches without the most careful scrutiny would sanction the possibility of official coercion; to place artificial restrictions upon such searches would jeopardize their basic validity. Just as was true with confessions, the requirement of a “voluntary” consent reflects a fair accommodation of the constitutional requirements involved. In examining all the surrounding circumstances to determine if in fact the consent to search was coerced, account must be taken of subtly coercive police questions, as well as the possibly vulnerable subjective state of the person who consents. Those searches that are the product of police coercion can thus be filtered out without undermining the continuing validity of consent searches. In sum, there is no reason for us to depart in the area of consent searches, from the traditional definition of “voluntariness.”
The approach of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit finds no support in any of our decisions that have attempted to define the meaning of “voluntariness.” Its ruling, that the State must affirmatively prove that the subject of the search knew that he had a right to refuse consent, would, in practice, create serious doubt whether consent searches could continue to be conducted. There might be rare cases where it could be proved from the record that a person in fact affirmatively knew of his right to refuse — such as a case where he announced to the police that if he didn't sign the consent form, “you [police] are going to get a search warrant;” or a case where by prior experience and training a person had clearly and convincingly demonstrated such knowledge. But more commonly where there was no evidence of any coercion, explicit or implicit, the prosecution would nevertheless be unable to demonstrate that the subject of the search in fact had known of his right to refuse consent.
The very object of the inquiry — the nature of a person's subjective understanding — underlines the difficulty of the prosecution's burden under the rule applied by the Court of Appeals in this case. Any defendant who was the subject of a search authorized solely by his consent could effectively frustrate the introduction into evidence of the fruits of that search by simply failing to testify that he in fact knew he could refuse to consent. And the near impossibility of meeting this prosecutorial burden suggests why this Court has never accepted any such litmus-paper test of voluntariness. It is instructive to recall the fears of then Justice Traynor of the California Supreme Court:
“[I]t is not unreasonable for officers to seek interviews with suspects or witnesses or to call upon them at their homes for such purposes. Such inquiries, although courteously made and not accompanied with any assertion of a right to enter or search or secure answers, would permit the criminal to defeat his prosecution by voluntarily revealing all of the evidence against him and then contending that he acted only in response to an implied assertion of unlawful authority.” People v. Michael, 45 Cal. 2d, at 754, 290 P. 2d, at 854.
One alternative that would go far toward proving that the subject of a search did know he had a right to refuse consent would be to advise him of that right before eliciting his consent. That, however, is a suggestion that has been almost universally repudiated by both federal and state courts, and, we think, rightly so. For it would be thoroughly impractical to impose on the normal consent search the detailed requirements of an effective warning. Consent searches are part of the standard investigatory techniques of law enforcement agencies. They normally occur on the highway, or in a person’s home or office, and under informal and unstructured conditions. The circumstances that prompt the initial request to search may develop quickly or be a logical extension of investigative police questioning. The police may seek to investigate further suspicious circumstances or to follow up leads developed in questioning persons at the scene of a crime. These situations are a far cry from the structured atmosphere of a trial where, assisted by counsel if he chooses, a defendant is informed of his trial rights. Cf. Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, 243. And, while surely a closer question, these situations are still immeasurably far removed from “custodial interrogation” where, in Miranda v. Arizona, supra, we found that the Constitution required certain now familiar warnings as a prerequisite to police interrogation. Indeed, in language applicable to the typical consent search, we refused to extend the need for warnings:
“Our decision is not intended to hamper the traditional function of police officers in investigating crime.... When an individual is in custody on probable cause, the police may, of course, seek out evidence in the field to be used at trial against him. Such investigation may include inquiry of persons not under restraint. General on-the-scene questioning as to facts surrounding a crime or other general questioning of citizens in the fact-finding process is not affected by our holding. It is an act of responsible citizenship for individuals to give whatever information they may have to aid in law enforcement.” 384 U. S., at 477-478.
Consequently, we cannot accept the position of the Court of Appeals in this case that proof of knowledge of the right to refuse consent is a necessary prerequisite to demonstrating a “voluntary” consent. Rather, it is only by analyzing all the circumstances of an individual consent that it can be ascertained whether in fact it was voluntary or coerced. It is this careful sifting of the unique facts and circumstances of each case that is evidenced in our prior decisions involving consent searches.
For example, in Davis v. United States, 328 U. S. 582, federal agents enforcing wartime gasoline-rationing regulations, arrested a filling station operator and asked to see his rationing coupons. He eventually unlocked a room where the agents discovered the coupons that formed the basis for his conviction. The District Court found that the petitioner had consented to the search — that although he had at first refused to turn the coupons over, he had soon been persuaded to do so and that force or threat of force had not been employed to persuade him. Concluding that it could not be said that this finding was erroneous, this Court, in an opinion by Mr. Justice Douglas that looked to all the circumstances surrounding the consent, affirmed the judgment of conviction: “The public character of the property, the fact that the demand was made during business hours at the place of business where the coupons were required to be kept, the existence of the right to inspect, the nature of the request, the fact that the initial refusal to turn the coupons over was soon followed by acquiescence in the demand — these circumstances all support the conclusion of the District Court.” Id., at 593-594. See also Zap v. United States, 328 U. S. 624.
Conversely, if under all the circumstances it has appeared that the consent was not given voluntarily — that it was coerced by threats or force, or granted only in submission to a claim of lawful authority — then we have found the consent invalid and the search unreasonable. See, e. g., Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U. S., at 548-549; Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10; Amos v. United States, 255 U. S. 313. In Bumper, a 66-year-old Negro widow, who lived in a house located in a rural area at the end of an isolated mile-long dirt road, allowed four white law enforcement officials to search her home after they asserted they had a warrant to search the house. We held the alleged consent to be invalid, noting that “[w]hen a law enforcement officer claims authority to search a home under a warrant, he announces in effect that the occupant has no right to resist the search. The situation is instinct with coercion — albeit colorably lawful coercion. Where there is coercion there cannot be consent.” 391 U. S., at 550.
Implicit in all of these cases is the recognition that knowledge of a right to refuse is not a prerequisite of a voluntary consent. If the prosecution were required to demonstrate such knowledge, Davis and Zap could not have found consent without evidence of that knowledge. And similarly if the failure to prove such knowledge were sufficient to show an ineffective consent, the Amos, Johnson, and Bumper opinions would surely have focused upon the subjective mental state of the person who consented. Yet they did not.
In short, neither this Court’s prior cases, nor the traditional definition of “voluntariness” requires proof of knowledge of a right to refuse as the sine qua non of an effective consent to a search.
c
It is said, however, that a “consent” is a “waiver” of a person’s rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The argument is that by allowing the police to conduct a search, a person “waives” whatever right he had to prevent the police from searching. It is argued that under the doctrine of Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 464, to establish such a “waiver” the State must demonstrate “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.”
But these standards were enunciated in Johnson in the context of the safeguards of a fair criminal trial. Our cases do not reflect an uncritical demand for a knowing and intelligent waiver in every situation where a person has failed to invoke a constitutional protection. As Mr. Justice Black once observed for the Court: “ 'Waiver’ is a vague term used for a great variety of purposes, good and bad, in the law.” Green v. United States, 355 U. S. 184, 191. With respect to procedural due process, for example, the Court has acknowledged that waiver is possible, while explicitly leaving open the question whether a “knowing and intelligent” waiver need be shown. See D. H. Overmyer Co. v. Frick Co., 405 U. S. 174, 185-186; Fuentes v. Shevin, 407 TJ. S. 67, 9A-96.
The requirement of a “knowing” and “intelligent” waiver was articulated in a case involving the validity of a defendant’s decision to forgo a right constitutionally guaranteed to protect a fair trial and the reliability of the truth-determining process. Johnson v. Zerbst, supra, dealt with the denial of counsel in a federal criminal trial. There the Court held that under the Sixth Amendment a criminal defendant is entitled to the assistance of counsel, and that if he lacks sufficient funds to retain counsel, it is the Government’s obligation to furnish him with a lawyer. As Mr. Justice Black wrote for the Court: “The Sixth Amendment stands as a constant admonition that if the constitutional safeguards it provides be lost, justice will not ‘still be done.’ It embodies a realistic recognition of the obvious truth that the average defendant does not have the professional legal skill to protect himself when brought before a tribunal with power to take his life or liberty, wherein the prosecution is presented by experienced and learned counsel. That which is simple, orderly and necessary to the lawyer, to the untrained layman may appear intricate, complex and mysterious.” 304 TJ. S., at 462-463 (footnote omitted). To preserve the fairness of the trial process the Court established an appropriately heavy burden on the Government before waiver could be found — “an intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right or privilege.” Id., at 464.
Almost without exception, the requirement of a knowing and intelligent waiver has been applied only to those rights which the Constitution guarantees to a criminal defendant in order to preserve a fair trial. Hence, and hardly surprisingly in view of the facts of Johnson itself, the standard of a knowing and intelligent waiver has most often been applied to test the validity of a waiver of counsel, either at trial, or upon a guilty plea. And the Court has also applied the Johnson criteria to assess the effectiveness of a waiver of other trial rights such as the right to confrontation, to a jury trial, and to a speedy trial, and the right to be free from twice being placed in jeopardy. Guilty pleas have been carefully scrutinized to determine whether the accused knew and understood all the rights to which he would be entitled at trial, and that he had intentionally chosen to forgo them. And the Court has evaluated the knowing and intelligent nature of the waiver of trial rights in trial-type situations, such as the waiver of the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination before an administrative agency or a congressional committee, or the waiver of counsel in a juvenile proceeding.
The guarantees afforded a criminal defendant at trial also protect him at certain stages before the actual trial, and any alleged waiver must meet the strict standard of an intentional relinquishment of a “known” right. But the “trial” guarantees that have been applied to the “pretrial” stage of the criminal process are similarly designed to protect the fairness of the trial itself.
Hence, in United States v. Wade, 388 U. S. 218, and Gilbert v. California, 388 U. S. 263, the Court held “that a post-indictment pretrial lineup at which the accused is exhibited to identifying witnesses is a critical stage of the criminal prosecution; that police conduct of such a lineup without notice to and in the absence of his counsel denies the accused his Sixth [and Fourteenth] Amendment right to counsel... Id., at 272. Accordingly, the Court indicated that the standard of a knowing and intelligent waiver must be applied to test the waiver of counsel at such a lineup. See United States v. Wade, supra, at 237. The Court stressed the necessary interrelationship between the presence of counsel at a post-indictment lineup before trial and the protection of the trial process itself:
“Insofar as the accused's conviction may rest on a courtroom identification in fact the fruit of a suspect pretrial identification which the accused is helpless to subject to effective scrutiny at trial, the accused is deprived of that right of cross-examination which is an essential safeguard to his right to confront the witnesses against him. Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400. And even though cross-examination is a precious safeguard to a fair trial, it cannot be viewed as an absolute assurance of accuracy and reliability. Thus in the present context, where so many variables and pitfalls exist, the first line of defense must be the prevention of unfairness and the lessening of the hazards of eyewitness identification at the lineup itself. The trial which might determine the accused’s fate may well not be that in the courtroom but that at the pretrial confrontation, with the State aligned against the accused, the witness the sole jury, and the accused unprotected against the overreaching, intentional or unintentional, and with little or no effective appeal from the judgment there rendered by the witness — ‘that's the man.’ ” Id., at 235-236.
And in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, the Court found that custodial interrogation by the police was inherently coercive, and consequently held that detailed warnings were required to protect the privilege against compulsory self-incrimination. The Court made it clear that the basis for decision was the need to protect the fairness of the trial itself:
“That counsel is present when statements are taken from an individual during interrogation obviously enhances the integrity of the fact-finding processes in court. The presence of an attorney, and the warnings delivered to the individual, enable the defendant under otherwise compelling circumstances to tell his story without fear, effectively, and in a way that eliminates the evils in the interrogation process. Without the protections flowing from adequate warnings and the rights of counsel, ‘all the careful safeguards erected around the giving of testimony, whether by an accused or any other witness, would become empty formalities in a procedure where the most compelling possible evidence of guilt, a confession, would have already been obtained at the unsupervised pleasure of the police.’ ” Id., at 466.
The standards of Johnson were, therefore, found to be a necessary prerequisite to a finding of a valid waiver. See 384 U. S., at 475-479. Cf. Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U. S., at 490 n. 14.
There is a vast difference between those rights that protect a fair criminal trial and the rights guaranteed under the Fourth Amendment. Nothing, either in the purposes behind requiring a “knowing” and “intelligent” waiver of trial rights, or in the practical application of such a requirement suggests that it ought to be extended to the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.
A strict standard of waiver has been applied to those rights guaranteed to a criminal defendant to insure that he will be accorded the greatest possible opportunity to utilize every facet of the constitutional model of a fair criminal trial. Any trial conducted in derogation of that model leaves open the possibility that the trial reached an unfair result precisely because all the protections specified in the Constitution were not provided. A prime example is the right to counsel. For without that right, a wholly innocent accused faces the real and substantial danger that simply because of his lack of legal expertise he may be convicted. As Mr. Justice Harlan once wrote: “The sound reason why [the right to counsel] is so freely extended for a criminal trial is the severe injustice risked by confronting an untrained defendant with a range of technical points of law, evidence, and tactics familiar to the prosecutor but not to himself.” Miranda v. Arizona, supra, at 514 (dissenting opinion). The Constitution requires that every effort be made to see to it that a defendant in a criminal case has not unknowingly relinquished the basic protections that the Framers thought indispensable to a fair trial.
The protections of the Fourth Amendment are of a wholly different order, and have nothing whatever to do with promoting the fair ascertainment of truth at a criminal trial. Rather, as Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s opinion for the Court put it in Wolf v. Colorado,, 338 U. S. 25, 27, the Fourth Amendment protects the “security of one’s privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police....” In declining to apply the exclusionary rule of Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, to convictions that had become final before rendition of that decision, the Court emphasized that “there is no likelihood of unreliability or coercion present in a search-and-seizure case,” Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U. S. 618, 638. In Link-letter, the Court indicated that those cases that had been given retroactive effect went to “the fairness of the trial — the very integrity of the fact-finding process. Here... the fairness of the trial is not under attack.” Id., at 639. The Fourth Amendment “is not an adjunct to the ascertainment of truth.” The guarantees of the Fourth Amendment stand “as a protection of quite different constitutional values — values reflecting the concern of our society for the right of each individual to be let alone. To recognize this is no more than to accord those values undiluted
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Numbers 11 and 15 are cross appeals from Clark v. Manufacturers Trust Co., 169 F. 2d 932 (C. A. 2d Cir.). Certiorari was granted in No. 11, on petition of the Custodian, to resolve a conflict between the judgment below and that in Clark v. Lavino & Co., 175 F. 2d 897 (C. A. 3d Cir.). The conflict is confined to the Custodian’s claim to the allowance of interest, in his favor, in a summary proceeding under § 17 of the Trading with the Enemy Act. He claims interest from the date that his Turnover Directive was served upon the Manufacturers Trust Company, here referred to as the bank, and computes such interest upon the sum which he ordered turned over. For the reasons hereinafter stated, we agree with the judgment below in its denial of interest. We granted certiorari also on the cross appeal of the bank in No. 15. This was to enable us to reexamine the pleadings and, if they were found to permit it, to consider the bank’s claim that the District Court lacked authority to order it to turn over to the Custodian the principal sum in question, in the face of the bank’s denial of its indebtedness to the enemy creditor for that sum, its claim of a setoff in excess of the alleged debt, and its claim to a lien upon the proceeds of the debt. We find that the record does not permit us to reach that issue.
February 1, 1946, the Custodian issued his Vesting Order No. 5791, 11 Fed. Reg. 3005, under authority of
§ 5 (b) of the Trading with the Enemy Act, vesting himself with the following described “property”:
“That certain debt or other obligation owing to Deutsche Reichsbank, by Manufacturers Trust Company, 55 Broad Street, New York, New York, arising out of a dollar account, entitled Reichsbank Direktorium Divisen Abteilung, and any and all rights to demand, enforce and collect the same, . . .
January 30, 1947, the Custodian served on the bank his Turnover Directive based upon his Vesting Order and thereby directed that the sum of $25,581.49, “together with all accumulations to and increments thereon, shall forthwith be turned over to the undersigned [the Custodian] to be held, used, administered, liquidated, sold or otherwise dealt with in the interest of and for the benefit of the United States.”
October 29, 1947, the Custodian filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York his petition against the bank seeking summary enforcement of his order under § 17 of the Act, supra. November 13, 1947, the bank answered.
December 12, 1947, the District Court, without opinion, directed the bank to pay to the Custodian $25,581.49, plus interest at 6% per annum from January 80, 1947. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck out the interest but otherwise affirmed the judgment. One judge said he would have preferred to limit that court’s holding to the point that the answer did not allege a sufficiently unequivocal claim to a setoff to raise that defense. Another dissented from the denial of interest. Petitions for certiorari were denied to both parties, January 17, 1949. 335 U. S. 910.
June 16, 1949, the Custodian asked leave to file a petition for rehearing and for a writ of certiorari on the ground that, on June 1, 1949, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had decided Clark v. Lavino & Co., supra, in which it had expressly allowed interest to the Custodian under circumstances largely comparable to those in the case below. The bank asked leave to present its contentions should the Custodian’s petition for certiorari be granted. All applications were granted. 337 U. S. 953.
I.
The Trading with the Enemy Act is a war measure. It creates powerful and swift executive and summary procedures particularly for the seizure of the property of enemies by legal process as an effective alternative to seizure by military force. The Act expressly provides for the seizure of enemy-held claims to money owed on debts. Kohn v. Jacob & Josef Kohn, Inc., 264 F. 253 (S. D. N. Y.). Special proceedings are provided to try the merits of claims to property seized in such summary possessory procedures. The present action is a summary possessory proceeding under § 17. Section 16, which has accompanied § 17 in the Act since 1917, prescribes fines, sentences and forfeitures as special sanctions to punish willful violations of vesting orders or turnover directives as follows:
“That whoever shall willfully violate any of the provisions of this Act or of any license, rule, or regulation issued thereunder, and whoever shall willfully violate, neglect, or refuse to comply with any order of the President issued in compliance with the provisions of this Act shall, upon conviction, be fined not more than $10,000, or, if a natural person, imprisoned for not more than ten years, or both; and the officer, director, or agent of any corporation who knowingly participates in such violation shall be punished by a like fine, imprisonment, or both, and any property, funds, securities, papers, or other articles or documents, . . . concerned in such violation shall be forfeited to the United States.” 40 Stat. 425,50 U. S. C. App. § 16.
The Act makes no mention of interest charges in connection with the enforcement of these summary procedures. We recognize that, in the absence of express statutory provision for it, interest sometimes has been allowed in favor of the Government under other statutes when the Government’s position has been primarily that of a creditor collecting from a debtor. See Rodgers v. United States, 332 U. S. 371, 373, in which the rule was stated and interest disallowed. In the present case, however, we are not dealing with interest accruing to the Government upon contractual indebtedness or upon indebtedness such as that arising out of customs duties or taxes. We have here quite a different matter, the violation of a summary order of the Alien Property Custodian to turn over to him the physical possession of certain funds as a protective war measure. The Turnover Directive in the instant case is, in its essence, the same kind of an order as would have been issued to compel the delivery to the Custodian of the physical possession of a $25,000 bond owned by the Deutsche Reichsbank but held by the Manufacturers Trust Company in the latter’s safe-deposit vaults. Statutory fines, sentences and forfeitures are prescribed for willful violation of such an order and, in the case of the bond, it is obvious that there would be no basis for the addition of an interest charge, computed at a statutory or judicially determined rate on the face or estimated value of the bond and running merely from the date of the Turnover Directive. Similarly, we find no basis for adding such an interest charge in the instant case.
No claim of the Custodian for any interest accruing under the terms of the agreement of deposit is before us. The Custodian, in his Turnover Directive and in his petition, called for the delivery to him of the $25,581.49 owing to Deutsche Reichsbank on the date of the Vesting Order, February 1, 1946, together with all accumulations and increments thereon since that date. He made no showing of a contractual basis for any additions to such principal sum and, accordingly, judgment was rendered for the delivery to him of precisely $25,581.49, and no claim is made here that such sum is not the correct total amount of the indebtedness. The District Court, however, also ordered the bank to turn over to the Custodian 6% interest on $25,581.49 from January 30, 1947. This additional item reflected no terms of the deposit agreement. Whatever those terms may have been, they had not changed since February 1, 1946, so that any possible basis for the 6% interest from January 30, 1947, must be sought in the Trading with the Enemy Act. We find no authority in that Act for a 6% rate or for any other rate of coercive interest to be added as an incident to a summary order for the transfer of possession of funds. Accordingly, in No. 11, we affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, which omitted the interest.
II.
In No. 15, the parties have discussed several questions which would have been presented if the answer had contained a denial of the alleged debt, an unequivocal plea of setoff, or a claim of a lien upon the Deutsche Reichsbank’s interest in the debt or in its proceeds. The answer, however, did not present those issues and we do not consider them. When read as a whole, the answer did not deny the existence of the credit balance of $25,581.49 which the Custodian claimed was on deposit and which was the subject of the Custodian’s Vesting Order. Nor did it unequivocally assert a setoff. Instead, the answering bank alleged, on information and belief, that an offsetting indebtedness of the Deutsche Reichsbank to it arose from the fact that the Deutsche Reichsbank was an instrumentality and part of the German Government, that the German Government had guaranteed to the answering bank the payment to it of the debts of various German banks, and that, on the date of the Vesting Order, the indebtedness of said German banks to the answering bank was in excess of $25,581.49. Those allegations did not state that the Deutsche Reichsbank was such an instrumentality and such a part of the German Government as would make the Reichsbank automatically the guarantor of the debts of other German banks to the answering bank. The answer did not even allege the status of the guaranteed debts to be such as to entitle the answering bank to resort to the alleged guaranty of their payment by the Deutsche Reichsbank. The bank’s claim to a lien upon the deposit depended, likewise, upon the inadequately alleged indebtedness of the Deutsche Reichsbank to it.
For the foregoing reasons the judgment in No. 11 is affirmed, and the judgment in No. 15 is vacated so as to permit such amendments of the pleadings or further proceedings as shall be consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Clark took no part in the consideration or decision of either of these cases.
J. Howard McGrath was substituted for Tom C. Clark, as Attorney General, 338 U. S. 807.
The term “Custodian” is used to refer either to the Alien Property Custodian or to the Attorney General who succeeded to the powers and duties of the Alien Property Custodian under Executive Order No. 9788, effective October 15, 1946, 1 C. F. R. 1946 Supp. 169.
“Sec. 17. That the district courts of the United States are hereby-given jurisdiction to make and enter all such rules as to notice and otherwise, and all such orders and decrees, and to issue such process as may be necessary and proper in the premises to enforce the provisions of this Act, with a right of appeal from the final order or decree of such court as provided in sections one hundred and twenty-eight and two hundred and thirty-eight of the Act of March third, nineteen hundred and eleven, entitled ‘An Act to codify, revise, and amend the laws relating to the judiciary.’ ” 40 Stat. 425, 50 U. S. C. App. § 17.
Issued under § 7 (c), 40 Stat. 418, as amended, 40 Stat. 1020, 50 U. S. C. App. § 7 (c), and Executive Order No. 9193, 1 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. 1174, as amended by Executive Order No. 9567, 1 C. F. R. 1945 Supp. 77.
§ 5 (b), 40 Stat. 415, as amended, 55 Stat. 839, 50 U. S. C. App. § 5 (b), and Executive Order No. 9095, 1 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. 1121.
The following parts of the answer are especially material to our decision in No. 15:
“7. Furthermore, by a vesting order the Alien Property Custodian can only vest property or a debt which was in existence at the time of the issuance of the Vesting Order. Manufacturers Trust Company did not hold any property for or on behalf of the Deutsche Reichsbank. The relationship between Manufacturers Trust Company as a depository and the Deutsche Reichsbank as a depositor of Manufacturers Trust Company is a debtor and creditor relationship. The existence of a debt from Manufacturers Trust Company to the Deutsche Reichsbank can not be predicated upon the status of a particular account. Manufacturers Trust Company can not be a debtor of the Deutsche Reichsbank unless the total of their mutual credits exceeds the total of their mutual debits. At the time of the issuance of the Vesting Order No. 5791, Deutsche Reichsbank’s indebtedness to Manufacturers Trust Company was in excess of $25,581.49 and therefore there was no debt owing from Manufacturers Trust Company to Deutsche Reichsbank arising out of the Reichsbank Direktorium Divisen Ab[t]eilung account. The indebtedness of the Deutsche Reichsbank arose from the fact that Deutsche Reichsbank was upon information and belief, an instrumentality and part of the German Government. The German Government guaranteed to Manufacturers Trust Company the payment of debts of various German Banks to Manufacturers Trust Company. On June 1st, 191fi and June 14th, 1941, the indebtedness of the said banks to Manufacturers Trust Company, was in excess of $25,581.49.
“8. In addition to the foregoing, Manufacturers Trust Company is advised by counsel that a lien of a bank on a depositor’s balance for the amount of depositor’s indebtedness to the bank is well recognized by law. Manufacturers Trust Company is further advised by counsel that Section 8 of the Trading with the Enemy Act recognizes the lien of any person who is not an enemy or an ally of an enemy and the lienor’s right to realize thereon in satisfaction of the lienor’s claims.” (Emphasis supplied.)
“The Trading with the Enemy Act, whether taken as originally enacted, October 6, 1917, ... or as since amended, March 28, 1918, . . . November 4, 1918, . . . July 11, 1919, . . . June 5, 1920, ... is strictly a war measure and finds its sanction in the constitutional provision, Art. I, § 8, cl. 11, empowering Congress 'to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water.’ . . .
“It is with parts of the act which relate to captures on land that we now are concerned. . . . [After discussing particularly §§ 7 (c), 9, and 12]:
“That Congress in time of war may authorize and provide for the seizure and sequestration through executive channels of property believed to be enemy-owned, if adequate provision be made for a return in case of mistake, is not debatable. . . . There is no warrant for saying that the enemy ownership must be determined judicially before the property can be seized; and the practice has been the other way. The present act commits the determination of that question to the President, or the representative through whom he acts, but it does not make his action final.” Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 241-242, 245-246. See also, Central Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554, 568; Rubin, “Inviolability” of Enemy Private Property, 11 Law and Contemp. Prob. 166 (1945).
Section 9 (a) of the Act, 42 Stat. 1511, 50 U. S. C. App. § 9 (a), provides for the administrative consideration and allowance of claims to property transferred to the Custodian. A claimant also may sue in a District Court for an adjudication of the validity of his claim. Section 32, 60 Stat. 50, as amended, 60 Stat. 930, 50 U. S. C. App. § 32, authorizes the administrative recognition of claims to property in the possession of the Custodian and § 34, 60 Stat. 925, 50 U. S. C. App. § 34, authorizes a procedure for the allowance, and payment to claimants, of debts owed by the person whose property has been seized by the Custodian. See also, Central Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554, 568; Garvan v. $20,000 Bonds, 265 F. 477 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Simon v. Miller, 298 F. 520, 524 (S. D. N. Y.); Kahn v. Garvan, 263 F. 909, 916 (S. D. N. Y.).
Petition filed October 29, 1947. Order to show cause issued that day. Answer filed November 13. Case heard and decided that day. Judgment entered December 12.
See also, penalties for willful violation added to § 5, 48 Stat. 1, 50 U. S. C. App. § 5 (b) (3). The Custodian may make the required Presidential determinations under § 7 (c). “In short, a personal determination by the President is not required; he may act through the Custodian, and a determination by the latter is in effect the act of the President.” Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U. S. 239, 245; and see Central Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U. S. 554, 567.
E. g., Royal Indemnity Co. v. United States, 313 U. S. 289, 296; Billings v. United States, 232 U. S. 261; see also, Board of Commissioners v. United States, 308 U. S. 343, 350, 352.
For a description of the contemporary monetary and banking system of Germany and of the part played in it by the Deutsche Reichsbank, see Military Government Handbook, Germany, Section 5: Money and Banking, Army Service Forces Manual M356-5 Revised (March 1945), pp. 4, 66-73. For examples of differences between the liabilities of foreign public or semipublic corporations and those of the foreign governments to which they are related, see United States v. Deutsches Kalisyndikat Gesellschaft, 31 F. 2d 199 (S. D. N. Y.) and Coale v. Société Co-op., 21 F. 2d 180 (S. D. N. Y.).
5 Michie, Banks and Banking (Perm. Ed.) §§ 126-128, and cases cited; 7 Zollmann, Banks and Banking (Perm. Ed.) §§ 4392, 4563, 4590. See also, restrictions on assertion, without a federal license, of any right of setoff which did not exist before June 14, 1941. Executive Order No. 8785, §§ 1. A. and 1. E., 1 C. F. R. Cum. Supp. 948, and see Propper v. Clark, 337 U. S. 472.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question presented is whether rejection of a subdivision proposal deprived appellant of its property without just compensation contrary to the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
h — I
This appeal is taken from a judgment sustaining a demurrer to a property owner’s complaint for money damages for an alleged “taking” of its property. In 1975, appellant submitted a tentative subdivision map to the Yolo County Planning Commission. Under appellant’s proposal, the subject property, at least part of which was planted with corn, would be subdivided into 159 single-family and multifamily residential lots.
The Yolo County Planning Commission rejected the subdivision plan, however, and the Board of Supervisors of the county affirmed that determination. The Board found numerous reasons why appellant’s tentative subdivision map was neither “consistent with the General Plan of the County of Yolo, nor with the specific plan of the County of Yolo embodied in the Zoning Regulations for the County.” App. 73. Appellant focuses our attention on four of those reasons. See id., at 45-46 (fourth amended complaint). First, the Board criticized the plan because it failed to provide for access to the proposed subdivision by a public street: the city of Davis, to which the subdivision would adjoin, refused to permit the extension of Cowell Boulevard into the development. See id., at 74. Even ignoring this obstacle, “[t]he map presented ma[de] no provision for any other means of access to the subdivision,” and the Board calculated that relying on an extension of Cowell Boulevard alone would “constitute] a real and substantial danger to the public health in the event of fire, earthquake, flood, or other natural disaster.” Id., at 77.
Second, the Board found that appellant’s “Tentative Map as presented [did] not provide for sewer service by any governmental entity”:
“The only means for provision of sewer services by the El Macero interceptor sewer require that the proposed subdivision anne[x] to the existing Community Services Area. Said annexation is subject to Local Agency Formation Commission jurisdiction. The Board finds that no proceedings currently are pending before LAFCO for the annexation of the proposed subdivision.” Id., at 75.
Third, the Board rejected the development plan because “[t]he level of [police] protection capable of being afforded to the proposed site by the [Yolo County] Sheriff’s Department is not intense enough to meet the needs of the proposed subdivision.” Id., at 76. Fourth, the Board found inadequate the provision for water service for the reason that there was “no provision made in the proposed subdivision for the provision of water or maintenance of a water system for the subdivision by any governmental entity.” Ibid.
After this rebuff, appellant filed the present action and, on the same day, a petition for a writ of mandate. The mandate action, which is still pending, seeks to set aside the Board’s decision and to direct the Board to reconsider appellant’s subdivision proposal. See id,., at 32-33 (amended petition for writ of mandate). This action, in contrast, seeks declaratory and monetary relief. In it, appellant accuses appellees County of Yolo and city of Davis of “restricting the Property to an open-space agricultural use by denying all permit applications, subdivision maps, and other requests to implement any other use,” id., at 46, and thereby of appropriating the “entire economic use” of appellant’s property “for the sole purpose of [providing] ... a public, open-space buffer,” id., at 51. In particular, the fourth amended complaint challenges the Board’s decision with respect to the adequacy of public access, sanitation services, water supplies, and fire and police protection. Because appellees denied these services, according to the complaint, “none of the beneficial uses” allowed even for agricultural land would be suitable for appellant’s property. Id., at 52. The complaint alleged, in capital letters and “Without limitation by the foregoing ENUMERATION,” that “ANY APPLICATION FOR A ZONE CHANGE, VARIANCE OR OTHER RELIEF WOULD BE FUTILE.” Id., at 58. The complaint also alleged that appellant had “exhausted all of its administrative remedies” and that its seven causes of action were “ripe” for adjudication. Id., at 58, 59.
In response to these charges appellees demurred. Pointing to “its earlier Order Sustaining Demurrers and Granting Leave to Amend,” the California Superior Court contended that “the property had obvious other uses than agriculture under the Yolo County Code,” id., at 115, and referenced sections permitting such uses, among others, as ranch and farm dwellings and agricultural storage facilities, see Yolo County Code §§8-2.502, 8-2.503. The court rejected appellant’s “attemp[t] to overcome that defect by alleging as conclusion-ary fact that each and every principal use and each and every multiple accessory use is no longer possible so that the property does have no value as zoned.” App. 115. It concluded that, irrespective of the insufficiency of appellant’s factual allegations, monetary damages for inverse condemnation are foreclosed by the California Supreme Court’s decision in Agins v. City of Tiburon, 24 Cal. 3d 266, 274-277, 598 P. 2d 25, 29-31 (1979), aff’d, 447 U. S. 255 (1980). App. 116, 118.
The California Court of Appeal affirmed. It “accepted] as true all the properly pled factual allegations of the complaint,” id., at 126, and did “not consider whether the complaint was barred by the failure to exhaust administrative remedies or by res judicata,” id., at 125-126. But it “f[ou]nd the decision in Agins to be controlling herein,” id., at 130:
“In that case the [California] Supreme Court specifically and clearly established, for policy reasons, a rule of law which precludes a landowner from recovering in inverse condemnation based upon land use regulation. We emphasize that the Court did not hold that regulation cannot amount to a taking without compensation, it simply held that in such event the remedy is not inverse condemnation. The remedy instead is an action to have the regulation set aside as unconstitutional. Plaintiff has filed a mandate action in the trial court which is currently pending. That is its proper remedy. The claim for inverse condemnation cannot be maintained.” Id., at 130-131 (citation and footnote omitted).
In the alternative, the California Court of Appeal determined that appellant would not be entitled to monetary relief even if California law provided for this remedy:
“In any event, even if an inverse condemnation action were available in a land use regulation situation, we would be constrained to hold that plaintiff has failed to state a cause of action. Pared to their essence, the allegations are that plaintiff purchased property for residential development, the property is zoned for residential development, plaintiff submitted an application for approval of development of the property into 159 residential units, and, in part at the urging of the City, the County denied approval of the application. In these allegations plaintiff is not unlike the plaintiffs in Agins ... [a case in which] both the California Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court held that the plaintiffs had failed to allege facts which would establish an unconstitutional taking of private property.
“The plaintiff’s claim here must fail for the same reasons the claims in Agins failed. Here plaintiff applied for approval of a particular and relatively intensive residential development and the application was denied. The denial of that particular plan cannot be equated with a refusal to permit any development, and plaintiff concedes that the property is zoned for residential purposes in the County general plan and zoning ordinance. Land use planning is not an all-or-nothing proposition. A governmental entity is not required to permit a landowner to develop property to [the] full extent he might desire or be charged with an unconstitutional taking of the property. Here, as in Agins, the refusal of the defendants to permit the intensive development desired by the landowner does not preclude less intensive, but still valuable development. Accordingly, the complaint fails to state a cause of action.” Id,., at 132-133 (citation omitted).
The California Supreme Court denied appellant’s petition for hearing, and appellant perfected an appeal to this Court. Because of the importance of the question whether a monetary remedy in inverse condemnation is constitutionally required in appropriate cases involving regulatory takings, we noted probable jurisdiction. 474 U. S. 917 (1985). On further consideration of our jurisdiction to hear this appeal, aided by briefing and oral argument, we find ourselves unable to address the merits of this question.
I — I I — I
The regulatory takings claim advanced by appellant has two components. First, appellant must establish that the regulation has in substance “taken” his property — that is, that the regulation “goes too far.” Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S. 393, 415 (1922). See Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S. 164, 178 (1979). Second, appellant must demonstrate that any proffered compensation is not “just.”
It follows from the nature of a regulatory takings claim that an essential prerequisite to its assertion is a final and authoritative determination of the type and intensity of development legally permitted on the subject property. A court cannot determine whether a regulation has gone “too far” unless it knows how far the regulation goes. As Justice Holmes emphasized throughout his opinion for the Court in Pennsylvania Coal Co. v. Mahon, 260 U. S., at 416, “this is a question of degree — and therefore cannot be disposed of by general propositions.” Accord, id., at 413. To this day we have no “set formula to determine where regulation ends and taking begins.” Goldblatt v. Hempstead, 369 U. S. 590, 594 (1962). Instead, we rely “as much [on] the exercise of judgment as [on] the application of logic.” Andrus v. Allard, 444 U. S. 51, 65 (1979). Our cases have accordingly “examined the ‘taking’ question by engaging in essentially ad hoc, factual inquiries that have identified several factors — such as the economic impact of the regulation, its interference with reasonable investment-backed expectations, and the character of the governmental action — that have particular significance.” Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U. S., at 175. See Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, 438 U. S. 104, 124 (1978) (“ad hoc, factual inquiries”); United States v. Central Eureka Mining Co., 357 U. S. 155, 168 (1958) (“question properly turning upon the particular circumstances of each case”). Until a property owner has “obtained a final decision regarding the application of the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations to its property,” “it is impossible to tell whether the land retain[s] any reasonable beneficial use or whether [existing] expectation interests ha[ve] been destroyed.” Williamson Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U. S. 172, 186, 190, n. 11 (1985). As we explained last Term:
“[T]he difficult problem [is] how to define “too far,” that is, how to distinguish the point at which regulation becomes so onerous that it has the same effect as an appropriation of the property through eminent domain or physical possession. . . . [Resolution of that question depends, in significant part, upon an analysis of the effect the Commission’s application of the zoning ordinance and subdivision regulations had on the value of respondent’s property and investment-backed profit expectation. That effect cannot be measured until a final decision is made as to how the regulations will be applied to respondent’s property.” Id., at 199-200 (footnote omitted).
Accord, id., at 191.
For similar reasons, a court cannot determine whether a municipality has failed to provide “just compensation” until it knows what, if any, compensation the responsible administrative body intends to provide. See id., at 195 (“[T]he State’s action here is not ‘complete’ until the State fails to provide adequate compensation for the taking” (footnote omitted)). The local agencies charged with administering regulations governing property development are singularly flexible institutions; what they take with the one hand they may give back with the other. In Penn Central Transportation Co. v. New York City, for example, we recognized that the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the administrative body primarily responsible for administering New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Law, had authority in appropriate circumstances to authorize alterations, remit taxes, and transfer development rights to ensure the landmark owner a reasonable return on its property. See 438 U. S., at 112-115, and n. 13. Because the railroad had “not sought approval for the construction of a smaller structure” than its proposed 50-plus story office building, id., at 137; see id., at 137, n. 34, and because its development rights in the airspace above its Grand Central Station Terminal were transferable “to at least eight parcels in the vicinity of the Terminal, one or two of which ha[d] been found suitable for the construction of a new office building,” id., at 137, we concluded that “the application of New York City’s Landmarks Law ha[d] not effected a ‘taking’ of [the railroad’s] property,” id., at 138. Whether the inquiry asks if a regulation has “gone too far,” or whether it seeks to determine if proffered compensation is “just,” no answer is possible until a court knows what use, if any, may be made of the affected property.
Our cases uniformly reflect an insistence on knowing the nature and extent of permitted development before adjudicating the constitutionality of the regulations that purport to limit it. Thus, in Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255 (1980), we held that zoning ordinances which authorized the development of between one and five single-family residences on appellants’ 5-acre tract did not effect a taking of their property on their face, and, because appellants had not made application for any improvements to their property, the constitutionality of any particular application of the ordinances was not properly before us. See id., at 260. Similarly, in San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. San Diego, 450 U. S. 621 (1981), we dismissed the appeal because it did not appear that the city’s rezoning and adoption of an open space plan had deprived the utility of all beneficial use of its property. See id., at 631-632, and n. 12. Because the California Court of Appeal had “not decided whether any taking in fact ha[d] occurred, . . . further proceedings [were] necessary to resolve the federal question whether there has been a taking at all.” Id., at 633. As a consequence, the judgment was not final for purposes of our jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1257. Ibid. Most recently, in Williamson Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, we held that the developer’s failure either to seek variances that would have allowed it to develop the property in accordance with its proposed plat, or to avail itself of an available and facially adequate state procedure by which it might obtain “just compensation,” meant that its regulatory taking claim was premature.
Here, in comparison to the situations of the property owners in the three preceding cases, appellant has submitted one subdivision proposal and has received the Board’s response thereto. Nevertheless, appellant still has yet to receive the Board’s “final, definitive position regarding how it will apply the regulations at issue to the particular land in question.” Williamson Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U. S., at 191. In Agins, San Diego Gas & Electric, and William son Planning Comm’n, we declined to reach the question whether the Constitution requires a monetary remedy to redress some regulatory takings because the records in those cases left us uncertain whether the property at issue had in fact been taken. Likewise, in this case, the holdings of both courts below leave open the possibility that some development will be permitted, and thus again leave us in doubt regarding the antecedent question whether appellant’s property has been taken. The judgment is therefore
Affirmed.
The Fifth Amendment provides “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” The Fifth Amendment prohibition applies against the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. See Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226, 236, 239, 241 (1897). See also Williamson Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U. S. 172, 175, n. 1 (1985); San Diego Gas & Electric Co. v. San Diego, 450 U. S. 621, 623, n. 1 (1981).
“25. In determining that Plaintiff’s land could only be used for agricultural purposes, notwithstanding its general planning and zoning designation for residential use and its suitability therefor, County determined that (i) the Property lacked access by means of suitable public streets, a condition resulting from City’s deliberate refusal to permit or approve available access; (ii) the [Property lacked sanitary sewer service, a condition resulting directly from the wrongful acts of City, County and District above alleged[;] (iii) the Property lacked adequate water supply, a finding directly contrary to the fact (in evidence before County) that there are proven sources of supply on the Property and in the vicinity thereof which serve the immediately adjacent residential areas[;] and (iv) that the Property lacked adequate fire and police services, conditions attributable in part to refusal on part of County and City to provide such services.” App. 51-52.
In California, “those factual allegations of the complaint which are properly pleaded are deemed admitted by defendant’s demurrer.” Thompson v. County of Alameda, 27 Cal. 3d 741, 746, 614 P. 2d 728, 730 (1980). “However,” a demurrer “does not admit contentions, deductions or conclusions of fact or law alleged therein.” Daar v. Yellow Cab Co., 67 Cal. 2d 695, 713, 433 P. 2d 732, 745 (1967) (citations omitted). See, e. g., Serrano v. Priest, 5 Cal. 3d 584, 591, 487 P. 2d 1241, 1245 (1971); Chicago Title Ins. Co. v. Great Western Financial Corp., 69 Cal. 2d 305, 327, 444 P. 2d 481, 495 (1968); Sych v. Insurance Co. of North America, 173 Cal. App. 3d 321, 326, 220 Cal. Rptr. 692, 695 (1985); Read v. City of Lynwood, 173 Cal. App. 3d 437, 442, 219 Cal. Rptr. 26, 28 (1985). Thus, one intermediate California appellate court has sustained a demurrer to a complaint alleging a regulatory taking on jurisdictional grounds, notwithstanding an “allegation in [appellants’] complaint that they ‘have exhausted their administrative remedies’”; for “while a demurrer admits all material facts which are properly pleaded, it does not admit conclusions of fact or law alleged therein. Appellants’ conclusionary statement that they exhausted their administrative remedies therefore cannot avail them.” Pan Pacific Properties, Inc. v. County of Santa Cruz, 81 Cal. App. 3d 244, 251, 146 Cal. Rptr. 428, 432 (1978) (citation omitted). Cf. Hecton v. People ex rel. Dept. of Transportation, 58 Cal. App. 3d 653, 657, 130 Cal. Rptr. 230, 232 (1976) (same; allegations of taking and damage).
We understand the Superior Court to have sustained the demurrer both because the complaint failed properly to plead facts amounting to a taking and because California law does not provide a monetary remedy for a regulatory taking. The Superior Court, after explaining these two reasons, concluded simply that “[t]he complaint fails to state a proper cause of action for inverse condemnation.” App. 116. Although Justice White’s dissent treats the first reason as dicta and the second as the actual basis of decision, see post, at 355-356, since the Superior Court did not rest its holding on only one of its two stated reasons, it is appropriate to treat them as alternative bases of decision.
In answer to appellant’s 42 U. S. C. § 1983 claim, the California Court of Appeal similarly held that a monetary judgment was foreclosed by Agins, and that “[e]ven if a cause of action for monetary damages could be stated under the Civil Rights Act based upon the regulation of the use of property, the allegations would be insufficient in this case:
“Plaintiff seeks compensation because the County refused approval of the intensive development it desires, but that refusal does not mean that other, less intensive uses would also be denied. Accordingly plaintiff has not alleged facts sufficient to establish an uncompensated taking of its property.” App. 135.
We accept for the purposes of deciding this case that any taking was for a public purpose, as alleged in the complaint. See id., at 50. See also id., at 51, 60.
A property owner is of course not required to resort to piecemeal litigation or otherwise unfair procedures in order to obtain this determination. See Williamson Planning Comm’n v. Hamilton Bank, 473 U. S., at 205-206 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment); United States v. Dickinson, 331 U. S. 745, 749 (1947).
Appellant’s current complaint — as authoritatively construed by the California Court of Appeal — alleged the denial of only one intense type of residential development. Appellant does not contend that only improvements along the lines of its 159-home subdivision plan would avert a regulatory taking. Rather, the complaint alleged that appellant was deprived of all beneficial use of its property. See App. 51, 60, 65. The California Court of Appeal, whose opinion on matters of local law and local pleading we must respect, cf. Agins v. Tiburon, 447 U. S. 255, 259-260, n. 5 (1980), apparently rejected what the Superior Court labeled a “conclusionary” allegation of futility, and explained that appellant could seek an administrative application of the Yolo County General Plan and Zoning Ordinances to its property which, for aught that appears, would allow development to proceed.
Justice White’s dissent reluctantly concludes that our understanding of the Court of Appeal’s decision is “plausible” and “sensible,” but insists that the Court of Appeal’s decision is “most properly read as taking as true all of the allegations in the complaint, including the allegations of futility, and as rejecting those allegations as insufficient as a matter of substantive takings law.” Post, at 363. We disagree. Both state courts upheld ap-pellees’ demurrer on the ground that not all development had been foreclosed. Thus, the Superior Court apparently accepted appellant’s submission that its property was restricted to agricultural use but held that, even so, valuable use might still be made of the land. The Court of Appeal was unwilling to concede even this much: it noted that appellant’s property was zoned residential and held that valuable residential development was open to it. These holdings that there is no total prohibition against the productive use of appellant’s land cannot possibly be reconciled with the allegations in the complaint that “any beneficial use” is precluded, App. 46, and that future applications would be futile, id., at 58. In view of the fact that these allegations were necessarily rejected by the state courts, and that the parties’ briefs disclose a permissible basis for this disposition in settled California demurrer law, see n. 3, supra; see also Brief for Respondents in 3 Civil 22306 (Cal. Ct. App., Third App. Dist., July 10, 1984), pp. 25, 27; Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of Demurrer to Fourth Amended Complaint in No. 36655 (Cal. Super. Ct., Yolo County, Dec. 18, 1981), 4 Clerk’s Tr., pp. 888-889, 912, n. 2, 914, it does not matter that the state courts neglected to “expressly disapprove” the deficient allegations or to detail the particular reasons why, see post, at 357.
Remarkably, the dissent implies that the Court of Appeal accepted the complaint’s allegations that local regulations denied appellant all beneficial use of its property and that further regulatory proceedings would be fruitless, but nonetheless required it to file further “useless” applications to state a taking claim. Ibid. Whatever purpose such a requirement might serve, futile reapplications are not contemplated by the Court of Appeal. To begin with, this requirement is not, as the dissent maintains, suggested by the Court of Appeal’s reliance on the decisions of the California Supreme Court and of this Court in Agins. See App. 132. To the contrary, the Court of Appeal relied on the decisions in Agins to illustrate that the property owners there — as here — had not “attempt[ed] to obtain approval to . . . develop the land” in accordance with applicable zoning regulations and for this reason had “failed to allege facts which would establish an unconstitutional taking of private property.” Id., at 132-133. See 447 U. S., at 259-263; 24 Cal. 3d 266, 277, 598 P. 2d 25, 31 (1979). The implication is not that future applications would be futile, but that a meaningful application has not yet been made. The dissent’s supposition that the Court of Appeal accepted the allegations of taking and futility is further contradicted by the court’s express denial that submission of a less intensive application would be futile: “the refusal of the [appellees] to permit the intensive development desired by the landowner does not preclude less intensive, but still valuable development.” App. 133.
Appellant is thus in the same position Mr. and Mrs. Agins would have occupied if they had requested and been denied the opportunity to build five Victorian mansions for their single-family residences, or if San Diego Gas & Electric Co. had asked and been denied the option of building a nuclear powerplant. Rejection of exceedingly grandiose development plans does not logically imply that less ambitious plans will receive similarly unfavorable reviews. In this case, of course, we have statements from both courts below dispelling any doubt on this point.
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 Souter
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer join, and in which Justice O’Connor joins except as to Parts IV-A and IV-B.
The issue in this case is the enforceability of contracts between the Government and participants in a regulated industry, to accord them particular regulatory treatment in exchange for their assumption of liabilities that threatened to produce claims against the Government as insurer. Although Congress subsequently changed the relevant law, and thereby barred the Government from specifically honoring its agreements, we hold that the terms assigning the risk of regulatory change to the Government are enforceable, and that the Government is therefore liable in damages for breach.
hH
We said in Fahey v. Mallonee, 332 U. S. 245, 250 (1947), that “[blanking is one of the longest regulated and most closely supervised of public callings.” That is particularly true of the savings and loan, or “thrift,” industry, which has been described as “a federally-conceived and assisted system to provide citizens with affordable housing funds.” H. R. Rep. No. 101-54, pt. 1, p. 292 (1989) (House Report). Because the contracts at issue in today’s case arise out of the National Government’s efforts over the last decade and a half to preserve that system from collapse, we begin with an overview of the history of federal savings and loan regulation.
A
The modern savings and loan industry traces its origins to the Great Depression, which brought default on 40 percent of the Nation’s $20 billion in home mortgages and the failure of some 1,700 of the Nation’s approximately 12,000 savings institutions. Id., at 292-293. In the course of the debacle, Congress passed three statutes meant to stabilize the thrift industry. The Federal Home Loan Bank Act created the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (Bank Board), which was authorized to channel funds to thrifts for loans on houses and for preventing foreclosures on them. Ch. 522, 47 Stat. 725 (1932) (codified, as amended, at 12 U. S. C. §§ 1421-1449 (1988 ed.)); see also House Report, at 292. Next, the Home Owners’ Loan Act of 1933 authorized the Bank Board to charter and regulate federal savings and loan associations. Ch. 64, 48 Stat. 128 (1933) (codified, as amended, at 12 U. S. C. §§ 1461-1468 (1988 ed.)). Finally, the National Housing Act created the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC), under the Bank Board’s authority, with responsibility to insure thrift deposits and regulate all federally insured thrifts. Ch. 847, 48 Stat. 1246 (1934) (codified, as amended, at 12 U. S. C. §§ 1701-1750g (1988 ed.)).
The resulting regulatory regime worked reasonably well until the combination of high interest rates and inflation in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s brought about a second crisis in the thrift industry. Many thrifts found themselves holding long-term, fixed-rate mortgages created when interest rates were low; when market rates rose, those institutions had to raise the rates they paid to depositors in order to attract funds. See House Report, at 294-295. When the costs of short-term deposits overtook the revenues from long-term mortgages, some 435 thrifts failed between 1981 and 1983. Id., at 296; see also General Accounting Office, Thrift Industry: Forbearance for Troubled Institutions 1982-1986, p. 9 (May 1987) (GAO, Forbearance for Troubled Institutions) (describing the origins of the crisis).
The first federal response to the rising tide of thrift failures was “extensive deregulation,” including “a rapid expansion in the scope of permissible thrift investment powers and a similar expansion in a thrift’s ability to compete for funds with other financial services providers.” House Report, at 291; see also id., at 295-297; Breeden, Thumbs on the Scale: The Role that Accounting Practices Played in the Savings and Loan Crisis, 59 Ford. L. Rev. S71, S72-S74 (1991) (describing legislation permitting nonresidential real estate lending by thrifts and deregulating interest rates paid to thrift depositors). Along with this deregulation came moves to weaken the requirement that thrifts maintain adequate capital reserves as a cushion against losses, see 12 CFR §563.13 (1981), a requirement that one commentator described as “the most powerful source of discipline for financial institutions.” Breeden, supra, at S75. The result was a drop in capital reserves required by the Bank Board from five to four percent of assets in November 1980, see 45 Fed. Reg. 76111, and to three percent in January 1982, see 47 Fed. Reg. 3543; at the same time, the Board developed new “regulatory accounting principles” (RAP) that in many instances replaced generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for purposes of determining compliance with its capital requirements. According to the House Banking Committee, “[t]he use of various accounting gimmicks and reduced capital standards masked the worsening financial condition of the industry, and the FSLIC, and enabled many weak institutions to continue operating with an increasingly inadequate cushion to absorb future losses.” House Report, at 298. The reductions in required capital reserves, moreover, allowed thrifts to grow explosively without increasing their capital base, at the same time deregulation let them expand into new (and often riskier) fields of investment. See Note, Causes of the Savings and Loan Debacle, 59 Ford. L. Rev. S301, S311 (1991); Breeden, supra, at S74-S75.
While the regulators tried to mitigate the squeeze on the thrift industry generally through deregulation, the multitude of already-failed savings and loans confronted FSLIC with deposit insurance liabilities that threatened to exhaust its insurance fund. See Olympic Federal Savings and Loan Assn. v. Director, Office of Thrift Supervision, 732 F. Supp. 1183, 1185 (DC 1990). According to the General Accounting Office, FSLIC’s total reserves declined from $6.46 billion in 1980 to $4.55 billion in 1985, GAO, Forbearance for Troubled Institutions 12, when the Bank Board estimated that it would take $15.8 billion to close all institutions deemed insolvent under GAAP. General Accounting Office, Troubled Financial Institutions: Solutions to the Thrift Industry Problem 108 (Feb. 1989) (GAO, Solutions to the Thrift Industry Problem). By 1988, the year of the last transaction involved in this case, FSLIC was itself insolvent by over $50 billion. House Report, at 304. And by early 1989, the GAO estimated that $85 billion would be needed to cover FSLIC’s responsibilities and put it back on the road to fiscal health. GAO, Solutions to the Thrift Industry Problem 43. In the end, we now know, the cost was much more even than that. See, e. g., Horowitz, The Continuing Thrift Bailout, Investor’s Business Daily, Feb. 1, 1996, p. A1 (reporting an estimated $140 billion total public cost of the savings and loan crisis through 1995).
Realizing that FSLIC lacked the funds to liquidate all of the failing thrifts, the Bank Board chose to avoid the insurance liability by encouraging healthy thrifts and outside investors to take over ailing institutions in a series of “supervisory mergers.” See GAO, Solutions to the Thrift Industry Problem 52; L. White, The S&L Debacle: Public Policy Lessons for Bank and Thrift Regulation 157 (1991) (White). Such transactions, in which the acquiring parties assumed the obligations of thrifts with liabilities that far outstripped their assets, were not intrinsically attractive to healthy institutions; nor did FSLIC have sufficient cash to promote such acquisitions through direct subsidies alone, although cash contributions from FSLIC were often part of a transaction. See M. Lowy, High Rollers: Inside the Savings and Loan Debacle 37 (1991) (Lowy). Instead, the principal inducement for these supervisory mergers was an understanding that the acquisitions would be subject to a particular accounting treatment that would help the acquiring institutions meet their reserve capital requirements imposed by federal regulations. See Investigation of Lincoln Savings & Loan Assn.: Hearing Before the House Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, 101st Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 5, p. 447 (1989) (testimony of M. Danny Wall, Director, Office of Thrift Supervision) (noting that acquirers of failing thrifts were allowed to use certain accounting methods “in lieu of [direct] federal financial assistance”).
B
Under GAAP there are circumstances in which a business combination may be dealt with by the “purchase method” of accounting. See generally R. Kay & D. Searfoss, Handbook of Accounting and Auditing 23-21 to 23-40 (2d ed. 1989) (describing the purchase method); Accounting Principles Board Opinion No. 16 (1970) (establishing rules as to what method must be applied to particular transactions). The critical aspect of that method for our purposes is that it permits the acquiring entity to designate the excess of the purchase price over the fair value of all identifiable assets acquired as an intangible asset called “goodwill.” Id., ¶ 11, p. 284; Kay & Searfoss, supra, at 23-38. In the ordinary case, the recognition of goodwill as an asset makes sense: a rational purchaser in a free market, after all, would not pay a price for a business in excess of the value of that business’s assets unless there actually were some intangible “going concern” value that made up the difference. See Lowy 39. For that reason, the purchase method is frequently used to account for acquisitions, see A. Phillips, J. Butler, G. Thompson, & R. Whitman, Basic Accounting for Lawyers 121 (4th ed. 1988), and GAAP expressly contemplated its application to at least some transactions involving savings and loans. See Financial Accounting Standards Board Interpretation No. 9 (Feb. 1976). Goodwill recognized under the purchase method as the result of an FSLIC-sponsored supervisory merger was generally referred to as “supervisory goodwill.”
Recognition of goodwill under the purchase method was essential to supervisory merger transactions of the type at issue in this case. Because FSLIC had insufficient funds to make up the difference between a failed thrift’s liabilities and assets, the Bank Board had to offer a “cash substitute” to induce a healthy thrift to assume a failed thrift’s obligations. Former Bank Board Chairman Richard Pratt put it this way in testifying before Congress:
“The Bank Board... did not have sufficient resources to close all insolvent institutions, [but] at the same time, it had to consolidate the industry, move weaker institutions into stronger hands, and do everything possible to minimize losses during the transition period. Goodwill was an indispensable tool in performing this task.” Savings and Loan Policies in the Late 1970’s and 1980’s: Hearings before the House Committee on Banking, Finance, and Urban Affairs, 101st Cong., 2d Sess., Ser. No. 101-176, p. 227 (1990).
Supervisory goodwill was attractive to healthy thrifts for at least two reasons. First, thrift regulators let the acquiring institutions count supervisory goodwill toward their reserve requirements under 12 CFR §563.13 (1981). This treatment was, of course, critical to make the transaction possible in the first place, because in most cases the institution resulting from the transaction would immediately have been insolvent under federal standards if goodwill had not counted toward regulatory net worth. From the acquiring thrift’s perspective, however, the treatment of supervisory goodwill as regulatory capital was attractive because it inflated the institution’s reserves, thereby allowing the thrift to leverage more loans (and, it hoped, make more profits). See White 84; cf. Breeden, 59 Ford. L. Rev., at S75-S76 (explaining how loosening reserve requirements permits asset expansion).
A second and more complicated incentive arose from the decision by regulators to let acquiring institutions amortize the goodwill asset over long periods, up to the 40-year maximum permitted by GAAP, see Accounting Principles Board Opinion No. 17, ¶ 29, p. 340 (1970). Amortization recognizes that intangible assets such as goodwill are useful for just so long; accordingly, a business must “write down” the value of the asset each year to reflect its waning worth. See Kay & Searfoss, Handbook of Accounting and Auditing, at 15-36 to 15-37; Accounting Principles Board Opinion No. 17, supra, ¶ 27, at 339-340. The amount of the write down is reflected on the business’s income statement each year as an operating expense. See generally E. Paris, Accounting and Law in a Nutshell §12.2(q) (1984) (describing amortization of goodwill). At the same time that it amortizes its goodwill asset, however, an acquiring thrift must also account for changes in the value of its loans, which are its principal assets. The loans acquired as assets of the failed thrift in a supervisory-merger were generally worth less than their face value, typically because they were issued at interest rates below the market rate at the time of the acquisition. See Black, Ending Our Forebearers’ Forbearances: FIRREA and Supervisory Goodwill, 2 Stan. L. & Policy Rev. 102, 104-105 (1990). This differential or “discount,” J. Rosenberg, Dictionary of Banking and Financial Services 233 (2d ed. 1985), appears on the balance sheet as a “contra-asset” account, or a deduction from the loan’s face value to reflect market valuation of the asset, R. Estes, Dictionary of Accounting 29 (1981). Because loans are ultimately repaid at face value, the magnitude of the discount declines over time as redemption approaches; this process, technically called “accretion of discount,” is reflected on a thrift’s income statement as a series of capital gains. See Rosenberg, supra, at 9; Estes, supra, at 39-40.
The advantage in all this to an acquiring thrift depends upon the fact that accretion of discount is the mirror image of amortization of goodwill. In the typical case, a failed thrift’s primary assets were long-term mortgage loans that earned low rates of interest and therefore had declined in value to the point that the thrift’s assets no longer exceeded its liabilities to depositors. In such a case, the disparity between assets and liabilities from which the accounting goodwill was derived was virtually equal to the value of the discount from face value of the thrift’s outstanding loans. See Black, 2 Stan. L. & Policy Rev., at 104-105. Thrift regulators, however, typically agreed to supervisory merger terms that allowed acquiring thrifts to accrete the discount over the average life of the loans (approximately seven years), see id., at 105, while permitting amortization of the goodwill asset over a much longer period. Given that goodwill and discount were substantially equal in overall values, the more rapid accrual of capital gain, from accretion resulted in a net paper profit over the initial years following the acquisition. See ibid.; Lowy 39-40. The difference between amortization and accretion schedules thus allowed acquiring thrifts to seem more profitable than they in fact were.
Some transactions included yet a further inducement, described as a “capital credit.” Such credits arose when FSLIC itself contributed cash to further a supervisory merger and permitted the acquiring institution to count the FSLIC contribution as a permanent credit to regulatory capital. By failing to require the thrift to subtract this FSLIC contribution from the amount of supervisory goodwill generated by the merger, regulators effectively permitted double counting of the cash as both a tangible and an intangible asset. See, e. g., Transohio Savings Bank v. Director, Office of Thrift Supervision, 967 F. 2d 598, 604 (CADC 1992). Capital credits thus inflated the acquiring thrift’s regulatory capital and permitted leveraging of more and more loans.
As we describe in more detail below, the accounting treatment to be accorded supervisory goodwill and capital credits was the subject of express arrangements between the regulators and the acquiring institutions. While the extent to which these arrangements constituted a departure from prior norms is less clear, an acquiring institution would reasonably have wanted to bargain for such treatment. Although GAAP demonstrably permitted the use of the purchase method in acquiring a thrift suffering no distress, the relevant thrift regulations did not explicitly state that intangible goodwill assets created by that method could be counted toward regulatory capital. See 12 CFR §563.13 (a)(3) (1981) (permitting thrifts to count as reserves any “items listed in the definition of net worth”); § 561.13(a) (defining “net worth” as “the sum of all reserve accounts..., retained earnings, permanent stock, mutual capital certificates..., and any other non-withdrawable accounts of an insured institution”). Indeed, the rationale for recognizing goodwill stands on its head in a supervisory merger: ordinarily, goodwill is recognized as valuable because a rational purchaser would not pay more than assets are worth; here, however, the purchase is rational only because of the accounting treatment for the shortfall. See Black, supra, at 104 (“GAAP’s treatment of goodwill... assumes that buyers do not overpay when they purchase an S&L”). In the end, of course, such reasoning circumvented the whole purpose of the reserve requirements, which was to protect depositors and the deposit insurance fund. As some in Congress later recognized, “[gjoodwill is not cash. It is a concept, and a shadowy one at that. When the Federal Government liquidates a failed thrift, goodwill is simply no good. It is valueless. That means, quite simply, that the taxpayer picks up the tab for the shortfall.” 135 Cong. Rec. 11795 (1989) (remarks of Rep. Barnard); see also White 84 (acknowledging that in some instances supervisory goodwill “involved the creation of an asset that did not have real value as protection for the FSLIC”). To those with the basic foresight to appreciate all this, then, it was not obvious that regulators would accept purchase accounting in determining compliance with regulatory criteria, and it was clearly prudent to get agreement on the matter.
The advantageous treatment of amortization schedules and capital credits in supervisory mergers amounted to more clear-cut departures from GAAP and, hence, subjects worthy of agreement by those banking on such treatment. In 1983, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the font of GAAP) promulgated Statement of Financial. Accounting Standards No. 72 (SFAS 72), which applied specifically to the acquisition of a savings and loan association. SFAS 72 provided that “[i]f, and to the extent that, the fair value of liabilities assumed exceeds the fair value of identifiable assets acquired in the acquisition of a banking or thrift institution, the unidentifiable intangible asset recognized generally shall be amortized to expense by the interest method over a period no longer than the discount on the long-term interest-bearing assets acquired is to be recognized as interest income.” Accounting Standards, Original Pronouncements (July 1973-June 1, 1989), p. 725. In other words, SFAS 72 eliminated any doubt that the differential amortization periods on which acquiring thrifts relied to produce paper profits in supervisory mergers were inconsistent with GAAP. SFAS 72 also barred double counting of capital credits by requiring that financial assistance from regulatory authorities must be deducted from the cost of the acquisition before the amount of goodwill is determined. SFAS 72, ¶9. Thrift acquirers relying on such credits, then, had every reason for concern as to the continued availability of the RAP in effect at the time of these transactions.
C
Although the results of the forbearance policy, including the departures from GAAP, appear to have been mixed, see GAO, Forbearance for Troubled Institutions 4, it is relatively clear that the overall regulatory response of the early and mid-1980’s was unsuccessful in resolving the crisis in the thrift industry. See, e. g., Transohio Savings Bank, 967 F. 2d, at 602 (concluding that regulatory measures “actually aggravated] the decline”). As a result, Congress enacted the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), Pub. L. 101-73, 103 Stat. 183, with the objects of preventing the collapse of the industry, attacking the root causes of the crisis, and restoring public confidence.
FIRREA made enormous changes in the structure of federal thrift regulation by (1) abolishing FSLIC and transferring its functions to other agencies; (2) creating a new thrift deposit insurance fund under the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; (3) replacing the Bank Board with the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS), a Treasury Department office with responsibility for the regulation of all federally insured savings associations; and (4) establishing the Resolution Trust Corporation to liquidate or otherwise dispose of certain closed thrifts and their assets. See note following 12 U. S. C. § 1437, §§ 1441a, 1821. More importantly for the present case, FIRREA also obligated OTS to “prescribe and maintain uniformly applicable capital standards for savings associations” in accord with strict statutory requirements. § 1464(t)(l)(A). In particular, the statute required thrifts to “maintain core capital in an amount not less than 3 percent of the savings association’s total assets,” § 1464(t)(2)(A), and defined “core capital” to exclude “unidentifiable intangible assets,” § 1464(t)(9)(A), such as goodwill. Although the reform provided a “transition rule” permitting thrifts to count “qualifying supervisory goodwill” toward half the core capital requirement, this allowance was phased out by 1995. § 1464(t)(3)(A). According to the House Report, these tougher capital requirements reflected a congressional judgment that “[t]o a considerable extent, the size of the thrift crisis resulted from the utilization of capital gimmicks that masked the inadequate capitalization of thrifts.” House Report, at 310.
The impact of FIRREA’s new capital requirements upon institutions that had acquired failed thrifts in exchange for supervisory goodwill was swift and severe. OTS promptly issued regulations implementing the new capital standards along with a bulletin noting that FIRREA “eliminates [capital and accounting] forbearances” previously granted to certain thrifts. Office of Thrift Supervision, Capital Adequacy: Guidance on the Status of Capital and Accounting Forbear-ances and Capital Instruments held by a Deposit Insurance Fund, Thrift Bulletin No. 38-2, Jan. 9, 1990. OTS accordingly directed that “[a]ll savings associations presently operating with these forbearances... should eliminate them in determining whether or not they comply with the new minimum regulatory capital standards.” Ibid. Despite the statute’s limited exception intended to moderate transitional pains, many institutions immediately fell out of compliance with regulatory capital requirements, making them subject to seizure by thrift regulators. See Black, 2 Stan. L. & Policy Rev., at 107 (“FIRREA’s new capital mandates have caused over 500 S&Ls... to report that they have failed one or more of the three capital requirements”).
D
This case is about the impact of FIRREA’s tightened capital requirements on three thrift institutions created by way of supervisory mergers. Respondents Glendale Federal Bank, FSB, Winstar Corporation, and The Statesman Group, Inc., acquired failed thrifts in 1981, 1984, and 1988, respectively. After the passage of FIRREA, federal regulators seized and liquidated the Winstar and Statesman thrifts for failure to meet the new capital requirements. Although the Glendale thrift also fell out of regulatory capital compliance as a result of the new rules, it managed to avoid seizure through a massive private recapitalization. Believing that the Bank Board and FSLIC had promised them that the supervisory goodwill created in their merger transactions could be counted toward regulatory capital requirements, respondents each filed suit against the United States in the Court of Federal Claims, seeking monetary damages on both contractual and constitutional theories. That court granted respondents’ motions for partial summary judgment on contract liability, finding in each case that the Government had breached contractual obligations to permit respondents to count supervisory goodwill and capital credits toward their regulatory capital requirements. See Winstar Corp. v. United States, 21 Cl. Ct. 112 (1990) (Winstar I) (finding an implied-in-fact contract but requesting further briefing on contract issues); 25 Cl. Ct. 541 (1992) (Winstar II) (finding contract breached and entering summary judgment on liability); Statesman Savings Holding Corp. v. United States, 26 Cl. Ct. 904 (1992) (granting summary judgment on liability to Statesman and Glendale). In so holding, the Court of Federal Claims rejected two central defenses asserted by the Government: that the Government could not be held to a promise to refrain from exercising its regulatory authority in the future unless that promise was unmistakably clear in the contract, Winstar I, supra, at 116; Winstar II, supra, at 544-549; Statesman, supra, at 919-920, and that the Government’s alteration of the capital reserve requirements in FIRREA was a sovereign act that could not trigger contractual liability, Winstar II, supra, at 550-553; Statesman, supra, at 915-916. The Court of Federal Claims consolidated the three cases and certified its decisions for interlocutory appeal.
A divided panel of the Federal Circuit reversed, holding that the parties did not allocate to the Government, in an unmistakably clear manner, the risk of a subsequent change in the regulatory capital requirements. Winstar Corp. v. United States, 994 F. 2d 797, 811-813 (1993). The full court, however, vacated this decision and agreed to rehear the case en banc. After rebriefing and reargument, the en banc court reversed the panel decision and affirmed the Court of Federal Claims’ rulings on liability. Winstar Corp. v. United States, 64 F. 3d 1531 (1995). The Federal Circuit found that FSLIC had made express contracts with respondents, including a promise that supervisory goodwill and capital credits could be counted toward satisfaction of the regulatory capital requirements. Id., at 1540, 1542-1543. The court rejected the Government’s unmistakability argument, agreeing with the Court of Federal Claims that that doctrine had no application in a suit for money damages. Id., at 1545-1548. Finally, the en banc majority found that FIRREA’s new capital requirements “single[d] out supervisory goodwill for special treatment” and therefore could not be said to be a “public” and “general act” within the meaning of the sovereign acts doctrine. Id., at 1548-1551. Judge Nies dissented, essentially repeating the arguments in her prior opinion for the panel majority, id., at 1551-1552, and Judge Lourie also dissented on the ground that FIRREA was a public and general act, id., at 1552-1553. We granted certiorari, 516 U. S. 1087 (1996), and now affirm.
H-t ) — I
We took this case to consider the extent to which special rules, not generally applicable to private contracts, govern enforcement of the governmental contracts at issue here. We decide whether the Government may assert four special defenses to respondents’ claims for breach: the canon of contract construction that surrenders of sovereign authority must appear in unmistakable terms, Bowen v. Public Agencies Opposed to Social Security Entrapment, 477 U. S. 41, 52 (1986); the rule that an agent’s authority to make such surrenders must be delegated in express terms, Home Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Los Angeles, 211 U. S. 265 (1908); the doctrine that a government may not, in any event, contract to surrender certain reserved powers, Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814 (1880); and, finally, the principle that a Government’s sovereign acts do not give rise to a claim for breach of contract, Horowitz v. United States, 267 U. S. 458, 460 (1925).
The anterior question whether there were contracts at all between the Government and respondents dealing with regulatory treatment of supervisory goodwill and capital credits, although briefed and argued by the parties in this Court, is not strictly before us. See Yee v. Escondido, 503 U. S. 519, 535 (1992) (noting that “we ordinarily do not consider questions outside those presented in the petition for cer-tiorari”); this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). And although we may review the Court of Federal Claims’ grant of summary judgment de novo, Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services, Inc., 504 U. S. 451, 465, n. 10 (1992), we are in no better position than the Federal Circuit and the Court of Federal Claims to evaluate the documentary records of the transactions at issue. Our resolution of the legal issues raised by the petition for certiorari, however, does require some consideration of the nature of the underlying transactions.
A
The Federal Circuit found that “[t]he three plaintiff thrifts negotiated contracts with the bank regulatory agencies that allowed them to include supervisory goodwill (and capital credits) as assets for regulatory capital purposes and to amortize that supervisory goodwill over extended periods of time.” 64 F. 3d, at 1545. Although each of these transactions was fundamentally similar, the relevant circumstances and documents vary somewhat from case to case.
1
In September 1981, Glendale was approached about a possible merger by the First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Broward County, which then had liabilities exceeding the fair value of its assets by over $734 million. At the time, Glendale’s accountants estimated that FSLIC would have needed approximately $1.8 billion to liquidate Broward, only about $1 billion of which could be recouped through the sale of Broward’s assets. Glendale, on the other hand, was both profitable and well capitalized, with a net worth of $277 million. After some preliminary negotiations with the regulators, Glendale submitted a merger proposal to the Bank Board, which had to approve all mergers involving savings and loan associations, see 12 U. S. C. §§ 1467a(e)(l)(A) and (B); § 1817(j)(l); that proposal assumed the use of the purchase method of accounting to record supervisory goodwill arising from the transaction, with an amortization period of 40 years. The Bank Board ratified the merger, or “Supervisory Action Agreement” (SAA), on November 19, 1981.
The SAA itself said nothing about supervisory goodwill, but did contain the following integration clause:
“This Agreement... constitutes the entire agreement between the parties thereto and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings of the parties in connection herewith, excepting only the Agreement of Merger and any resolutions or letters issued contemporaneously herewith.” App. 598-599.
The SAA thereby incorporated Bank Board Resolution No. 81-710, by which the Board had ratified the SAA. That resolution referred to two additional documents: a letter to be furnished by Glendale’s independent accountant identifying and supporting the use of any goodwill to be recorded on Glendale’s books, as well as the resulting amortization periods; and “a stipulation that any goodwill arising from this transaction shall be determined and amortized in accordance with [Bank Board] Memorandum R-31b.” Id., at 607. Memorandum R-31b, finally, permitted Glendale to use the purchase method of accounting and to recognize goodwill as an asset subject to amortization. See id., at 571-574.
The Government does not seriously contest this evidence that the parties understood that goodwill arising from these transactions would be treated as satisfying regulatory requirements; it insists, however, that these documents simply reflect statements of then-current federal regulatory policy rather than contractual undertakings. Neither the Court of Federal Claims nor the Federal Circuit so read the record, however, and we agree with those courts that the Government’s interpretation of the relevant documents is fundamentally implausible. The integration clause in Glendale’s SAA with FSLIC, which is similar in all relevant respects to the analogous provisions in the Winstar and Statesman contracts, provides that the SAA supersedes “all prior agreements and understandings... excepting only... any resolutions or letters issued contemporaneously” by the Board, id., at 598-599; in other words, the SAA characterizes the Board’s resolutions and letters not as statements of background rules, but as part of the “agreements and understandings” between the parties.
To the extent that the integration clause leaves any ambiguity, the other courts that construed the documents found that the realities of the transaction favored reading those documents as contractual commitments, not mere statements of policy, see Restatement (Second) of Contracts §202(1) (1981) (“Words and other conduct are interpreted in the light of all the circumstances, and if the principal purpose of the parties is ascertainable it is given great weight”), and we see no reason to disagree. As the Federal Circuit noted, “[i]t is not disputed that if supervisory goodwill had not been available for purposes of meeting regulatory capital requirements, the merged thrift would have been subject to regulatory noncompliance and penalties from the moment of its creation.” 64 F. 3d, at 1542. Indeed, the assumption of Broward’s liabilities would have rendered Glendale immediately insolvent by approximately $460 million, but for Glendale’s right to count goodwill as regulatory capital. Although one can imagine cases in which the potential gain might induce a party to assume a substantial risk that the gain might be wiped out by a change in the law, it would have been irrational in this case for Glendale to stake its very existence upon continuation of current policies without seeking to embody those policies in some sort of contractual commitment. This conclusion is obvious from both the dollar amounts at stake and the regulators’ proven propensity to make changes in the relevant requirements. See Brief for United States 26 (“[I]n light of the frequency with which federal capital requirements had changed in the past..., it would have been unreasonable for Glendale, FSLIC, or the Bank Board to expect or rely upon the fact that those requirements would remain unchanged”); see also infra, at 909-910. Under the circumstances, we have no doubt that the parties intended to settle regulatory treatment of these transactions as a condition of their agreement. See, e.g., The Binghamton Bridge, 3 Wall. 51, 78 (1866) (refusing to construe charter in such a way that it would have been “madness” for private party to enter into it). We accordingly have no reason to question the Court of Appeals’s conclusion that “the government had an express contractual obligation to permit Glendale to count the supervisory goodwill generated as
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.
A New Jersey statute authorizes its local school districts to make rules and contracts for the transportation of children to and from schools. The appellee, a township board of education, acting pursuant to this statute, authorized reimbursement to parents of money expended by them for the bus transportation of their children on regular busses operated by the public transportation system. Part of this money was for the payment of transportation of some children in the community to Catholic parochial schools. These church schools give their students, in addition to secular education, regular religious instruction conforming to the religious tenets and modes of worship of the Catholic Faith. The superintendent of these schools is a Catholic priest.
The appellant, in his capacity as a district taxpayer, filed suit in a state court challenging the right of the Board to reimburse parents of parochial school students. He contended that the statute and the resolution passed pursuant to it violated both the State and the Federal Constitutions. That court held that the legislature was without power to authorize such payment under the state constitution. 132 N. J. L. 98, 39 A. 2d 75. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals reversed, holding that neither the statute nor the resolution passed pursuant to it was in conflict with the State constitution or the provisions of the Federal Constitution in issue. 133 N. J. L. 350, 44 A. 2d 333. The case is here on appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a).
Since there has been no attack on the statute on the ground that a part of its language excludes children attending private schools operated for profit from enjoying State payment for their transportation, we need not consider this exclusionary language; it has no relevancy to any constitutional question here presented. Furthermore, if the exclusion clause had been properly challenged, we do not know whether New Jersey’s highest court would construe its statutes as precluding payment of the school transportation of any group of pupils, even those of a private school run for profit. Consequently, we put to one side the question as to the validity of the statute against the claim that it does not authorize payment for the transportation generally of school children in New Jersey.
The only contention here is that the state statute and the resolution, insofar as they authorized reimbursement to parents of children attending parochial schools, violate the Federal Constitution in these two respects, which to some extent overlap. First. They authorize the State to take by taxation the private property of some and bestow it upon others, to be used for their own private purposes. This, it is alleged, violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Second. The statute and the resolution forced inhabitants to pay taxes to help support and maintain schools which are dedicated to, and which regularly teach, the Catholic Faith. This is alleged to be a use of state power to support church schools contrary to the prohibition of the First Amendment which the Fourteenth Amendment made applicable to the states.
First. The due process argument that the state law taxes some people to help others carry out their private purposes is framed in two phases. The first phase is that a state cannot tax A to reimburse B for the cost of transporting his children to church schools. This is said to violate the due process clause because the children are sent to these church schools to satisfy the personal desires of their parents, rather than the public’s interest in the general education of all children. This argument, if valid, would apply equally to prohibit state payment for the transportation of children to any non-public school, whether operated by a church or any other non-government individual or group. But, the New Jersey legislature has decided that a public purpose will be served by using tax-raised funds to pay the bus fares of all school children, including those who attend parochial schools. The New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals has reached the same conclusion. The fact that a state law, passed to satisfy a public need, coincides with the personal desires of the individuals most directly affected is certainly an inadequate reason for us to say that a legislature has erroneously appraised the public need.
It is true that this Court has, in rare instances, struck down state statutes on the ground that the purpose for which tax-raised funds were to be expended was not a public one. Loan Association v. Topeka, 20 Wall. 655; Parkersburg v. Brown, 106 U. S. 487; Thompson v. Consolidated Gas Utilities Corp., 300 U. S. 55. But the Court has also pointed out that this far-reaching authority must be exercised with the most extreme caution. Green v. Frazier, 253 U. S. 233, 240. Otherwise, a state’s power to legislate for the public welfare might be seriously curtailed, a power which is a primary reason for the existence of states. Changing local conditions create new local problems which may lead a state’s people and its local authorities to believe that laws authorizing new types of public services are necessary to promote the general well-being of the people. The Fourteenth Amendment did not strip the states of their power to meet problems previously left for individual solution. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 103-104; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U. S. 27, 31-32; Fallbrook Irrigation District v. Bradley, 164 U. S. 112, 157-158.
It is much too late to argue that legislation intended to facilitate the opportunity of children to get a secular education serves no public purpose. Cochran v. Louisiana State Board of Education, 281 U. S. 370; Holmes, J., in Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, 207 U. S. 79, 87. See opinion of Cooley, J., in Stuart v. School District No. 1 of Kalamazoo, 30 Mich. 69 (1874). The same thing is no less true of legislation to reimburse needy parents, or all parents, for payment of the fares of their children so that they can ride in public busses to and from schools rather than run the risk of traffic and other hazards incident to walking or “hitchhiking.” See Barbier v. Connolly, supra, at 31. See also cases collected 63 A. L. R. 413; 118 A. L. R. 806. Nor does it follow that a law has a private rather than a public purpose because it provides that tax-raised funds will be paid to reimburse individuals on account of money spent by them in a way which furthers a public program. See Carmichael v. Southern Coal & Coke Co., 301 U. S. 495, 518. Subsidies and loans to individuals such as farmers and home-owners, and to privately owned transportation systems, as well as many other kinds of businesses, have been commonplace practices in our state and national history.
Insofar as the second phase of the due process argument may differ from the first, it is by suggesting that taxation for transportation of children to church schools constitutes support of a religion by the State. But if the law is invalid for this reason, it is because it violates the First Amendment’s prohibition against the establishment of religion by law. This is the exact question raised by appellant’s second contention, to consideration of which we now turn.
Second. The New Jersey statute is challenged as a “law respecting an establishment of religion.” The First Amendment, as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth, Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, commands that a state “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” These words of the First Amendment reflected in the minds of early Americans a vivid mental picture of conditions and practices which they fervently wished to stamp out in order to preserve liberty for themselves and for their posterity. Doubtless their goal has not been entirely reached; but so far has the Nation moved toward it that the expression “law respecting an establishment of religion,” probably does not so vividly remind present-day Americans of the evils, fears, and political problems that caused that expression to be written into our Bill of Rights. Whether this New Jersey law is one respecting an “establishment of religion” requires an understanding of the meaning of that language, particularly with respect to the imposition of taxes. Once again, therefore, it is not inappropriate briefly to review the background and environment of the period in which that constitutional language was fashioned and adopted.
A large proportion of the early settlers of this country came here from Europe to escape the bondage of laws which compelled them to support and attend government-favored churches. The centuries immediately before and contemporaneous with the colonization of America had been filled with turmoil, civil strife, and persecutions, generated in large part by established sects determined to maintain their absolute political and religious supremacy. With the power of government supporting them, at various times and places, Catholics had persecuted Protestants, Protestants had persecuted Catholics, Protestant sects had persecuted other Protestant sects, Catholics of one shade of belief had persecuted Catholics of another shade of belief, and all of these had from time to time persecuted Jews. In efforts to force loyalty to whatever religious group happened to be on top and in league with the government of a particular time and place, men and women had been fined, cast in jail, cruelly tortured, and killed. Among the offenses for which these punishments had been inflicted were such things as speaking disrespectfully of the views of ministers of government-established churches, non-attendance at those churches, expressions of non-belief in their doctrines, and failure to pay taxes and tithes to support them.
These practices of the old world were transplanted to and began to thrive in the soil of the new America. The very charters granted by the English Crown to the individuals and companies designated to make the laws which would control the destinies of the colonials authorized these individuals and companies to erect religious establishments which all, whether believers or non-believers, would be required to support and attend. An exercise of this authority was accompanied by a repetition of many of the old-world practices and persecutions. Catholics found themselves hounded and proscribed because of their faith; Quakers who followed their conscience went to jail; Baptists were peculiarly obnoxious to certain dominant Protestant sects; men and women of varied faiths who happened to be in a minority in a particular locality were persecuted because they steadfastly persisted in worship-ping God only as their own consciences dictated. And all of these dissenters were compelled to pay tithes and taxes to support government-sponsored churches whose ministers preached inflammatory sermons designed to strengthen and consolidate the established faith by generating a burning hatred against dissenters.
These practices became so commonplace as to shock the freedom-loving colonials into a feeling of abhorrence. The imposition of taxes to pay ministers’ salaries and to build and maintain churches and church property aroused their indignation. It was these feelings which found expression in the First Amendment. No one locality and no one group throughout the Colonies can rightly be given entire credit for having aroused the sentiment that culminated in adoption of the Bill of Rights’ provisions embracing religious liberty. But Virginia, where the established church had achieved a dominant influence in political affairs and where many excesses attracted wide public attention, provided a great stimulus and able leadership for the movement. The people there, as élsewhere, reached the conviction that individual religious liberty could be achieved best under a government which was stripped of all power to tax, to support, or otherwise to assist any or all religions, or to interfere with the beliefs of any religious individual or group.
The movement toward this end reached its dramatic climax in Virginia in 1785-86 when the Virginia legislative body was about to renew Virginia’s tax levy for the support of the established church. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison led the fight against this tax. Madison wrote his great Memorial and Remonstrance against the law. In it, he eloquently argued that a true religion did not need the support of law; that no person, either believer or non-believer, should be taxed to support a religious institution of any kind; that the best interest of a society required that the minds of men always be wholly free; and that cruel persecutions were the inevitable result of government-established religions. Madison's Remonstrance received strong support throughout Virginia, and the Assembly postponed consideration of the proposed tax measure until its next session. When the proposal came up for consideration at that session, it not only died in committee, but the Assembly enacted the famous “Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty” originally written by Thomas Jefferson. The preamble to that Bill stated among other things that
“Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the Holy author of our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either . . .; that to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and tyrannical; that even the forcing him to support this or that teacher of his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the particular pastor, whose morals he would make his pattern . . . ."
And the statute itself enacted
“That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief . . . ."
This Court has previously recognized that the provisions of the First Amendment, in the drafting and adoption of which Madison and Jefferson played such leading roles, had the same objective and were intended to provide the same protection against governmental intrusion on religious liberty as the Virginia statute. Reynolds v. United States, supra at 164; Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679; Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 342. Prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the First Amendment did not apply as a restraint against the states. Most of them did soon provide similar constitutional protections for religious liberty. But some states persisted for about half a century in imposing restraints upon the free exercise of religion and in discriminating against particular religious groups. In recent years, so far as the provision against the establishment of a religion is concerned, the question has most frequently arisen in connection with proposed state aid to church schools and efforts to carry on religious teachings in the public schools in accordance with the tenets of a particular sect. Some churches have either sought or accepted state financial support for their schools. Here again the efforts to obtain state aid or acceptance of it have not been limited to any one particular faith. The state courts, in the main, have remained faithful to the language of their own constitutional provisions designed to protect religious freedom and to separate religions and governments. Their decisions, however, show the difficulty in drawing the line between tax legislation which provides funds for the welfare of the general public and that which is designed to support institutions which teach religion.
The meaning and scope of the First Amendment, preventing establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress, have been several times elaboratéd by the decisions of this Court prior to the application of the First Amendment to the states by the Fourteenth. The broad meaning given the Amendment by these earlier cases has been accepted by this Court in its decisions concerning an individual’s religious freedom rendered since the Fourteenth Amendment was interpreted to make the prohibitions of the First applicable to state action abridging religious freedom. There is every reason to give the same application and broad interpretation to the “establishment of religion” clause. The interrelation of these complementary clauses was well summarized in a statement of the Court of Appeals of South Carolina, quoted with approval by this Court in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679, 730: “The structure of our government has, for the preservation of civil liberty, rescued the temporal institutions from religious interference. On the other hand, it has secured religious liberty from the invasion of the civil authority.”
The “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect “a wall of separation between church and State.” Reynolds v. United States, supra at 164.
We must consider the New Jersey statute in accordance with the foregoing limitations imposed by the First Amendment. But we must not strike that state statute down if it is within the State’s constitutional power even though it approaches the verge of that power. See Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, Holmes, J., supra at 85, 88. New Jersey cannot consistently with the “establishment of religion” clause of the First Amendment contribute tax-raised funds to the support of an institution which teaches the tenets and faith of any church. On the other hand, other language of the amendment commands that New Jersey cannot hamper its citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation. While we do not mean to intimate that a state could not provide transportation only to children attending public schools, we must be careful, in protecting the citizens of New Jersey against state-established churches, to be sure that we do not inadvertently prohibit New Jersey from extending its general state law benefits to all its citizens without regard to their religious belief.
Measured by these standards, we cannot say that the First Amendment prohibits New Jersey from spending tax-raised funds to pay the bus fares of parochial school pupils as a part of a general program under which it pays the fares of pupils attending public and other schools. It is undoubtedly true that children are helped to get to church schools. There is even a possibility that some of the children might not be sent to the church schools if the parents were compelled to pay their children’s bus fares out of their own pockets when transportation to a public school would have been paid for by the State. The same possibility exists where the state requires a local transit company to provide reduced fares to school children including those attending parochial schools, or where a municipally owned transportation system undertakes to carry all school children free of charge. Moreover, state-paid policemen, detailed to protect children going to and from church schools from the very real hazards of traffic, would serve much the same purpose and accomplish much the same result as state provisions intended to guarantee free transportation of a kind which the state deems to be best for the school children’s welfare. And parents might refuse to risk their children to the serious danger of traffic accidents going to and from parochial schools, the approaches to which were not protected by policemen. Similarly, parents might be reluctant to permit their children to attend schools which the state had cut off from such general government services as ordinary police and fire protection, connections for sewage disposal, public highways and sidewalks. Of course, cutting off church schools from these services, so separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function, would make it far more difficult for the schools to operate. But such is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment. That Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and non-believers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.
This Court has said that parents may, in the discharge of their duty under state compulsory education laws, send their children to a religious rather than a public school if the school meets the secular educational requirements which the state has power to impose. See Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510. It appears that these parochial schools meet New Jersey’s requirements. The State contributes no money to the schools. It does not support them. Its legislation, as applied, does no more than provide a general program to help parents get their children, regardless of their religion, safely and expeditiously to and from accredited schools.
The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state. That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. New Jersey has not breached it here.
Affirmed.
“Whenever in any district there are children living remote from any schoolhouse, the board of education of the district may make rules and contracts for the transportation of such children to and from school, including the transportation of school children to and from school other than a public school, except such school as is operated for profit in whole or in part.
“When any school district provides any transportation for public school children to and from school, transportation from any point in such established school route to any other point in such established school route shall be supplied to school children residing in such school district in going to and from school other than a public school, except such school as is operated for profit in whole or in part.” New Jersey Laws, 1941, c. 191, p. 581; N. J. R. S. Cum. Supp., tit. 18, c. 14, § 8
Appellant does not challenge the New Jersey statute or the resolution on the ground that either violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding payment for the transportation of any pupil who attends a “private school run for profit.” Although the township resolution authorized reimbursement only for parents of public and Catholic school pupils, appellant does not allege, nor is there anything in the record which would offer the slightest support to an allegation, that there were any children in the township who attended or would have attended, but for want of transportation, any but public and Catholic schools. It will be appropriate to consider the exclusion of students of private schools operated for profit when and if it is proved to have occurred, is made the basis of a suit by one in a position to challenge it., and New Jersey’s highest court has ruled adversely to the challenger. Striking down a state law is not a matter of such light moment that it should be done by a federal court ex mero motu on a postulate neither charged nor proved, but which rests on nothing but a possibility. Cf. Liverpool, N. Y. & P. S. S. Co. v. Comm’rs of Emigration, 113 U. S. 33, 39.
It might hold the excepting clause to be invalid, and sustain the statute with that clause excised. N. J. R. S., tit. 1, c. 1, § 10, provides with regard to any statute that if “any provision thereof, shall be declared to be unconstitutional ... in whole or in part, by a court of competent jurisdiction, such . . . article . . . shall, to the extent that it is not unconstitutional, ... be enforced . . . The opinion of the Court of Errors and Appeals in this very case suggests that state law now authorizes transportation of all pupils. Its opinion stated: “Since we hold that the legislature may appropriate general state funds or authorize the use of local funds for the transportation of pupils to any school, we conclude that such authorization of the use of local funds is likewise authorized by Pamph. L. 1941, ch. 191, and R. S. 18:7-78.” 133 N. J. L. 350, 354, 44 A. 2d 333, 337. (Italics supplied.)
See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 162; cf. Knowlton v. Moore, 178 U. S. 41, 89, 106.
See e. g. Macaulay, History of England (1849) I, cc. 2, 4; The Cambridge Modern History (1908) V, cc. V, IX, XI; Beard, Rise of American Civilization (1933) I, 60; Cobb, Rise of Religious Liberty in America (1902) c. II; Sweet, The Story of Religion in America (1939) c. II; Sweet, Religion in Colonial America (1942) 320-322.
See e. g. the charter of the colony of Carolina which gave the grantees the right of “patronage and advowsons of all the churches and chapels . . . together with licence and power to build and found churches, chapels and oratories . . . and to cause them to be dedicated and consecrated, according to the ecclesiastical laws of our kingdom of England.” Poore, Constitutions (1878) II, 1390, 1391. That of Maryland gave to the grantee Lord Baltimore “the Patronages, and Advowsons of all Churches which . . . shall happen to be built, together with Licence and Faculty of erecting and founding Churches, Chapels, and Places of Worship . . . and of causing the same to be dedicated and consecrated according to the Ecclesiastical Laws of our Kingdom of England, with all, and singular such, and as ample Rights, Jurisdictions, Privileges, ... as any Bishop ... in our Kingdom of England, ever . . . hath had MacDonald, Documentary Source Book of American History (1934) 31, 33. The Commission of New Hampshire of 1680, Poore, supra, II, 1277, stated: “And above all things We do by these presents will, require and comand our said Councill to take all possible care for ye discountenancing of vice and encouraging of virtue and good living; and that by such examples ye infidle may be invited and desire to partake of ye Christian Religion, and for ye greater ease and satisfaction of ye sd loving subjects in matters of religion, We do hereby require and comand yt liberty of conscience shall be allowed unto all protestants; yt such especially as shall be conformable to ye rites of ye Church of Engd shall be particularly countenanced and encouraged.” See also Pawlet v. Clark, 9 Cranch 292.
See e. g. Semple, Baptists in Virginia (1894); Sweet, Religion in Colonial America, supra at 131-152, 322-339.
Almost every colony exacted some kind of tax for church support. See e. g. Cobb, op. cit. supra, note 5, 110 (Virginia); 131 (North Carolina); 169 (Massachusetts); 270 (Connecticut); 304, 310, 339 (New York); 386 (Maryland); 295 (New Hampshire).
Madison wrote to a friend in 1774: “That diabolical, hell-conceived principle of persecution rages among some . . . This vexes me the worst of anything whatever. There are at this time in the adjacent country not less than five or six well-meaning men in close jail for publishing their religious sentiments, which in the main are very orthodox. I have neither patience to hear, talk, or think of anything relative to this matter; for I have squabbled and scolded, abused and ridiculed, so long about it to little purpose, that I am without common patience. So I must beg you to pity me, and pray for liberty of conscience to all.” I Writings of James Madison (1900) 18, 21.
Virginia’s resistance to taxation for church support was crystallized in the famous “Parsons’ Cause” argued by Patrick Henry in 1763. For an account see Cobb, op. cit., supra, note 5, 108-111.
II Writings of James Madison, 183.
In a recently discovered collection of Madison’s papers, Madison recollected that his Remonstrance “met with the approbation of the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, and the few Roman Catholics, universally; of the Methodists in part; and even of not a few of the Sect formerly established by law.” Madison, Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments, in Fleet, Madison’s “Detached Memorandum,” 3 William and Mary Q. (1946) 534, 551, 555.
For accounts of background and evolution of the Virginia Bill for Religious Liberty see e. g. James, The Struggle for Religious Liberty in Virginia (1900); Thom, The Struggle for Religious Freedom in Virginia: The Baptists (1900); Cobb, op. cit., supra, note 5, 74-115; Madison, Monopolies, Perpetuities, Corporations, Ecclesiastical Endowments, op. cit., supra, note 12, 554, 556.
12 Hening, Statutes of Virginia (1823) 84; Commager, Documents of American History (1944) 125.
Permoli v. New Orleans, 3 How. 589. Cf. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243.
For a collection of state constitutional provisions on freedom of religion see Gabel, Public Funds for Church and Private Schools (1937) 148-149. See also 2 Cooley, Constitutional Limitations (1927) 960-985.
Test provisions forbade officeholders to “deny . . . the truth of the Protestant religion,” e. g. Constitution of North Carolina (1776) § XXXII, II Poore, supra, 1413. Maryland permitted taxation for support of the Christian religion and limited civil office to Christians until 1818, id., I, 819, 820, 832.
See Note 50 Yale L. J. (1941) 917; see also cases collected 14 L. R. A. 418; 5 A. L. R. 879; 141 A.L.R. 1148.
See cases collected 14 L. R. A. 418; 5 A. L. R. 879; 141 A. L. R. 1148.
Ibid. See also Cooley, op. cit., supra, note 16.
Terrett v. Taylor, 9 Cranch 43; Watson v. Jones, 13 Wall. 679; Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333; Cf. Reynolds v. United States, supra, 162; Reuben Quick Bear v. Leupp, 210 U. S. 50.
Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296; Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413; Largent v. Texas, 318 U. S. 418; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, supra; West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624; Follett v. McCormick, 321 U. S. 573; Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501. Cf. Bradfield v. Roberts, 175 U. S. 291.
Harmon v. Dreher, Speer's Equity Reports (S. C., 1843), 87, 120.
New Jersey long ago permitted public utilities to charge school children reduced rates. See Public S. R. Co. v. Public Utility Comm’rs, 81 N. J. L. 363, 80 A. 27 (1911); see also Interstate Ry. v. Massachusetts, supra. The District of Columbia Code requires that the new charter of the District public transportation company provide a three-cent fare “for school children . . . going to and from public, parochial, or like schools . . . .” 47 Stat. 752, 759.
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.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to resolve a conflict in the Circuits as to whether (a) the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18 U. S. C. § 3161 et seq., as amended, prohibits commencement of a trial less than 30 days after arraignment on a superseding indictment; and (b) assuming a violation of the Speedy Trial Act in this case, was that error harmless?
I
On December 7, 1981, respondent, who is not a citizen of the United States, was convicted of illegal entry into this country and was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. After serving his sentence, respondent returned to Mexico.
Again, on February 13, 1983, he entered the United States illegally and was apprehended by United States Border Patrol agents. On February 18, 1983, a federal grand jury sitting in the Southern District of California returned a two-count indictment charging respondent with felony illegal entry under 8 U. S. C. § 1325 and with reentry by a deported alien under 8 U. S. C. § 1326. The indictment stated that the judgment of conviction for the prior illegal entry, which formed the predicate for the enhancement of the § 1325 offense to a felony, was “rendered on or about December 17, 1981.” The date of the previous conviction was actually December 7, 1981. On February 18, 1983, respondent, appearing through counsel, was arraigned on the indictment. Trial was set for April 19, 1983.
On March 21, 1983, the Government informed respondent of the correct date of the previous conviction, and on April 15, 1983, the grand jury returned a superseding indictment which was identical with the original indictment in all respects except that it stated that the date of the previous conviction was “on or about December 7, 1981.” Respondent was arraigned on the superseding indictment on April 18, 1983.
Later that day at a pretrial conference, respondent’s counsel moved for a 30-day continuance of the trial scheduled to begin the next day contending that the Speedy Trial Act, as construed by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Arkus, 675 F. 2d 245 (1982), required that a new 30-day trial preparation period be granted following the return of a superseding indictment. The District Court denied respondent’s motion for a 30-day continuance, citing the Seventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. Horton, 676 F. 2d 1165 (1982), and distinguishing Arkus. Respondent was convicted of felony illegal entry into the United States.
The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that under its decision in United States v. Harris, 724 F. 2d 1452 (CA9 1984), which in turn relied on its decision in Arkus, respondent was entitled to a new 30-day trial preparation period following his arraignment on the superseding indictment. Citing its decision in United States v. Daly, 716 F. 2d 1499 (CA9 1983), the Court of Appeals held that reversal of respondent’s conviction was required to remedy the Speedy Trial Act violation because “any pretrial preparation period shorter than thirty days is inadequate per se. No showing of prejudice is required.”
We granted certiorari, 469 U. S. 1207 (1985). We reverse.
II
Our starting point, of course, is the language of the statute. The Speedy Trial Act of 1974, as amended in 1979, 18 U. S. C. §3161 et seq., establishes inside and outside time limits for commencing trial in criminal cases. Section 3161(c)(2), the provision at issue in this case, provides:
“Unless the defendant consents in writing to the contrary, the trial shall not commence less than thirty days from the date on which the defendant first appears through counsel or expressly waives counsel and elects to proceed pro se” (emphasis added).
The statute clearly fixes the beginning point for the trial preparation period as the first appearance through counsel. It does not refer to the date of the indictment, much less to the date of any superseding indictment. Given this unambiguous language, we have no choice but to conclude that Congress did not intend that the 30-day trial preparation period begin to run from the date of filing of a superseding indictment.
That conclusion finds additional support in the language of § 3161(c)(1). That section establishes the outside time limit within which trial must commence under the Act and explicitly refers to the date of the indictment as one of the relevant dates for determining that time limit:
“[T]he trial of a defendant charged in an information or indictment with the commission of an offense shall commence within seventy days from the filing date (and making public) of the information or indictment, or from the date the defendant has appeared before a judicial officer of the court in which such charge is pending, whichever date last occurs” (emphasis added).
It is clear that Congress knew how to provide for the computation of time periods under the Act relative to the dáte of an indictment. Had Congress intended that the 30-day trial preparation period of § 3161(c)(2) commence or recommence on such a date, it would have so provided.
Because the language of § 3161(c)(2) is a clear expression of congressional intent, we need not resort to the legislative history of that section. We note, however, that the legislative history is wholly consistent with our reading of that section. The 30-day trial preparation period was not included in the original Speedy Trial Act as it was enacted in 1975 but was incorporated into the Act with the 1979 amendments to the Act. Speedy Trial Act Amendments Act of 1979, Pub. L. 96-43, 93 Stat. 327. The legislative history of the 1979 revisions suggests that the source of the 30-day trial preparation period was a set of Guidelines issued by the Judicial Council of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. See Hearings on S. 961 and S. 1028 before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 96th Cong., 1st Sess., 122, 386-436 (1979). The Guidelines were issued to assist the trial judges sitting in the Second Circuit in interpreting the provisions of the Act. Id., at 386. These Guidelines provided that “whenever the time between arraignment and the scheduled trial date does not exceed thirty (30) days, the Court shall. . . view a request for an adjournment of trial to a date beyond thirty (30) days but within the sixty (60) day limit, liberally . . . Id., at 392-393. The Guidelines also stated that, in the situation where a superseding indictment adds new charges, trial of the original charges must begin “within the time limit for commencement of trial on the original indictment or information.” Id., at 417. Taking these two statements from the Guidelines together, it appears that, although the Second Circuit was clearly concerned that a defendant be given a pretrial preparation period of at least 30 days, the filing of a superseding indictment was not enough by itself to require the restarting of that 30-day period.
Applying § 3161(c)(2) to the facts of this case, we conclude that the requirements of that section were met here. The record reflects that respondent’s first appearance through counsel occurred on February 18, 1983. Trial was not commenced until April 19, 1983. Respondent was, therefore, afforded a pretrial preparation period twice as long as the minimum required by § 3161(c)(2).
In concluding as we do that the Act does not require that the 30-day trial preparation period be restarted upon the filing of a superseding indictment, we do not hold that a defendant must always be compelled to go to trial less than 30 days after the filing of such an indictment. The Act itself places broad discretion in the District Court to grant a continuance when necessary to allow further preparation. Section 3161(h)(8) authorizes the trial judge to grant a continuance if “the ends of justice served by taking such action outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial.” The authority of the District Court to grant an “ends of justice” continuance should take care of any case in which the Government seeks a superseding indictment which operates to prejudice a defendant.
Here respondent was clearly not prejudiced by the return of the superseding indictment. The initial indictment recited that the judgment on the prior illegal entry had been rendered “on or about December 17, 1981.” The superseding indictment did nothing except to correct that phrase to read “on or about December 7, 1981.” Even if we were prepared to hold that December 7 is not “on or about” December 17, we would nevertheless be compelled to conclude that respondent was not prejudiced by the change.
Since the Act did not prohibit the commencement of the trial less than 30 days after arraignment on the superseding indictment, we need not address the question whether the District Court’s refusal to grant the continuance requested by respondent was harmless error.
The Court of Appeals’ construction of the Act ignored its plain language and would frustrate its basic purpose which is manifest in its very title: The speedy trial of criminal cases. That construction was error, and we reverse.
Reversed.
Compare United States v. Guzman, 754 F. 2d 482 (CA2 1985), cert. pending, No. 84-1604; United States v. Rush, 738 F. 2d 497 (CA1 1984), cert. denied, 470 U. S. 1004 (1985); United States v. Williford, No. 83-1376 (CA5, Feb. 27, 1984) (unpublished opinion), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 893 (1984); United States v. Horton, 676 F. 2d 1165 (CA7 1982), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 1201 (1983); and United States v. Todisco, 667 F. 2d 255 (CA2 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 906 (1982), with United States v. Rojas-Contreras, No. 83-5089 (CA9, Mar. 2, 1984) (case below; unpublished opinion). See also United States v. Feldman, 761 F. 2d 380 (CA7 1985).
The record does not disclose why the indictment was not corrected by a motion for amendment in the District Court.
Respondent’s counsel also argued that he needed the additional time to consult a fingerprint expert and to review respondent’s immigration file. However, the ultimate fact to which such evidence related, i. e., that respondent and the person arrested in 1981 were one and the same, was ultimately stipulated to by respondent.
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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Michigan, by regulation, places certain restrictions on visits with prison inmates. The question before the Court is whether the regulations violate the substantive due process mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment, or the First or Eighth Amendments as applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
The population of Michigan’s prisons increased in the early 1990’s. More inmates brought more visitors, straining the resources available for prison supervision and control. In particular, prison officials found it more difficult to maintain order during visitation and to prevent smuggling or trafficking in drugs. Special problems were encountered with the increase in visits by children, who are at risk of seeing or hearing harmful conduct during visits and must be supervised with special care in prison visitation facilities.
The incidence of substance abuse in the State’s prisons also increased in this period. Drug and alcohol abuse by prisoners is unlawful and a direct threat to legitimate objectives of the corrections system,, including rehabilitation, the maintenance of basic order, and the prevention of violence in the prisons.
In response to these concerns, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC or Department) revised its prison visitation policies in 1995, promulgating the regulations here at issue. One aspect of the Department’s approach was to limit the visitors a prisoner is eligible to receive, in order to decrease the total number of visitors.
Under MDOC’s regulations, an inmate may receive visits only from individuals placed on an approved visitor list, except that qualified members of the clergy and attorneys on official business may visit without being listed. Mich. Admin. Code Rule 791.6609(2) (1999); Director’s Office Mem. 1995-59 (effective date Aug. 25,1995). The list may include an unlimited number of members of the prisoner’s immediate family and 10 other individuals the prisoner designates, subject to some restrictions. Rule 791.6609(2). Minors under the age of 18 may not be placed on the list unless they are the children, stepchildren, grandchildren, or siblings of the inmate. Rule 791.6609(2)(b); Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 791.268a (West Supp. 2003). If an inmate’s parental rights have been terminated, the child may not be a visitor. Rule 791.6609(6)(a) (1999). A child authorized to visit must be accompanied by an adult who is an immediate family member of the child or of the inmate or who is the legal guardian of the child. Rule 791.6609(5); Mich. Dept. of Corrections Procedure OP-SLF/STF-05.03.140, p. 9 (effective date Sept. 15, 1999). An inmate may not place a former prisoner on the visitor list unless the former prisoner is a member of the inmate’s immediate family and the warden has given prior approval. Rule 791.6609(7).
The Department’s revised policy also sought to control the widespread use of drugs and alcohol among prisoners. Prisoners who commit multiple substance-abuse violations are not permitted to receive any visitors except attorneys and members of the clergy. Rule 791.6609(ll)(d). An inmate subject to this restriction may apply for reinstatement of visitation privileges after two years. Rule 791.6609(12). Reinstatement is within the warden’s discretion. Ibid.
Respondents are prisoners, their friends, and their family members. They brought this action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that the restrictions upon visitation violate the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. It was certified as a class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.
Inmates who are classified as the highest security risks, as determined by the MDOC, are limited to noncontact visitation. This case does not involve a challenge to the method for making that determination. By contrast to contact visitation, during which inmates are allowed limited physical contact with their visitors in a large visitation room, inmates restricted to noncontact visits must communicate with their visitors through a glass panel, the inmate and the visitor being on opposite sides of a booth. In some facilities the booths are located in or at one side of the same room used for contact visits. The case before us concerns the regulations as they pertain to noncontact visits.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan agreed with the prisoners that the regulations pertaining to noncontact visits were invalid. Bazzetta v. McGinnis, 148 F. Supp. 2d 813 (2001). The Sixth Circuit affirmed, 286 F. 3d 311 (2002), and we granted certiorari, 537 U. S. 1043 (2002).
II
The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the restrictions on noncontact visits are invalid. This was error. We first consider the contention, accepted by the Court of Appeals, that the regulations infringe a constitutional right of association.
We have said that the Constitution protects “certain kinds of highly personal relationships,” Roberts v. United States Jaycees, 468 U. S. 609, 618, 619-620 (1984). And outside the prison context, there is some discussion in our cases of a right to maintain certain familial relationships, including association among members of an immediate family and association between grandchildren and grandparents. See Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977) (plurality opinion); Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390 (1923).
This is not an appropriate case for further elaboration of those matters. The very object of imprisonment is confinement. Many of the liberties and privileges enjoyed by other citizens must be surrendered by the prisoner. An inmate does not retain rights inconsistent with proper incarceration. See Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U. S. 119, 125 (1977); Shaw v. Murphy, 532 U. S. 223, 229 (2001). And, as our cases have established, freedom of association is among the rights least compatible with incarceration. See Jones, supra, at 125-126; Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460 (1983). Some curtailment of that freedom must be expected in the prison context.
We do not hold, and we do not imply, that any right to intimate association is altogether terminated by incarceration or is always irrelevant to claims made by prisoners. We need not attempt to explore or define the asserted right of association at any length or determine the extent to which it survives incarceration because the challenged regulations bear a rational relation to legitimate penological interests. This suffices to sustain the regulation in question. See Turner v. Safley, 482 U. S. 78, 89 (1987). We have taken a similar approach in previous cases, such as Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 822 (1974), which we cited with approval in Turner. In Pell, we found it unnecessary to decide whether an asserted First Amendment right survived incarceration. Prison administrators had reasonably exercised their judgment as to the appropriate means of furthering penological goals, and that was the controlling rationale for our decision. We must accord substantial deference to the professional judgment of prison administrators, who bear a significant responsibility for defining the legitimate goals of a corrections system and for determining the most appropriate means to accomplish them. See, e. g., Pell, supra, at 826-827; Helms, supra, at 467; Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U. S. 401, 408 (1989); Jones, supra, at 126, 128; Turner, supra, at 85, 89; Block v. Rutherford, 468 U. S. 576, 588 (1984); Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 562 (1979). The burden, moreover, is not on the State to prove the validity of prison regulations but on the prisoner to disprove it. See Jones, supra, at 128; O’Lone v. Estate of Shabazz, 482 U. S. 342, 350 (1987); Shaw, supra, at 232. Respondents have failed to do so here.
In Turner we held that four factors are relevant in deciding whether a prison regulation affecting a constitutional right that survives incarceration withstands constitutional challenge: whether the regulation has a “ Valid, rational connection’ ” to a legitimate governmental interest; whether alternative means are open to inmates to exercise the asserted right; what impact an accommodation of the right would have on guards and inmates and prison resources; and whether there are “ready alternatives” to the regulation. 482 U. S., at 89-91.
Turning to the restrictions on visitation by children, we conclude that the regulations bear a rational relation to MDOC’s valid interests in maintaining internal security and protecting child visitors from exposure to sexual or other misconduct or from accidental injury. The regulations promote internal security, perhaps the most legitimate of penological goals, see, e.g., Pell, supra, at 823, by reducing the total number of visitors and by limiting the disruption caused by children in particular. Protecting children from harm is also a legitimate goal, see, e. g., Block, supra, at 586-587. The logical connection between this interest and the regulations is demonstrated by trial testimony that reducing the number of children allows guards to supervise them better to ensure their safety and to minimize the disruptions they cause within the visiting areas.
As for the regulation requiring children to be accompanied by a family member or legal guardian, it is reasonable to ensure that the visiting child is accompanied and supervised by those adults charged with protecting the child’s best interests.
Respondents argue that excluding minor nieces and nephews and children as to whom parental rights have been terminated bears no rational relationship to these penological interests. We reject this contention, and in all events it would not suffice to invalidate the regulations as to all non-contact visits. To reduce the number of child visitors, a line must be drawn, and the categories set out by these regulations are reasonable. Visits are allowed between an inmate and those children closest to him or her — children, grandchildren, and siblings. The prohibition on visitation by children as to whom the inmate no longer has parental rights is simply a recognition by prison administrators of a status determination made in other official proceedings.
MDOC’s regulation prohibiting visitation by former inmates bears a self-evident connection to the State’s interest in maintaining prison security and preventing future crimes. We have recognized that “communication with other felons is a potential spur to criminal behavior.” Turner, supra, at 91-92.
Finally, the restriction on visitation for inmates with two substance-abuse violations, a bar which may be removed after two years, serves the legitimate goal of deterring the use of drugs and alcohol within the prisons. Drug smuggling and drug use in prison are intractable problems. See, e. g., Bell, supra, at 559; Block, supra, at 586-587; Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U. S. 517, 527 (1984). Withdrawing visitation privileges is a proper and even necessary management technique to induce compliance with the rules of inmate behavior, especially for high-security prisoners who have few other privileges to lose. In this regard we note that numerous other States have implemented similar restrictions on visitation privileges to control and deter substance-abuse violations. See Brief for State of Colorado et al. as Amici Curiae 4-9.
Respondents argue that the regulation bears no rational connection to preventing substance abuse because it has been invoked in certain instances where the infractions were, in respondents' view, minor. Even if we were inclined, though, to substitute our judgment for the conclusions of prison officials concerning the infractions reached by the regulations, the individual cases respondents cite are not sufficient to strike down the regulations as to all noncontact visits. Respondents also contest the 2-year bar and note that reinstatement of visitation is not automatic even at the end of two years. We agree the restriction is severe. And if faced with evidence that MDOC’s regulation is treated as a de facto permanent ban on all visitation for certain inmates, we might reach a different conclusion in a challenge to a particular application of the regulation. Those issues are not presented in this case, which challenges the validity of the restriction on noncontact visits in all instances.
Having determined that each of the challenged regulations bears a rational relationship to a legitimate penological interest, we consider whether inmates have alternative means of exercising the constitutional right they seek to assert. Turner, 482 U. S., at 90. Were it shown that no alternative means of communication existed, though it would not be conclusive, it would be some evidence that the regulations were unreasonable. That showing, however, cannot be made. Respondents here do have alternative means of associating with those prohibited from visiting. As was the case in Pell, inmates can communicate with those who may not visit by sending messages through those who are allowed to visit. 417 U. S., at 825. Although this option is not available to inmates barred all visitation after two violations, they and other inmates may communicate with persons outside the prison by letter and telephone. Respondents protest that letter writing is inadequate for illiterate inmates and for communications with young children. They say, too, that phone calls are brief and expensive, so that these alternatives are not sufficient. Alternatives to visitation need not be ideal, however; they need only be available. Here, the alternatives are of sufficient utility that they give some support to the regulations, particularly in a context where visitation is limited, not completely withdrawn.
Another relevant consideration is the impact that accommodation of the asserted associational right would have on guards, other inmates, the allocation of prison resources, and the safety of visitors. See Turner, supra, at 90; Hudson, supra, at 526 (visitor safety). Accommodating respondents’ demands would cause a significant reallocation of the prison system’s financial resources and would impair the ability of corrections officers to protect all who are inside a prison’s walls. When such consequences are present, we are “particularly deferential” to prison administrators’ regulatory judgments. Turner, supra, at 90.
Finally, we consider whether the presence of ready alternatives undermines the reasonableness of the regulations. Turner does not impose a least-restrictive-alternative test, but asks instead whether the prisoner has pointed to some obvious regulatory alternative that fully accommodates the asserted right while not imposing more than a de minimis cost to the valid penological goal. 482 U. S., at 90-91. Respondents have not suggested alternatives meeting this high standard for any of the regulations at issue. We disagree with respondents’ suggestion that allowing visitation by nieces and nephews or children for whom parental rights have been terminated is an obvious alternative. Increasing the number of child visitors in that way surely would have more than a negligible effect on the goals served by the regulation. As to the limitation on visitation by former inmates, respondents argue the restriction could be time limited, but we defer to MDOC’s judgment that a longer restriction better serves its interest in preventing the criminal activity that can result from these interactions. Respondents suggest the duration of the restriction for inmates with substance-abuse violations could be shortened or that it could be applied only for the most serious violations, but these alternatives do not go so far toward accommodating the asserted right with so little cost to penological goals that they meet Turner’s high standard. These considerations cannot justify the decision of the Court of Appeals to invalidate the regulation as to all noncontact visits.
III
Respondents also claim that the restriction on visitation for inmates with two substance-abuse violations is a cruel and unusual condition of confinement in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The restriction undoubtedly makes the prisoner’s confinement more difficult to bear. But it does not, in the circumstances of this case, fall below the standards mandated by the Eighth Amendment. Much of what we have said already about the withdrawal of privileges that incarceration is expected to bring applies here as well. Michigan, like many other States, uses withdrawal of visitation privileges for a limited period as a regular means of effecting prison discipline. This is not a dramatic departure from accepted standards for conditions of confinement. Cf. Sandin v. Conner, 515 U. S. 472, 485 (1995). Nor does the regulation create inhumane prison conditions, deprive inmates of basic necessities, or fail to protect their health or safety. Nor does it involve the infliction of pain or injury, or deliberate indifference to the risk that it might occur. See, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976); Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U. S. 337 (1981). If the withdrawal of all visitation privileges were permanent or. for a much longer period, or if it were applied in an arbitrary manner to a particular inmate, the case would present different considerations. An individual claim based on indefinite withdrawal of visitation or denial of procedural safeguards, however, would not support the ruling of the Court of Appeals that the entire regulation is invalid.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
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 |
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
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion in which Justice Marshall, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Powell join.
The question we must decide is whether relief awarded in this case, in the form of a one-black-for-one-white promotion requirement to be applied as an interim measure to state trooper promotions in the Alabama Department of Public Safety (Department), is permissible under the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In 1972 the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama held that the Department had systematically excluded blacks from employment in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Some 11 years later, confronted with the Department’s failure to develop promotion procedures that did not have an adverse impact on blacks, the District Court ordered the promotion of one black trooper for each white trooper elevated in rank, as long as qualified black candidates were available, until the Department implemented an acceptable promotion procedure. The United States challenges the constitutionality of this order.
r-H
Because the Department’s prior employment practices and conduct during this lawsuit bear directly on the constitutionality of any race-conscious remedy imposed upon it, we must relate the tortuous course of this litigation in some detail.
A
In 1972 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) brought this action challenging the Department’s longstanding practice of excluding blacks from employment. The United States was joined as a party plaintiff, and Phillip Paradise, Jr., intervened on behalf of a class of black plaintiffs. District Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., determined:
“Plaintiffs have shown without contradiction that the defendants have engaged in a blatant and continuous pattern and practice of discrimination in hiring in the Alabama Department of Public Safety, both as to troopers and supporting personnel. In the thirty-seven year history of the patrol there has never been a black trooper and the only Negroes ever employed by the department have been nonmerit system laborers. This unexplained and unexplainable discriminatory conduct by state officials is unquestionably a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp. 703, 705 (MD Ala. 1972).
He concluded:
“Under such circumstances... the courts have the authority and the duty not only to order an end to discriminatory practices, but also to correct and eliminate the present effects of past discrimination. The racial discrimination in this instance has so permeated the Department's] employment policies that both mandatory and prohibitory injunctive relief are necessary to end these discriminatory practices and to make some substantial progress toward eliminating their effects.” Id., at 705-706 (citations omitted).
As a result, the court issued an order (1972 order), enjoining the Department to hire one black trooper for each white trooper hired until blacks constituted approximately 25% of the state trooper force. Judge Johnson also enjoined the Department from “engaging in any employment practices, including recruitment, examination, appointment, training, promotion, retention or any other personnel action, for the purpose or with the effect of discriminating against any employee, or actual or potential applicant for employment, on the ground of race or color.” Id., at 706 (emphasis added). The court further required that “eligible and promotional registers heretofore used for the purpose of hiring troopers be and they are hereby abrogated to the extent necessary to comply with this decree.” Id., at 707.
The defendants appealed, but the Fifth Circuit upheld the hiring requirement:
“The use of quota relief in employment discrimination cases is bottomed on the chancellor’s duty to eradicate the continuing effects of past unlawful practices. By mandating the hiring of those who have been the object of discrimination, quota relief promptly operates to change the outward and visible signs of yesterday’s racial distinctions and thus, to provide an impetus to the process of dismantling the barriers, psychological or otherwise, erected by past practices. It is a temporary remedy that seeks to spend itself as promptly as it can by creating a climate in which objective, neutral employment criteria can successfully operate to select public employees solely on the basis of job-related merit.” NAACP v. Allen, 493 F. 2d 614, 621 (1974).
The Court of Appeals also held that white applicants who had higher eligibility rankings than blacks were not denied due process or equal protection of the laws by the one-for-one hiring order. The Department’s use of unvalidated selection procedures that disproportionately excluded blacks precluded any argument that “quota hiring produces unconstitutional ‘reverse’ discrimination, or a lowering of employment standards, or the appointment of less or unqualified persons.” Id., at 618.
In 1974, only shortly after the Court of Appeals’ decision, the plaintiffs found it necessary to seek further relief from the District Court. Judge Johnson found that “defendants have, for the purpose of frustrating or delaying full relief to the plaintiff class, artificially restricted the size of the trooper force and the number of new troopers hired.” Paradise v. Dothard, Civ. Action No. 3561-N (MD Ala., Aug. 5, 1975). The court also addressed the disproportionate failure of blacks hired to achieve permanent trooper status:
“[T]he high attrition rate among blacks resulted from the selection of other than the best qualified blacks from the eligibility rosters, some social and official discrimination against blacks at the trooper training academy, preferential treatment of whites in some aspects of training and testing, and discipline of blacks harsher than that given whites for similar misconduct while on the force.” Ibid.
The court reaffirmed the 1972 hiring order, enjoining any further attempts by the Department to delay or frustrate compliance.
B
In September 1977 the plaintiffs again had to return to the District Court for supplemental relief, this time specifically on the question of the Department’s promotion practices. Following extensive discovery, the parties entered into a partial consent decree (1979 Decree), approved by the court in February 1979. In this decree, the Department agreed to develop within one year a promotion procedure that would be fair to all applicants and have “little or no adverse impact upon blacks seeking promotion to corporal.” App. 40. In the decree, the Department also agreed that the promotion procedure would conform with the 1978 Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, 28 CFR §50.14 (1978). Once such a procedure was in place for the rank of corporal, the decree required the defendants to develop similar procedures for the other upper ranks — sergeant, lieutenant, captain, and major. The decree expressly provided that the plaintiffs might apply to the court for enforcement of its terms or for other appropriate relief. App. 41.
Five days after approval of the 1979 Decree, the defendants sought clarification of the 1972 hiring order. The Department maintained that its goal — a 25% black trooper force — applied only to officers in entry-level positions and not to the upper ranks. The court responded:
“On this point, there is no ambiguity. The Court’s [1972] order required that one-to-one hiring be carried out until approximately twenty-five percent of the state trooper force is black. It is perfectly clear that the order did not distinguish among troopers by rank.” Paradise v. Shoemaker, 470 F. Supp. 439, 440 (MD Ala. 1979) (emphasis in original).
The Department also argued that because the 25% objective could not be achieved unless 37.5% of entry-level positions were held by blacks, “more qualified white applicants” were passed over than was constitutionally permissible. Id., at 441. The District Court rejected the argument, stating:
“To modify this order would be to do less than the law requires, which is to eradicate the continuing effects of past unlawful practices. In 1972, defendants were not just found guilty of discriminating against blacks in hiring to entry-level positions. The Court found that in thirty-seven years there had never been a black trooper at any rank. One continuing effect of that discrimination is that, as of November 1, 1978, out of 232 state troopers at the rank of corporal or above, there is still not one black. The [hiring] quota fashioned by the Court provides an impetus to promote blacks into those positions. To focus only on the entry-level positions would be to ignore that past discrimination by the Department was pervasive, that its effects persist, and that they are manifest.... The order in this case is but the necessary remedy for an intolerable wrong.” Id., at 442 (emphasis added).
In April 1981, more than a year after the deadline set in the 1979 Decree, the Department proposed a selection procedure for promotion to corporal and sought approval from the District Court. The United States and the plaintiff class both objected to implementation of the procedure, arguing that it had not been validated and that its use would be impermissible if it had an adverse impact on blacks. To resolve this dispute the parties executed a second consent decree (1981 Decree) which the District Court approved on August 18, 1981.
In the 1981 Decree, the Department reaffirmed its commitment made in 1979 to implement a promotion procedure with little or no adverse impact on blacks. The parties then agreed to the administration of the proposed promotion procedure and that its results would be “reviewed to determine whether the selection procedure has an adverse impact against black applicants.” App. 51. Whether there was adverse impact was to be determined by reference to the “four-fifths” rule of §4 of the Uniform Guidelines. See 28 CFR §50.14 (1978). If the parties proved unable to agree on a procedure, its determination would be submitted to the District Court. No promotions would occur until the “parties... agreed in writing or the Court... ruled upon the method to be used for making promotions with little or no adverse impact.” App. 53.
The defendants administered the test to 262 applicants of whom 60 (23%) were black. Of the 60 blacks who took the test, only 5 (8.3%) were listed in the top half of the promotion register; the highest ranked black candidate was number 80. Id., at 119. In response to an inquiry from the United States, the Department indicated that there was an immediate need to make between 8 and 10 promotions to corporal and announced its intention to elevate between 16 and 20 individuals before construction of a new list. 1 Record 222.
The United States objected to any rank-ordered use of the list, stating that such use “would result in substantial adverse impact against black applicants” and suggested that the defendants submit an alternative proposal that would comply with the requirements of the 1979 and 1981 Decrees. Id., at 220-221. No proposal was submitted, and no promotions were made during the next nine months.
In April 1983, plaintiffs returned to District Court and sought an order enforcing the terms of the two consent decrees. Specifically, they requested that defendants be required to promote blacks to corporal “at the same rate at which they have been hired, 1 for 1, until such time as the defendants implement a valid promotional procedure.” Id., at 112. The plaintiff class contended that such an order would “encourage defendants to develop a valid promotional procedure as soon as possible,” and would “help to alleviate the gross underrepresentation of blacks in the supervisory ranks of the Department” — an underrepresentation caused by the Department’s past discrimination and exacerbated by its continuing refusal to implement a fair procedure. Ibid.
Although it opposed the one-for-one promotion requirement, the United States agreed that the consent decrees should be enforced. It stated that defendants had failed to offer “any reason[s] why promotions should not be made,” nor had they offered an explanation as to why they had halted “progress towards remedying the effects of past discrimination.” Id., at 199-201. The United States further observed that the Department’s failure to produce a promotion plan in compliance with the 1979 and 1981 Decrees “suggests that a pattern of discrimination against blacks in the Department... may be continuing.” Id., at 200.
After the motion to enforce was filed, four white applicants for promotion to corporal sought to intervene on behalf of a class composed of those white applicants who took the proposed corporal’s examination and ranked number 1 through number 79. App. 81-87. They argued that the 1979 and 1981 Decrees and the relief proposed by the plaintiffs in their motion to enforce were “unreasonable, illegal, unconstitutional or against public policy.” Id., at 99.
In an order entered October 28, 1983, the District Court held that the Department’s selection procedure had an adverse impact on blacks. Paradise v. Prescott, 580 F. Supp. 171, 174 (MD Ala.). Observing that even if 79 corporals were promoted in rank order, rather than the 15 contemplated, none would be black, the court concluded that “[s]hort of outright exclusion based on race, it is hard to conceive of a selection procedure which would have a greater discriminatory impact.” Id., at 173. The Department was ordered to submit, by November 10, 1983, “a plan to promote to corporal, from qualified candidates, at least 15 persons in a manner that will not have an adverse racial impact.” Id., at 175.
The Department subsequently submitted a proposal to promote 15 persons to the rank of corporal, of whom 4 would be black. In addition, the Department requested that the department of personnel be given more time to develop and submit for court approval a nondiscriminatory promotion procedure.
The United States did not oppose the Department’s proposal, but the plaintiffs did. They argued that the proposal “totally disregards the injury plaintiffs have suffered due to the defendants’ four-and-a-half year delay [since the 1979 Decree] and fails to provide any mechanism that will insure the present scenario will not reoccur.” 2 Record 382.
On December 15,1983, the District Court granted the plaintiffs’ motion to enforce the 1979 and 1981 Decrees. Paradise v. Prescott, 585 F. Supp. 72 (MD Ala.). Confronted with the Department’s immediate need to promote 15 troopers to corporal and the parties’ inability to agree, the court was required by the 1979 and 1981 Decrees to fashion a promotion procedure. The District Judge summarized the situation:
“On February 10, 1984, less than two months from today, twelve years will have passed since this court condemned the racially discriminatory policies and practices of the Alabama Department of Public Safety. Nevertheless, the effects of these policies and practices remain pervasive and conspicuous at all ranks above the entry-level position. Of the 6 majors, there is still not one black. Of the 25 captains, there is still not one black. Of the 35 lieutenants, there is still not one black. Of the 65 sergeants, there is still not one black. Of the 66 corporals, only four are black. Thus, the department still operates an upper rank structure in which almost every trooper obtained his position through procedures that totally excluded black persons. Moreover, the department is still without acceptable procedures for advancement of black troopers into this structure, and it does not appear that any procedures will be in place within the near future. The preceding scenario is intolerable and must not continue. The time has now arrived for the department to take affirmative and substantial steps to open the upper ranks to black troopers.” Id., at 74 (emphasis in original).
The court then fashioned the relief at issue here. It held that “for a period of time,” at least 50% of the promotions to corporal must be awarded to black troopers, if qualified black candidates were available. The court also held that “if there is to be within the near future an orderly path for black troopers to enter the upper ranks, any relief fashioned by the court must address the department’s delay in developing acceptable promotion procedures for all ranks.” Id., at 75. Thus, the court imposed a 50% promotional quota in the upper ranks, but only if there were qualified black candidates, if the rank were less than 25% black, and if the Department had not developed and implemented a promotion plan without adverse impact for the relevant rank. The court concluded that the effects of past discrimination in the Department “will not wither away of their own accord” and that “without promotional quotas the continuing effects of this discrimination cannot be eliminated.” Id., at 75 and 76. The court highlighted the temporary nature and flexible design of the relief ordered, stating that it was “specifically tailored” to eliminate the lingering effects of past discrimination, to remedy the delayed compliance with the consent decrees, and to ensure prompt implementation of lawful procedures. Ibid.
Finally, the Department was ordered to submit within 30 days a schedule for the development of promotion procedures for all ranks above the entry level. The schedule was to be “based upon realistic expectations” as the court intended that “the use of the quotas... be a one-time occurrence.” Ibid. The District Court reasoned that, under the order it had entered, the Department had “the prerogative to end the promotional quotas at any time, simply by developing acceptable promotion procedures.” Id., at 76.
Numerous motions for reconsideration of the court’s order and for the alteration or amendment of the court’s judgment were denied by the District Court. In its motion, the Department set forth the “new contention” that it was “without legal authority and sufficiently trained personnel to design any promotional procedures” because “this function is allocated by statute to the Department of Personnel.” Paradise v. Prescott, Civ. Action No. 3561-N (MD Ala., Jan. 13, 1984). The District Court responded that the Department had signed consent decrees in 1979 and 1981 mandating development of an acceptable procedure and that Department counsel had represented at the January 5,1984, hearing that “it was anticipated that the development of these procedures would take only a few months.” Ibid. The judge concluded:
“It is now years later and this court will not entertain the excuse that the department is now without legal authority to meet its obligations under the consent decrees.
... [T]he Department of Personnel, which is also a party to these proceedings, assured the court at the January 5, [1984] hearing that it would work closely with the Public Safety Department to develop acceptable promotion procedures. The Public Safety Department’s contention that it is without legal authority is not only meritless, it is frivolous.
“Moreover, that the Department of Public Safety would even advance this argument dramatically demonstrates the need for the relief imposed by this court. Such frivolous arguments serve no purpose other than to prolong the discriminatory effects of the department’s 37-year history of racial discrimination” Ibid, (emphasis added).
In February 1984, the Department promoted eight blacks and eight whites to corporal pursuant to the District Court’s order enforcing the consent decrees.
Four months later, the Department submitted for the court’s approval its proposed procedure for promotions to the rank of corporal. The District Court ruled that the Department could promote up to 13 troopers utilizing this procedure and suspended application of the one-for-one requirement for that purpose. App. 163-164. In October 1984, following approval of the Department’s new selection procedure for promotion to sergeant, the court similarly suspended application of the quota at that rank. Id., at 176-177.
On appeal the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the District Court’s order. The Court of Appeals concluded that the relief at issue was designed to remedy the present effects of past discrimination — “effects which, as the history of this case amply demonstrates, ‘will not wither away of their own accord.’” Paradise v. Prescott, 767 F. 2d 1514, 1533 (1985) (quoting 585 F. Supp., at 75). In addition, the relief awarded was deemed to “exten[d] no further than necessary to accomplish the objective of remedying the ‘egregious’ and longstanding racial imbalances in the upper ranks of the Department.” 767 F. 2d, at 1532-1533.
We granted certiorari. 478 U. S. 1019 (1986). We affirm.
II
The United States maintains that the race-conscious relief ordered in this case violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
It is now well established that government bodies, including courts, may constitutionally employ racial classifications essential to remedy unlawful treatment of racial or ethnic groups subject to discrimination. See Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U. S. 421, 480 (1986), and cases cited therein. See also Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U. S. 267, 286 (1986) (“The Court is in agreement that... remedying past or present racial discrimination... is a sufficiently weighty state interest to warrant the remedial use of a carefully constructed affirmative action program”) (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). But although this Court has consistently held that some elevated level of scrutiny is required when a racial or ethnic distinction is made for remedial purposes, it has yet to reach consensus on the appropriate constitutional analysis. We need not do so in this case, however, because we conclude that the relief ordered survives even strict scrutiny analysis: it is “narrowly tailored” to serve a “compelling [governmental] purpose.” Id., at 274 (opinion of Powell, J.).
The Government unquestionably has a compelling interest in remedying past and present discrimination by a state actor. See ibid.; id., at 286 (O’Connor, J., concurring); Sheet Metal Workers, supra, at 480 (opinion of Brennan, J.). See also Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U. S. 747, 763 (1976) (prevention and remedying of racial discrimination and its effects is a national policy of “highest priority”). In 1972 the District Court found, and the Court of Appeals affirmed, that for almost four decades the Department had excluded blacks from all positions, including jobs in the upper ranks. Such egregious discriminatory conduct was “unquestionably a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.” NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp., at 705. As the United States concedes, Brief for United States 21, the pervasive, systematic, and obstinate discriminatory conduct of the Department created a profound need and a firm justification for the race-conscious relief ordered by the District Court.
The Department and the intervenors, however, maintain that the Department was found guilty only of discrimination in hiring, and not in its promotional practices. They argue that no remedial relief is justified in the promotion context because the intentional discrimination in hiring was without effect in the upper ranks, and because the Department’s promotional procedure was not discriminatory. There is no merit in either premise.
Discrimination at the entry level necessarily precluded blacks from competing for promotions, and resulted in a departmental hierarchy dominated exclusively by nonminor-ities. The lower courts determined that this situation was explicable only by reference to the Department’s past discriminatory conduct. In 1972 the Department was “not just found guilty of discriminating against blacks in hiring to entry-level positions. The court found that in 37 years there had never been a black trooper at any rank.” Paradise v. Shoemaker, 470 F. Supp., at 442. In 1979 the District Judge stated that one continuing effect of the Department’s historical discrimination was that, “as of November 1, 1978, out of 232 state troopers at the rank of corporal or above, there is still not one black. ” Ibid. The court explained that the hiring quota it had fashioned was intended to provide “an impetus to promote blacks into those positions” and that “[t]o focus only on the entry-level positions would be to ignore that past discrimination by the Department was pervasive, that its effects persist, and that they are manifest.” Ibid. The District Court crafted the relief it did due to “the department’s failure after almost twelve years to eradicate the continuing effects of its own discrimination.” 585 F. Supp., at 75, n. 1. It is too late for the Department to attempt to segregate the results achieved by its hiring practices and those achieved by its promotional practices.
The argument that the Department’s promotion procedure was not discriminatory is belied by the record. In 1979, faced with additional allegations of discrimination, the Department agreed to adopt promotion procedures without an adverse impact on black candidates within one year. See 767 F. 2d, at 1532. By 1983 the Department had promoted only four blacks, and these promotions had been made pursuant to the 1979 Decree, and “not the voluntary action of the Department.” Id., at 1533, n. 16. In December 1983, the District Court found, despite the commitments made in the consent decrees, that the Department’s proposed promotion plan would have an adverse impact upon blacks, 580 F. Supp., at 174, and that “the department still operate[d] an upper rank structure in which almost every trooper obtained his position through procedures that totally excluded black persons.” 585 F. Supp., at 74 (emphasis in original). On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit summarily rejected the argument of the Department and the intervenors:
“[I]t is no answer in this case to say that plaintiffs have not proven that the Department has discriminated against blacks above the entry-level seeking promotions.... [I]t cannot be gainsaid that white troopers promoted since 1972 were the specific beneficiaries of an official policy which systematically excluded all blacks.” 767 F. 2d, at 1533, n. 16 (emphasis added).
Promotion, like hiring, has been a central concern of the District Court since the commencement of this action; since 1972, the relief crafted has included strictures against promotion procedures that have a discriminatory purpose or effect. The race-conscious relief at issue here is justified by a compelling interest in remedying the discrimination that permeated entry-level hiring practices and the promotional process alike.
Finally, in this case, as in Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U. S., at 485 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), the District Court’s enforcement order is “supported not only by the governmental interest in eradicating [the Department’s] discriminatory practices, it is also supported by the societal interest in compliance with the judgments of federal courts.” The relief at issue was imposed upon a defendant with a consistent history of resistance to the District Court’s orders, and only after the Department failed to live up to its court-approved commitments.
HH hH I — I
While conceding that the District Court s order serves a compelling interest, the Government insists that it was not narrowly tailored to accomplish its purposes —to remedy past discrimination and eliminate its lingering effects, to enforce compliance with the 1979 and 1981 Decrees by bringing about the speedy implementation of a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks, and to eradicate the ill effects of the Department’s delay in producing such a procedure. We cannot agree.
In determining whether race-conscious remedies are appropriate, we look to several factors, including the necessity for the relief and the efficacy of alternative remedies; the flexibility and duration of the relief, including the availability of waiver provisions; the relationship of the numerical goals to the relevant labor market; and the impact of the relief on the rights of third parties. Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U. S., at 481 (opinion of Brennan, J.); id., at 486 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). When considered in light of these factors, it was amply established, and we find that the one-for-one promotion requirement was narrowly tailored to serve its several purposes, both as applied to the initial set of promotions to the rank of corporal and as a continuing contingent order with respect to the upper ranks.
A
To evaluate the District Court’s determination that it was necessary to order the promotion of eight whites and eight blacks to the rank of corporal at the time of the motion to enforce, we must examine the purposes the order was intended to serve. First, the court sought to eliminate the effects of the Department’s “long term, open, and pervasive” discrimination, including the absolute exclusion of blacks from its upper ranks. Second, the judge sought to ensure expeditious compliance with the 1979 and 1981 Decrees by inducing the Department to implement a promotion procedure that would not have an adverse impact on blacks. Finally, the court needed to eliminate so far as possible the effects of the Department’s delay in producing such a procedure. Confronted by the Department’s urgent need to promote at least 15 troopers to corporal, see Paradise v. Prescott, 580 F. Supp., at 173, the District Court determined that all of its purposes could be served only by ordering the promotion of eight blacks and eight whites, as requested by the plaintiff class.
The options proffered by the Government and the Department would not have served the court’s purposes. The Department proposed, as a stopgap measure, to promote 4 blacks and 11 whites and requested additional time to allow the department of personnel to develop and submit a nondiscriminatory promotion procedure. The United States argues that the Department’s proposal would have allowed this round of promotions to be made without adverse impact on black candidates.
The Department’s proposal was inadequate because it completely failed to address two of the purposes cited above. The Department’s ad hoc offer to make one round of promotions without an adverse impact ignored the court’s concern that an acceptable procedure be adopted with alacrity. As early as 1972, the Department had been enjoined from engaging in any promotional practices “for the purpose or with the effect of discriminating against any employee... on the ground of race or color.” NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp., at 706. In 1979, the Department had promised in a court-approved consent decree to develop and implement a procedure without adverse impact by 1980. By 1983, such a procedure still had not been established, and Paradise sought enforcement of the consent decrees. Given the record of delay, we find it astonishing that the Department should suggest that in 1983 the District Court was constitutionally required to settle for yet another promise that such a procedure would be forthcoming “as soon as possible.” 2 Record 358.
Moreover, the Department’s proposal ignored the injury to the plaintiff class that resulted from its delay in complying with the terms of the 1972 order and the 1979 and 1981 Decrees. As the Eleventh Circuit pointed out, no blacks were promoted between 1972 and 1979; the four blacks promoted in 1979 were elevated pursuant to the 1979 Decree and not as a result of the voluntary action of the Department; and, finally, the whites promoted since 1972 “were the specific beneficiaries of an official policy which systematically excluded all blacks.” 767 F. 2d, at 1533, n. 16. To permit ad hoc decisionmaking to continue and allow only 4 of 15 slots to be filled by blacks would have denied relief to black troopers who had irretrievably lost promotion opportunities. Thus, adoption of the Department’s proposal would have fallen far short of the remedy necessary to eliminate the effects of the Department’s past discrimination, would not have ensured adoption of a procedure without adverse impact, and would not have vitiated the effects of the defendant’s delay.
The Government suggests that the trial judge could have imposed heavy fines and fees on the Department pending compliance. This alternative was never proposed to the District Court. Furthermore, the Department had been ordered to pay the plaintiffs’ attorney’s fees and costs throughout this lengthy litigation; these court orders had done little to prevent future foot-dragging. See, e. g., United States v. Frazer, 317 F. Supp. 1079, 1093 (1970); NAACP v. Allen, 340 F. Supp., at 708-710. In addition, imposing fines on the defendant does nothing to compensate the plaintiffs for the long delays in implementing acceptable promotion procedures. Finally, the Department had expressed an immediate and urgent need to make 15 promotions, and the District Court took this need into consideration in constructing its remedy. As we observed only last Term, “a district court may find it necessary to order interim hiring or promotional goals pending the development of nondiscriminatory hiring or promotion procedures. In these cases, the use of numerical goals provides a compromise between unacceptable alternatives: an outright ban on hiring or promotions... [or] continued use of a discriminatory selection procedure,” or, we might add, use of no selection procedure at all.
By 1984 the District Court was plainly justified in imposing the remedy chosen. Any order allowing further delay by the Department was entirely unacceptable. Cf. Green v. New Kent County School Board, 391 U. S. 430, 438, 439 (1968) (“[A] plan that at this late date fails to provide meaningful assurance of prompt and effective disestablishment of a dual system is... intolerable.... The burden on a school board today is to come forward with a plan that promises realistically to work, and promises realistically to work now”). Not only was the immediate promotion of blacks to the rank of corporal essential, but, if the need for continuing judicial oversight was to end, it was also essential that the Department be required to develop a procedure without adverse impact on blacks, and that the effect of past delays be eliminated.
We conclude that in 1983, when the District Judge entered his order, “it is doubtful, given [the Department’s] history in this litigation, that the District Court had available to it any other effective remedy.” Sheet Metal Workers, 478 U. S., at 486 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
B
The features of the one-for-one requirement and its actual operation indicate that it is flexible in application at all ranks. The requirement may be waived if no qualified black candidates are available. The Department has, for example, been permitted to promote only white troopers to the ranks of lieutenant and captain since no black troopers have qualified for those positions. Further, it applies only when the Department needs to make promotions. Thus, if external forces, such as budget cuts, necessitate a promotion freeze, the Department will not be required to make gratuitous promotions to remain in compliance with the court’s order.
Most significantly, the one-for-one requirement is ephemeral; the term of its application is contingent upon the Department’s own conduct. The requirement endures only until the Department comes up with a procedure that does not have a discriminatory impact on blacks — something the Department was enjoined to do in 1972 and expressly promised to do by 1980. As noted at n. 21, supra, the court has taken into account the difficulty of validating a test and does not require validation as a prerequisite for suspension of the promotional requirement. The one-for-one requirement evaporated at the ranks of corporal and sergeant upon implementation of promotion procedures without an adverse impact, demonstrating that it is not a disguised means to achieve racial balance. Cf. Sheet Metal Workers, supra, at 487 (Powell, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
Finally, the record reveals that this requirement was flexible, waivable, and temporary in application. When the District Court imposed the provision, the judge expressed the hope that its use would be “a one-time occurrence.” 585 F. Supp., at 76. The court believed that this hope would be fulfilled: at the January 15, 1984, hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion to enforce the consent decrees, “the Personnel Department pledged that it would now devote its full resources to assisting the Public Safety Department in not only developing acceptable promotion procedures as required by the two consent decrees, but in doing so within the near future.” App. 141. The Department has
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 a provision of Oklahoma’s probate laws requiring claims “arising upon a contract” generally to be presented to the executor or executrix of the estate within two months of the publication of a notice advising creditors of the commencement of probate proceedings. Okla. Stat., Tit. 58, § 333 (1981). The question presented is whether this provision of notice solely by publication satisfies the Due Process Clause.
I
Oklahoma’s Probate Code requires creditors to file claims against an estate within a specified time period, and generally bars untimely claims. Ibid. Such “nonclaim statutes” are almost universally included in state probate codes. See Uniform Probate Code § 3-801, 8 U. L. A. 351 (1983); Falender, Notice to Creditors in Estate Proceedings: What Process is Due?, 63 N. C. L. Rev. 659, 667-668 (1985). Giving creditors a limited time in which to file claims against the estate serves the State’s interest in facilitating the administration and expeditious closing of estates. See, e. g., State ex rel. Central State Griffin Memorial Hospital v. Reed, 493 P. 2d 815, 818 (Okla. 1972). Nonclaim statutes come in two basic forms. Some provide a relatively short time period, generally two to six months, that begins to run after the commencement of probate proceedings. Others call for a longer period, generally one to five years, that runs from the decedent’s death. See Falender, supra, at 664-672. Most States include both types of nonclaim statutes in their probate codes, typically providing that if probate proceedings are not commenced and the shorter period therefore never is triggered, then claims nonetheless may be barred by the longer period. See, e. g., Ark. Code Ann. §§ 28-50-101(a), (d) (1987) (three months if probate proceedings commenced; five years if not); Idaho Code § 15-3-803(a)(1)(2) (1979) (four months; three years); Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 473.360(1), (3) (1986) (six months; three years). Most States also provide that creditors are to be notified of the requirement to file claims imposed by the nonclaim statutes solely by publication. See Uniform Probate Code § 3-801, 8 U. L. A. 351 (1983); Falender, supra, at 660, n. 7 (collecting statutes). Indeed, in most jurisdictions it is the publication of notice that triggers the nonclaim statute. The Uniform Probate Code, for example, provides that creditors have four months from publication in which to file claims. Uniform Probate Code § 3-801, 8 U. L. A. 351 (1983). See also, e. g., Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14-3801 (1975); Fla. Stat. § 733.701 (1987); Utah Code Ann. § 75-3-801 (1978).
The specific nonclaim statute at issue in this case, Okla. Stat., Tit. 58, § 333 (1981), provides for only a short time period and is best considered in the context of Oklahoma probate proceedings as a whole. Under Oklahoma’s Probate Code, any party interested in the estate may initiate probate proceedings by petitioning the court to have the will proved. § 22. The court is then required to set a hearing date on the petition, § 25, and to mail notice of the hearing “to all heirs, legatees and devisees, at their places of residence,” §§25, 26. If no person appears at the hearing to contest the will, the court may admit the will to probate on the testimony of one of the subscribing witnesses to the will. § 30. After the will is admitted to probate, the court must order appointment of an executor or executrix, issuing letters testamentary to the named executor or executrix if that person appears, is competent and qualified, and no objections are made. § 101.
Immediately after appointment, the executor or executrix is required to “give notice to the creditors of the deceased.” §331. Proof of compliance with this requirement must be filed with the court; § 332. This notice is to advise creditors that they must present their claims to the executor or executrix within two months of the date of the first publication. As for the method of notice, the statute requires only publication: “[S]uch notice must be published in some newspaper in [the] county once each week for two (2) consecutive weeks.” §331. A creditor’s failure to file a claim within the 2-month period generally bars it forever. § 333. The nonclaim statute does provide certain exceptions, however. If the creditor is out of State, then a claim “may be presented at any time before a decree of distribution is entered.” § 333. Mortgages and debts not yet due are also excepted from the 2-month time limit.
This shorter type of nonclaim statute is the only one included in Oklahoma’s Probate Code. Delays in commencement of probate proceedings are dealt with not through some independent, longer period running from the decedent’s death, see, e. g., Ark. Code Ann. § 28-50-101(d) (1987), but by shortening the notice period once proceedings have started. Section 331 provides that if the decedent has been dead for more than five years, then creditors have only one month after notice is published in which to file their claims. A similar 1-month period applies if the decedent was intestate. § 331.
II
H. Everett Pope, Jr., was admitted to St. John Medical Center, a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in November 1978. On April 2, 1979, while still at the hospital, he died testate. His wife, appellee JoAnne Pope, initiated probate proceedings in the District Court of Tulsa County in accordance with the statutory scheme outlined above. The court entered an order setting a hearing. Record 8. After the hearing the court entered an order admitting the will to probate and, following the designation in the will, id., at 2, named appellee as the executrix of the estate. Id., at 12. Letters testamentary were issued, id., at 13, and the court ordered appellee to fulfill her statutory obligation by directing that she “immediately give notice to creditors.” Id., at 14. Appellee published notice in the Tulsa Daily Legal News for two consecutive weeks beginning July 17, 1979. The notice advised creditors that they must file any claim they had against the estate within two months of the first publication of the notice. Id., at 16.
Appellant Tulsa Professional Collection Services, Inc., is a subsidiary of St. John Medical Center and the assignee of a claim for expenses connected with the decedent’s long stay at that hospital. Neither appellant, nor its, parent company, filed a claim with appellee within the 2-month time period following publication of notice. In October 1983, however, appellant filed an Application for Order Compelling Payment of Expenses of Last Illness. Id., at 28. In making this application, appellant relied on Okla. Stat., Tit. 58, § 594 (1981), which indicates that an executrix “must pay . . . the expenses of the last sickness.” Appellant argued that this specific statutory command made compliance with the 2-month deadline for filing claims unnecessary. The District Court of Tulsa County rejected this contention, ruling that even claims pursuant to § 594 fell within the general requirements of the nonclaim statute. Accordingly, the court denied appellant’s application. App. 3.
The District Court’s reading of § 594’s relationship to the nonclaim statute was affirmed by the Oklahoma Court of Ap-, peals. Id., at 7. Appellant then sought rehearing, arguing for the first time that the nonclaim statute’s notice provisions violated due process. In a supplemental opinion on rehearing the Court of Appeals rejected the due process claim on the merits. Id., at 15.
Appellant next sought review in the Supreme Court of Oklahoma. That court granted certiorari and, after review of both the § 594 and due process issues, affirmed the Court of Appeals’ judgment. With respect to the federal issue, the court relied on Estate of Busch v. Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, Inc., 700 S. W. 2d 86, 88-89 (Mo. 1985), to reject appellant’s contention that our decisions in Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950), and Mennonite Board of Missions v. Adams, 462 U. S. 791 (1983), required more than publication notice. 733 P. 2d 396 (1987). The Supreme Court reasoned that the function of notice in probate proceedings was not to “ ‘make a creditor a party to the proceeding’ ” but merely to “ ‘notif [y] him that he may become one if he wishes.’” Id., at 400 (quoting Estate of Busch, supra, at 88). In addition, the court distinguished probate proceedings because they do not directly adjudicate the creditor’s claims. 733 P. 2d, at 400-401. Finally, the court agreed with Estate of Busch that nonclaim statutes were self-executing statutes of limitations, because they “ac[t] to cut off potential claims against the decedent’s estate by the passage of time,” and accordingly do not require actual notice. 733 P. 2d, at 401. See also Gibbs v. Estate of Dolan, 146 Ill. App. 3d 203, 496 N. E. 2d 1126 (1986) (rejecting due process challenge to nonclaim statute); Gano Farms, Inc. v. Estate of Kleweno, 2 Kan. App. 2d 506, 582 P. 2d 742 (1978) (same); Chalaby v. Driskell, 237 Ore. 245, 390 P. 2d 632 (1964) (same); William B. Tanner Co. v. Estate of Fessler, 100 Wis. 2d 437, 302 N. W. 2d 414 (1981) (same); New York Merchandise Co. v. Stout, 43 Wash. 2d 825, 264 P. 2d 863 (1953) (same). This conclusion conflicted with that reached by the Nevada Supreme Court in Continental Insurance Co. v. Moseley, 100 Nev. 337, 683 P. 2d 20 (1984), after our decision remanding the case for reconsideration in light of Mennonite, supra. 463 U. S. 1202 (1983). In Moseley, the Nevada Supreme Court held that in this context due process required “more than service by publication.” 100 Nev., at 338, 683 P. 2d, at 21. We noted probable jurisdiction, 484 U. S. 813 (1987), and now reverse and remand.
Ill
Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., supra, at 314, established that state action affecting property must generally be accompanied by notification of that action: “An elementary and fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” In the years since Mullane the Court has adhered to these principles, balancing the “interest of the State” and “the individual interest sought to be protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.” Ibid. The focus is on the reasonableness of the balance, and, as Mullane itself made clear, whether a particular method of notice is reasonable depends on the particular circumstances.
The Court’s most recent decision in this area is Mennonite, supra, which involved the sale of real property for delinquent taxes. State law provided for tax sales in certain circumstances and for a 2-year period following any such sale during which the owner or any lienholder could redeem the property. After expiration of the redemption period, the tax sale purchaser could apply for a deed. The property owner received actual notice of the tax sale and the redemption period. All other interested parties were given notice by publication. 462 U. S., at 792-794. In Mennonite, a mortgagee of property that had been sold and on which the redemption period had run complained that the State’s failure to provide it with actual notice of these proceedings violated due process. The Court agreed, holding that “actual notice is a minimum constitutional precondition to a proceeding which will adversely affect the liberty or property interests of any party, whether unlettered or well versed in commercial practice, if its name and address are reasonably ascertainable.” Id., at 800 (emphasis in original). Because the tax sale had “immediately and drastically diminished] the value of [the mortgagee’s] interest,” id., at 798, and because the mortgagee could have been identified through “reasonably diligent efforts,” id., at 798, n. 4, the Court concluded that due process required that the mortgagee be given actual notice.
Applying these principles to the case at hand leads to a similar result. Appellant’s interest is an unsecured claim, a cause of action against the estate for an unpaid bill. Little doubt remains that such an intangible interest is property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. As we wrote in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U. S. 422, 428 (1982), this question “was affirmatively settled by the Mullane case itself, where the Court held that a cause of action is a species of property protected by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.” In Logan, the Court held that a cause of action under Illinois’ Fair Employment Practices Act was a protected property interest, and referred to the numerous other types of claims that the Court had previously recognized as deserving due process protections. See id., at 429-431, and nn. 4-5. Appellant’s claim, therefore, is properly considered a protected property interest.
The Fourteenth Amendment protects this interest, however, only from a deprivation by state action. Private use of state-sanctioned private-remedies or procedures does not rise to the level of state action. See, e. g., Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, 436 U. S. 149 (1978). Nor is the State’s involvement in the mere running of a general statute of limitations generally sufficient to implicate due process. See Texaco, Inc. v. Short, 454 U. S. 516 (1982). See also Flagg Bros., Inc. v. Brooks, supra, at 166. But when private parties make use of state procedures with the overt, significant assistance of state officials, state action may be found. See, e. g., Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co., 457 U. S. 922 (1982); Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp., 395 U. S. 337 (1969). The question here is whether the State’s involvement with the nonclaim statute is substantial enough to implicate the Due Process Clause.
Appellee argues that it is not, contending that Oklahoma’s nonclaim statute is a self-executing statute of limitations. Relying on this characterization, appellee then points to Short, supra. Appellee’s reading of Short is correct — due process does not require that potential plaintiffs be given notice of the impending expiration of a period of limitations — but in our view, appellee’s premise is not. Oklahoma’s nonclaim statute is not a self-executing statute of limitations.
It is true that nonclaim statutes generally possess some attributes of statutes of limitations. They provide a specific time period within which particular types of claims must be filed and they bar claims presented after expiration of that deadline. Many of the state court decisions upholding nonclaim statutes against due process challenges have relied upon these features and concluded that they are properly viewed as statutes of limitations. See, e. g., Estate of Busch v. Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, Inc., 700 S. W. 2d, at 89; William B. Tanner Co. v. Estate of Fessler, 100 Wis. 2d 437, 302 N. W. 2d 414 (1981).
As we noted in Short, however, it is the “self-executing feature” of a statute of limitations that makes Mullane and Mennonite inapposite. See 454 U. S., at 533, 536. The State’s interest in a self-executing statute of limitations is in providing repose for potential defendants and in avoiding stale claims. The State has no role to play beyond enactment of the limitations period. While this enactment obviously is state action, the State’s limited involvement in the running of the time period generally falls short of constituting the type of state action required to implicate the protections of the Due Process Clause.
Here, in contrast, there is significant state action. The probate court is intimately involved throughout, and without that involvement the time bar is never activated. The nonclaim statute becomes operative only after probate proceedings have been commenced in state court. The court must appoint the executor or executrix before notice, which triggers the time bar, can be given. Only after this court appointment is made does the statute provide for any notice; § 331 directs the executor or executrix to publish notice “immediately” after appointment. Indeed, in this case, the District Court reinforced the statutory command with an order expressly requiring appellee to “immediately give notice to creditors.” The form of the order indicates that such orders are routine. Record 14. Finally, copies of the notice and an affidavit of publication must be filed with the court. § 332. It is only after all of these actions take place that the time period begins to run, and in every one of these actions, the court is intimately involved. This involvement is so pervasive and substantial that it must be considered state action subject to the restrictions of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Where the legal proceedings themselves trigger the time bar, even if those proceedings do not necessarily.resolve the claim on its merits, the time bar lacks the self-executing feature that Short indicated was necessary to remove any due process problem. Rather, in such circumstances, due process is directly implicated and actual notice generally is required. Cf. Mennonite, 462 U. S., at 793-794 (tax sale proceedings trigger 2-year redemption period); Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., supra, at 433, 437 (claim barred if no hearing held 120 days after action commenced); City of New York v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 293, 294 (1953) (bankruptcy proceedings trigger specific time period in which creditors’ claims must be filed). Our conclusion that the Oklahoma nonclaim statute is not a self-executing statute of limitations makes it unnecessary to consider appellant’s argument that a 2-month period is somehow unconstitutionally short. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 22 (advocating constitutional requirement that the States provide at least one year). We also have no occasion to consider the proper characterization of nonclaim statutes that run from the date of death, and which generally provide for longer time periods, ranging from one to five years. See Falender, 63 N. C. L. Rev., at 667-669. In sum, the substantial involvement of the probate court throughout the process leaves little doubt that the running of Oklahoma’s nonclaim statute is accompanied by sufficient government action to implicate the Due Process Clause.
Nor can there be any doubt that the nonclaim statute may “adversely affect” a protected property interest. In appellant’s case, such an adverse effect is all too clear. The entire purpose and effect of the nonclaim statute is to regulate the timeliness of such claims and to forever bar untimely claims, and by virtue of the statute, the probate proceedings themselves have completely extinguished appellant’s claim. Thus, it is irrelevant that the notice seeks only to advise creditors that they may become parties rather than that they are parties, for if they do not participate in the probate proceedings, the nonclaim statute terminates their property interests. It is not necessary for a proceeding to directly adjudicate the merits of a claim in order to “adversely affect” that interest. In Mennonite itself, the tax sale proceedings did not address the merits of the mortgagee’s claim. Indeed, the tax sale did not even completely extinguish that claim, it merely “diminishe[d] the value” of the interest. 462 U. S., at 798. Yet the Court held that due process required that the mortgagee be given actual notice of the tax sale. See also Memphis Light, Gas & Water Div. v. Craft, 436 U. S. 1 (1978) (termination of utility service); Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208 (1962) (condemnation proceeding); City of New’ York v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., supra (Bankruptcy Code’s requirement of “reasonable notice” requires actual notice of deadline for filing claims).
In assessing the propriety of actual notice in this context consideration should be given to the practicalities of the situation and the effect that requiring actual notice may have on important state interests. Mennonite, supra, at 798-799; Mullane, 339 U. S., at 313-314. As the Court noted in Mullane, “[cjhance alone brings to the attention of even a local resident an advertisement in small type inserted in the back pages of a newspaper.” Id., at 315. Creditors, who have a strong interest in maintaining the integrity of their relationship with their debtors, are particularly unlikely to benefit from publication notice. As a class, creditors may not be aware of a debtor’s death or of the institution.of probate proceedings. Moreover, the executor or executrix will often be, as is the case here, a party with a beneficial interest in the estate. This could diminish an executor’s or executrix’s inclination to call attention to the potential expiration of a creditor’s claim. There is thus a substantial practical need for actual notice in this setting.
At the same time, the State undeniably has a legitimate interest in the expeditious resolution of probate proceedings. Death transforms the decedent’s legal relationships and a State could reasonably conclude that swift settlement of estates is so important that it calls for very short time deadlines for filing claims. As noted, the almost uniform practice is to establish such short deadlines, and to provide only publication notice. See, e.g., Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 14-3801 (1975); Ark. Code Ann. § 28-50-101(a) (1987); Fla. Stat. § 733.701 (1987); Idaho Code § 15-3-803(a) (1979); Mo. Rev. Stat. § 473.360(1) (1986); Utah Code Ann. § 75-3-801 (1978). See also Uniform Probate Code § 3-801, 8 U. L. A. 351 (1983); Falender, at 660, n. 7 (collecting statutes). Providing actual notice to known or reasonably ascertainable creditors, however, is not inconsistent with the goals reflected in nonclaim statutes. Actual notice need not be inefficient or burdensome. We have repeatedly recognized that mail service is an inexpensive and efficient mechanism that is reasonably calculated to provide actual notice. See, e. g., Mennonite, 462 U. S., at 799, 800; Greene v. Lindsey, 456 U. S. 444, 455 (1982); Mullane, supra, at 319. In addition, Mullane disavowed any intent to require “impracticable and extended searches ... in the name of due process.” 339 U. S., at 317-318. As the Court indicated in Mennonite, all that the executor or executrix need do is make “reasonably diligent efforts,” 462 U. S., at 798, n. 4, to uncover the identities of creditors. For creditors who are not “reasonably ascertainable,” publication notice can suffice. Nor is everyone who may conceivably have a claim properly considered a creditor entitled to actual notice. Here, as in Mullane, it is reasonable to dispense with actual notice to those with mere “conjectural” claims. 339 U. S., at 317.
On balance then, a requirement of actual notice to known or reasonably ascertainable creditors is not so cumbersome as to unduly hinder the dispatch with which probate proceedings are conducted. Notice by mail is already routinely provided at several points in the probate process. In Oklahoma, for example, § 26 requires that “heirs, legatees, and devisees” be mailed notice of the initial hearing on the will. Accord, Uniform Probate Code § 3-403, 8 U. L. A. 274 (1983). Indeed, a few States already provide for actual notice in connection with short nonclaim statutes. See, e. g., Calif. Prob. Code Ann. §§ 9050, 9100 (West Supp. 1988); Nev. Rev. Stat. §§ 147.010, 155.010, 155:020 (1987); W. Va. Code §§ 44-2-2, 44-2-4 (1982). We do not believe that requiring adherence to such a standard will be so burdensome or impracticable as to warrant reliance on publication notice alone.
In analogous situations we have rejected similar arguments that a pressing need to proceed expeditiously justifies less than actual notice. For example, while we have recognized that in the bankruptcy context there is a need for prompt administration of claims, United Savings Assn. of Texas v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Assoc., Ltd., 484 U. S. 365, 375-376 (1988), we also have required actual notice in bankruptcy proceedings. Bank of Marin v. England, 385 U. S. 99 (1966); City of New York v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 344 U. S. 293 (1953). See also Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., supra, at 318-319 (trust proceedings). Probate proceedings are not so different in kind that a different result is required here.
Whether appellant’s identity as a creditor was known or reasonably ascertainable by appellee cannot be answered on this record. Neither the Oklahoma Supreme Court nor the Court of Appeals nor the District Court considered the question. Appellee of course was aware that her husband endured a long stay at St. John Medical Center, but it is not clear that this awareness translates into a knowledge of appellant’s claim. We therefore must remand the case for further proceedings to determine whether “reasonably diligent efforts,” Mennonite, supra, at 798, n. 4, would have identified appellant and uncovered its claim. If appellant’s identity was known or “reasonably ascertainable,” then termination of appellant’s claim without actual notice violated due process.
IV
We hold that Oklahoma’s nonclaim statute is not a self-executing statute of limitations. Rather, the statute operates in connection with Oklahoma’s probate proceedings to “adversely affect” appellant’s property interest. Thus, if appellant’s identity as a creditor was known or “reasonably ascertainable,” then the Due Process Clause requires that appellant be given “[njotice by mail or other means as certain to ensure actual notice.” Mennonite, supra, at 800. Accordingly, the judgment of the Oklahoma Supreme Court is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Blackmun concurs in the result.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Constitution sets forth qualifications for membership in the Congress of the United States. Article I, §2, cl. 2, which applies to the House of Representatives, provides:
“No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”
Article I, §3, cl. 3, which applies to the Senate, similarly provides:
“No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years, and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.”
Today’s cases present a challenge to an amendment to the Arkansas State Constitution that prohibits the name of an otherwise-eligible candidate for Congress from appearing on the general election ballot if that candidate has already served three terms in the House of Representatives or two terms in the Senate. The Arkansas Supreme Court held that the amendment violates the Federal Constitution. We agree with that holding. Such a state-imposed restriction is contrary to the “fundamental principle of our representative democracy,” embodied in the Constitution, that “the people should choose whom they please to govern them.” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 547 (1969) (internal quotation marks omitted). Allowing individual States to adopt their own qualifications for congressional service would be inconsistent with the Framers’ vision of a uniform National Legislature representing the people of the United States. If the qualifications set forth in the text of the Constitution are to be changed, that text must be amended.
I
At the general election on November 3, 1992, the voters of Arkansas adopted Amendment 73 to their State Constitution. Proposed as a “Term Limitation Amendment,” its preamble stated:
“The people of Arkansas find and declare that elected officials who remain in office too long become preoccupied with reelection and ignore their duties as representatives of the people. Entrenched incumbency has reduced voter participation and has led to an electoral system that is less free, less competitive, and less representative than the system established by the Founding Fathers. Therefore, the people of Arkansas, exercising their reserved powers, herein limit the terms of elected officials.”
The limitations in Amendment 73 apply to three categories of elected officials. Section 1 provides that no elected official in the executive branch of the state government may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 2 applies to the legislative branch of the state government; it provides that no member of the Arkansas House of Representatives may serve more than three 2-year terms and no member of the Arkansas Senate may serve more than two 4-year terms. Section 3, the provision at issue in these cases, applies to the Arkansas Congressional Delegation. It provides:
“(a) Any person having been elected to three or more terms as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas.
“(b) Any person having been elected to two or more terms as a member of the United States Senate from Arkansas shall not be certified as a candidate and shall not be eligible to have his/her name placed on the ballot for election to the United States Senate from Arkansas.”
Amendment 73 states that it is self-executing and shall apply to all persons seeking election after January 1, 1993.
On November 13, 1992, respondent Bobbie Hill, on behalf of herself, similarly situated Arkansas “citizens, residents, taxpayers and registered voters,” and the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, filed a complaint in the Circuit Court for Pulaski County, Arkansas, seeking a declaratory judgment that §3 of Amendment 73 is “unconstitutional and void.” Her complaint named as defendants then-Governor Clinton, other state officers, the Republican Party of Arkansas, and the Democratic Party of Arkansas. The State of Arkansas, through its Attorney General, petitioner Winston Bryant, intervened as a party defendant in support of the amendment. Several proponents of the amendment also intervened, including petitioner U. S. Term Limits, Inc.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the Circuit Court held that §3 of Amendment 73 violated Article I of the Federal Constitution.
With respect to that holding, in a 5-to-2 decision, the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed. U S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Hill, 316 Ark. 251, 872 S. W. 2d 349, 351 (1994). Writing for a plurality of three justices, Justice Robert L. Brown concluded that the congressional restrictions in Amendment 73 are unconstitutional because the States have no authority “to change, add to, or diminish” the requirements for congressional service enumerated in the Qualifications Clauses. Id., at 265, 872 S. W. 2d, at 356. He noted:
“If there is one watchword for representation of the various states in Congress, it is uniformity. Federal legislators speak to national issues that affect the citizens of every state.... The uniformity in qualifications mandated in Article 1 provides the tenor and the fabric for representation in the Congress. Piecemeal restrictions by State would fly in the face of that order.” Ibid.
Justice Brown’s plurality opinion also rejected the argument that Amendment 73 is “merely a ballot access amendment,” concluding that “[t]he intent and the effect of Amendment 73 are to disqualify congressional incumbents from further service.” Id., at 265-266, 872 S. W. 2d, at 356-357. Justice Brown considered the possibilities that an excluded candidate might run for Congress as a write-in candidate or be appointed to fill a vacancy to be “glimmers of opportunity... [that] are faint indeed — so faint in our judgment that they cannot salvage Amendment 73 from constitutional attack.” Id., at 266, 872 S. W. 2d, at 357. In separate opinions, Justice Dudley and Justice Gerald P. Brown agreed that Amendment 73 violates the Federal Constitution.
Two justices dissented from the federal constitutional holding. Justice Hays started from “the premise that all political authority resides in the people, limited only by those provisions of the federal or state constitutions specifically to the contrary.” Id., at 281, 872 S. W. 2d, at 367. Because his examination of the text and history of the Qualifications Clauses convinced him that the Constitution contains no express or implicit restriction on the States’ ability to impose additional qualifications on candidates for Congress, Justice Hays concluded that § 3 is constitutional. Special Chief Justice Cracraft, drawing a distinction between a measure that “impose[s] an absolute bar on incumbent succession” and a measure that “merely makes it more difficult for an incumbent to be elected,” id., at 284, 872 S. W. 2d, at 368, concluded that Amendment 73 does not even implicate the Qualifications Clauses, and instead is merely a permissible ballot access restriction.
The State of Arkansas, by its Attorney General, and the intervenors petitioned for writs of certiorari. Because of the importance of the issues, we granted both petitions and consolidated the cases for argument. See 512 U. S. 1218 (1994). We now affirm.
II
As the opinions of the Arkansas Supreme Court suggest, the constitutionality of Amendment 73 depends critically on the resolution of two distinct issues. The first is whether the Constitution forbids States to add to or alter the qualifications specifically enumerated in the Constitution. The second is, if the Constitution does so forbid, whether the fact that Amendment 73 is formulated as a ballot access restriction rather than as an outright disqualification is of constitutional significance. Our resolution of these issues draws upon our prior resolution of a related but distinct issue: whether Congress has the power to add to or alter the qualifications of its Members.
Twenty-six years ago, in Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486 (1969), we reviewed the history and text of the Qualifications Clauses in a case involving an attempted exclusion of a duly elected Member of Congress. The principal issue was whether the power granted to each House in Art. I, § 5, cl. 1, to judge the “Qualifications of its own Members” includes the power to impose qualifications other than those set forth in the text of the Constitution. In an opinion by Chief Justice Warren for eight Members of the Court, we held that it does not. Because of the obvious importance of the issue, the Court’s review of the history and meaning of the relevant constitutional text was especially thorough. We therefore begin our analysis today with a full statement of what we decided in that case.
The Issue in Powell
In November 1966, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., was elected from a District in New York to serve in the United States House of Representatives for the 90th Congress. Allegations that he had engaged in serious misconduct while serving as a committee chairman during the 89th Congress led to the appointment of a Select Committee to determine his eligibility to take his seat. That committee found that Powell met the age, citizenship, and residency requirements set forth in Art. I, § 2, cl. 2. The committee also found, however, that Powell had wrongfully diverted House funds for the use of others and himself and had made false reports on expenditures of foreign currency. Based on those findings, the House after debate adopted House Resolution 278, excluding Powell from membership in the House, and declared his seat vacant. See 395 U. S., at 489-493.
Powell and several voters of the district from which he had been elected filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that the House Resolution was invalid because Art. I, §2, cl. 2, sets forth the exclusive qualifications for House membership. We ultimately accepted that contention, concluding that the House of Representatives has no “authority to exclude any person, duly elected by his constituents, who meets all the requirements for membership expressly prescribed in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 522 (emphasis in original); see also id., at 547. In reaching that conclusion, we undertook a detailed historical review to determine the intent of the Framers. Though recognizing that the Constitutional Convention debates themselves were inconclusive, see id., at 532, we determined that the “relevant historical materials” reveal that Congress has no power to alter the qualifications in the text of the Constitution, id., at 522.
Powell’s Reliance on History
We started our analysis in Powell by examining the British experience with qualifications for membership in Parliament, focusing in particular on the experience of John Wilkes. While serving as a member of Parliament, Wilkes had published an attack on a peace treaty with France. This literary endeavor earned Wilkes a conviction for seditious libel and a 22-month prison sentence. In addition, Parliament declared Wilkes ineligible for membership and ordered him expelled. Despite (or perhaps because of) these difficulties, Wilkes was reelected several times. Parliament, however, persisted in its refusal to seat him. After several years of Wilkes’ efforts, the House of Commons voted to expunge the resolutions that had expelled Wilkes and had declared him ineligible, labeling those prior actions “‘subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this kingdom.’” Id., at 528, quoting 22 Parliamentary History of England 1411 (1782) (Parl. Hist. Eng.). After reviewing Wilkes’ “long and bitter struggle for the right of the British electorate to be represented by men of their own choice,” 395 U. S., at 528, we concluded in Powell that “on the eve of the Constitutional Convention, English precedent stood for the proposition that ‘the law of the land had regulated the qualifications of members to serve in parliament’ and those qualifications were ‘not occasional but fixed.’” Ibid., quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589, 590 (1769).
Against this historical background, we viewed the Convention debates as manifesting the Framers’ intent that the qualifications in the Constitution be fixed and exclusive. We found particularly revealing the debate concerning a proposal made by the Committee of Detail that would have given Congress the power to add property qualifications. James Madison argued that such a power would vest “‘an improper & dangerous power in the Legislature,’ ” by which the Legislature “‘can by degrees subvert the Constitution.’” 395 U. S., at 533-534, quoting 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 249-250 (M. Farrand ed. 1911) (hereinafter Farrand). Madison continued: “‘A Republic may be converted into an aristocracy or oligarchy as well by limiting the number capable of being elected, as the number authorised to elect.’ ” 395 U. S., at 534, quoting 2 Farrand 250. We expressly noted that the “parallel between Madison’s arguments and those made in Wilkes’ behalf is striking.” 395 U. S., at 534.
The Framers further revealed their concerns about congressional abuse of power when Gouverneur Morris suggested modifying the proposal of the Committee of Detail to grant Congress unfettered power to add qualifications. We noted that Hugh Williamson “expressed concern that if a majority of the legislature should happen to be ‘composed of any particular description of men, of lawyers for example,... the future elections might be secured to their own body.’ ” Id., at 535, quoting 2 Farrand 250. We noted, too, that Madison emphasized the British Parliament’s attempts to regulate qualifications, and that he observed: “ ‘[T]he abuse they had made of it was a lesson worthy of our attention.’ ” 395 U. S., at 535, quoting 2 Farrand 250. We found significant that the Convention rejected both Morris’ modification and the Committee’s proposal.
We also recognized in Powell that the post-Convention ratification debates confirmed that the Framers understood the qualifications in the Constitution to be fixed and unalterable by Congress. For example, we noted that in response to the antifederalist charge that the new Constitution favored the wealthy and well born, Alexander Hamilton wrote:
“‘The truth is that there is no method of securing to the rich the preference apprehended but by prescribing qualifications of property either for those who may elect or be elected. But this forms no part of the power to be conferred upon the national government.... The qualifications of the persons who may choose or be chosen, as has been remarked upon other occasions, are defined and fixed in the Constitution, and are unalterable by the legislature.’” 395 U. S., at 539, quoting The Federalist No. 60, p. 371 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961) (emphasis added) (hereinafter The Federalist).
We thus attached special significance to “Hamilton’s express reliance on the immutability of the qualifications set forth in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 540. Moreover, we reviewed the debates at the state conventions and found that they “also demonstrate the Framers’ understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution.” Ibid.; see, e. g., id., at 541, citing 3 Debates on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution 8 (J. Elliot ed. 1863) (hereinafter Elliot’s Debates) (Wilson Carey Nicholas, Virginia).
The exercise by Congress of its power to judge the qualifications of its Members further confirmed this understanding. We concluded that, during the first 100 years of its existence, “Congress strictly limited its power to judge the qualifications of its members to those enumerated in the Constitution.” 395 U. S., at 542.
As this elaborate summary reveals, our historical analysis in Powell was both detailed and persuasive. We thus conclude now, as we did in Powell, that history shows that, with respect to Congress, the Framers intended the Constitution to establish fixed qualifications.
Powell’s Reliance on Democratic Principles
In Powell, of course, we did not rely solely on an analysis of the historical evidence, but instead complemented that analysis with “an examination of the basic principles of our democratic system.” Id., at 548. We noted that allowing Congress to impose additional qualifications would violate that “fundamental principle of our representative democracy... ‘that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.’” Id., at 547, quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 257 (A. Hamilton, New York).
Our opinion made clear that this broad principle incorporated at least two fundamental ideas. First, we emphasized the egalitarian concept that the opportunity to be elected was open to all. We noted in particular Madison’s statement in The Federalist that “ ‘[u]nder these reasonable limitations [enumerated in the Constitution], the door of this part of the federal government is open to merit of every description, whether native or adoptive, whether young or old, and without regard to poverty or wealth, or to any particular profession of religious faith.’ ” Powell, 395 U. S., at 540, n. 74, quoting The Federalist No. 52, at 326. Similarly, we noted that Wilson Carey Nicholas defended the Constitution against the charge that it “violated democratic principles” by arguing: “ ‘It has ever been considered a great security to liberty, that very few should be excluded from the right of being chosen to the legislature. This Constitution has amply attended to this idea. We find no qualifications required except those of age and residence.’ ” 395 U. S., at 541, quoting 3 Elliot’s Debates 8.
Second, we recognized the critical postulate that sovereignty is vested in the people, and that sovereignty confers on the people the right to choose freely their representatives to the National Government. For example, we noted that “Robert Livingston... endorsed this same fundamental principle: ‘The people are the best judges who ought to represent.them. To dictate and control them, to tell them whom they shall not elect, is to abridge their natural rights.’” 395 U. S., at 541, n. 76, quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 292-293. Similarly, we observed that “[b]efore the New York convention..., Hamilton emphasized: ‘The true principle of a republic is, that the people should choose whom they please to govern them. Representation is imperfect in proportion as the current of popular favor is checked. This great source of free government, popular election, should be perfectly pure, and the most unbounded liberty allowed.’” 395 U. S., at 540-541, quoting 2 Elliot’s Debates 257. Quoting from the statement made in 1807 by the Chairman of the House Committee on Elections, we noted that “restrictions upon the people to choose their own representatives must be limited to those ‘absolutely necessary for the safety of the society.’” 395 U. S., at 543, quoting 17 Annals of Cong. 874 (1807). Thus, in Powell, we agreed with the sentiment expressed on. behalf of Wilkes’ admission to Parliament: “ ‘That the right of the electors to be represented by men of their own choice, was so essential for the preservation of all their other rights, that it ought to be considered as one of the most sacred parts of our constitution.’” 395 U. S., at 534, n. 65, quoting 16 Parl. Hist. Eng. 589-590 (1769).
Powell thus establishes two important propositions: first, that the “relevant historical materials” compel the conclusion that, at least with respect to qualifications imposed by Congress, the Framers intended the qualifications listed in the Constitution to be exclusive; and second, that that conclusion is equally compelled by an understanding of the “fundamental principle of our representative democracy... ‘that the people should choose whom they please to govern them.’” 395 U. S., at 547.
Powell’s Holding
Petitioners argue somewhat half-heartedly that the narrow holding in Powell, which involved the power of the House to exclude a Member pursuant to Art. I, § 5, does not control the more general question whether Congress has the power to add qualifications. Powell, however, is not susceptible to such a narrow reading. Our conclusion that Congress may not alter or add to the qualifications in the Constitution was integral to our analysis and outcome. See, e. g., id., at 540 (noting “Framers’ understanding that the qualifications for members of Congress had been fixed in the Constitution”). Only two Terms ago we confirmed this understanding of Powell in Nixon v. United States, 506 U. S. 224 (1993). After noting that the three qualifications for membership specified in Art. I, § 2, are of “a precise, limited nature” and “unalterable by the legislature,” we explained:
“Our conclusion in Powell was based on the fixed meaning of ‘[qualifications’ set forth in Art. I, § 2. The claim by the House that its power to ‘be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members’ was a textual commitment of unreviewable authority was defeated by the existence of this separate provision specifying the only qualifications which might be imposed for House membership.” Id., at 237.
Unsurprisingly, the state courts and lower federal courts have similarly concluded that Powell conclusively resolved the issue whether Congress has the power to impose additional qualifications. See, e. g., Joyner v. Mofford, 706 F. 2d 1523, 1528 (CA9 1983) (“In Powell..., the Supreme Court accepted this restrictive view of the Qualifications Clause— at least as applied to Congress”); Michel v. Anderson, 14 F. 3d 623 (CADC 1994) (citing Nixon’s description of Powell’s holding); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830, 839 P. 2d 120, 122 (1992) (citing Powell for the proposition that “[n]ot even Congress has the power to alter qualifications for these constitutional federal officers”).
In sum, after examining Powell’s historical analysis and its articulation of the “basic principles of our democratic system,” we reaffirm that the qualifications for service in Congress set forth in the text of the Constitution are “fixed,” at least in the sense that they may not be supplemented by Congress.
Ill
Our reaffirmation of Powell does not necessarily resolve the specific questions presented in these cases. For petitioners argue that whatever the constitutionality of additional qualifications for membership imposed by Congress, the historical and textual materials discussed in Powell do not support the conclusion that the Constitution prohibits additional qualifications imposed by States. In the absence of such a constitutional prohibition, petitioners argue, the Tenth Amendment and the principle of reserved powers require that States be allowed to add such qualifications.
Before addressing these arguments, we find it appropriate to take note of the striking unanimity among the courts that have considered the issue. None of the overwhelming array of briefs submitted by the parties and amici has called to our attention even a single case in which a state court or federal court has approved of a State’s addition of qualifications for a Member of Congress. To the contrary, an impressive number of courts have determined that States lack the authority to add qualifications. See, e. g., Chandler v. Howell, 104 Wash. 99, 175 P. 569 (1918); Eckwall v. Stadelman, 146 Ore. 439, 446, 30 P. 2d 1037, 1040 (1934); Stockton v. McFarland, 56 Ariz. 138, 144, 106 P. 2d 328, 330 (1940); State ex rel. Johnson v. Crane, 65 Wyo. 189, 197 P. 2d 864 (1948); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp. 729, 731 (N. M. 1972); Stack v. Adams, 315 F. Supp. 1295, 1297-1298 (ND Fla. 1970); Buckingham v. State, 42 Del. 405, 35 A. 2d 903, 905 (1944); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev. 826, 830, 839 P. 2d 120, 123 (1992); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn. 149, 151, 44 N. W. 2d 484, 486 (1950); In re Opinion of Judges, 79 S. D. 585, 587, 116 N. W. 2d 233, 234 (1962). Courts have struck down state-imposed qualifications in the form of term limits, see, e. g., Thorsted v. Gregoire, 841 F. Supp. 1068, 1081 (WD Wash. 1994); Stumpf v. Lau, 108 Nev., at 830, 839 P. 2d, at 123, district residency requirements, see, e. g., Hellmann v. Collier, 217 Md. 93, 100, 141 A. 2d 908, 911 (1958); Dillon v. Fiorina, 340 F. Supp., at 731; Exon v. Tiemann, 279 F. Supp. 609, 613 (Neb. 1968); State ex rel. Chavez v. Evans, 79 N. M. 578, 581, 446 P. 2d 445, 448 (1968) (per curiam), loyalty oath requirements, see, e. g., Shub v. Simpson, 196 Md. 177, 199, 76 A. 2d 332, 341, appeal dism’d, 340 U. S. 881 (1950); In re O’Connor, 173 Misc. 419, 421, 17 N. Y. S. 2d 758, 760 (Super. Ct. 1940), and restrictions on those convicted of felonies, see, e. g., Application of Ferguson, 57 Misc. 2d 1041, 1043, 294 N. Y. S. 2d 174, 176 (Super. Ct. 1968); Danielson v. Fitzsimmons, 232 Minn., at 151, 44 N. W. 2d, at 486; State ex rel. Eaton v. Schmahl, 140 Minn. 219, 220, 167 N. W. 481 (1918) (per curiam). Prior to Powell, the commentators were similarly unanimous. See, e. g., 1W. Blackstone, Commentaries, Appendix 213 (S. Tucker ed. 1803) (“[TJhese provisions, as they require qualifications which the constitution does not, may possibly be found to be nugatory”); 1 Story § 627 (each Member of Congress is “an officer of the union, deriving his powers and qualifications from the constitution, and neither created by, dependent upon, nor controllable by, the states”); 1 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law 228, n. a (3d ed. 1836) (“[TJhe objections to the existence of any such power [on the part of the States to add qualifications are]... too palpable and weighty to admit of any discussion”); G. McCrary, American Law of Elections § 322 (4th ed. 1897) (“It is not competent for any State to add to or in any manner change the qualifications for a Federal office, as prescribed by the Constitution or laws of the United States”); T. Cooley, General Principles of Constitutional Law 268 (2d ed. 1891) (“The Constitution and laws of the United States determine what shall be the qualifications for federal offices, and state constitutions and laws can neither add to nor take away from them”); C. Burdick, Law of the American Constitution 160 (1922) (“It is clearly the intention of the Constitution that all persons not disqualified by the terms of that instrument should be eligible to the federal office of Representative”); id., at 165 (“It is as clear that States have no more right to add to the constitutional qualifications of Senators than they have to add to those for Representatives”); Warren 422 (“The elimination of all power in Congress to fix qualifications clearly left the provisions of the Constitution itself as the sole source of qualifications”). This impressive and uniform body of judicial decisions and learned commentary indicates that the obstacles confronting petitioners are formidable indeed.
Petitioners argue that the Constitution contains no express prohibition against state-added qualifications, and that Amendment 73 is therefore an appropriate exercise of a State’s reserved power to place additional restrictions on the choices that its own voters may make. We disagree for two independent reasons. First, we conclude that the power to add qualifications is not within the “original powers” of the States, and thus is not reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. Second, even if States possessed some original power in this area, we conclude that the Framers intended the Constitution to be the exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that the Framers thereby “divested” States of any power to add qualifications.
The “plan of the convention” as illuminated by the historical materials, our opinions, and the text of the Tenth Amendment draws a basic distinction between the powers of the newly created Federal Government and the powers retained by the pre-existing sovereign States. As Chief Justice Marshall explained, “it was neither necessary nor proper to define the powers retained by the States. These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several States; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged by that instrument.” Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 193 (1819).
This classic statement by the Chief Justice endorsed Hamilton’s reasoning in The Federalist No. 32 that the plan of the Constitutional Convention did not contemplate “[a]n entire consolidation of the States into one complete national sovereignty,” but only a partial consolidation in which “the State governments would clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not, by that act, exclusively delegated to the United States.” The Federalist No. 32, at 198. The text of the Tenth Amendment unambiguously confirms this principle:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
As we have frequently noted, “[t]he States unquestionably do retain a significant measure of sovereign authority. They do so, however, only to the extent that the Constitution has not divested them of their original powers and transferred those powers to the Federal Government.” Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority, 469 U. S. 528, 549 (1985) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis added); see also New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 155-156 (1992).
Source of the Power
Contrary to petitioners’ assertions, the power to add qualifications is not part of the original powers of sovereignty that the Tenth Amendment reserved to the States. Petitioners’ Tenth Amendment argument misconceives the nature of the right at issue because that Amendment could only “reserve” that which existed before. As Justice Story recognized, “the states can exercise no powers whatsoever, which exclusively spring out of the existence of the national government, which the constitution does not delegate to them.... No state can say, that it has reserved, what it never possessed.” 1 Story §627.
Justice Story’s position thus echoes that of Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316 (1819). In McCulloch, the Court rejected the argument that the Constitution’s silence on the subject of state power to tax corporations chartered by Congress implies that the States have “reserved” power to tax such federal instrumentalities. As Chief Justice Marshall pointed out, an “original right to tax” such federal entities “never existed, and the question whether it has been surrendered, cannot arise.” Id., at 430. See also Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wall. 35, 46 (1868). In language that presaged Justice Story’s argument, Chief Justice Marshall concluded: “This opinion does not deprive the States of any resources which they originally possessed.” 4 Wheat., at 436.
With respect to setting qualifications for service in Congress, no such right existed before the Constitution was ratified. The contrary argument overlooks the revolutionary character of the Government that the Framers conceived. Prior to the adoption of the Constitution, the States had joined together under the Articles of Confederation. In that system, “the States retained most of their sovereignty, like independent nations bound together only by treaties.” Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1, 9 (1964). After the Constitutional Convention convened, the Framers were presented with, and eventually adopted a variation of, “a plan not merely to amend the Articles of Confederation but to create an entirely new National Government with a National Executive, National Judiciary, and a National Legislature.” Id., at 10. In adopting that plan, the Framers envisioned a uniform national system, rejecting the notion that the Nation was a collection of States, and instead creating a direct link between the National Government and the people of the United States. See, e. g., FERC v. Mississippi, 456 U. S. 742, 791 (1982) (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part) (“The Constitution... permitted] direct contact between the National Government and the individual citizen”). In that National Government, representatives owe primary allegiance not to the people of a State, but to the people of the Nation. As Justice Story observed, each Member of Congress is “an officer of the union, deriving his powers and qualifications from the constitution, and neither created by, dependent upon, nor controllable by, the states.... Those officers owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people.” 1 Story §627. Representatives and Senators are as much officers of the entire Union as is the President. States thus “have just as much right, and no more, to prescribe new qualifications for a representative, as they have for a president.... It is no original prerogative of state power to appoint a representative, a senator, or president for the union.” Ibid.
We believe that the Constitution reflects the Framers’ general agreement with the approach later articulated by Justice Story. For example, Art. I, §5, cl. 1, provides: “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.” The text of the Constitution thus gives the representatives of all the people the final say in judging the qualifications of the representatives of any one State. For this reason, the dissent falters when it states that “the people of Georgia have no say over whom the people of Massachusetts select to represent them in Congress.” Post, at 859.
Two other sections of the Constitution further support our view of the Framers’ vision. First, consistent with Story’s view, the Constitution provides that the salaries of representatives should “be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States,” Art. I, § 6, rather than by individual States. The salary provisions reflect the view that representatives owe their allegiance to the people, and not to the States. Second, the provisions governing elections reveal the Framers’ understanding that powers over the
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.
The question in this case is whether a dredge is a “vessel” under § 2(3)(G) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 44 Stat., pt. 2, p. 1425, as added by § 2(a) of Pub. L. 98-426, 33 U. S. C. § 902(3)(G). We hold that it is.
I
As part of Boston’s Central Artery/Tunnel Project, or “Big Dig,” the Commonwealth of Massachusetts undertook to extend the Massachusetts Turnpike through a tunnel running beneath South Boston and Boston Harbor to Logan Airport. The Commonwealth employed respondent Dutra Construction Company to assist in that undertaking. At the time, Dutra owned the world’s largest dredge, the Super Scoop, which was capable of digging the 50-foot-deep, 100-foot-wide, three-quarter-mile-long trench beneath Boston Harbor that is now the Ted Williams Tunnel.
The Super Scoop is a massive floating platform from which a clamshell bucket is suspended beneath the water. The bucket removes silt from the ocean floor and dumps the sediment onto one of two scows that float alongside the dredge. The Super Scoop has certain characteristics common to seagoing vessels, such as a captain and crew, navigational lights, ballast tanks, and a crew dining area. But it lacks others. Most conspicuously, the Super Scoop has only limited means of self-propulsion. It is moved long distances by tugboat. (To work on the Big Dig, it was towed from its home base in California through the Panama Canal and up the eastern seaboard to Boston Harbor.) It navigates short distances by manipulating its anchors and cables. When dredging the Boston Harbor trench, it typically moved in this way once every couple of hours, covering a distance of 30-to-50 feet each time.
Dutra hired petitioner Willard Stewart, a marine engineer, to maintain the mechanical systems on the Super Scoop during its dredging of the harbor. At the time of Stewart’s accident, the Super Scoop lay idle because one of its scows, Scow No. 4, had suffered an engine malfunction and the other was at sea. Stewart was on board Scow No. 4, feeding wires through an open hatch located about 10 feet above the engine area. While Stewart was perched beside the hatch, the Super Scoop used its bucket to move the scow. In the process, the scow collided with the Super Scoop, causing a jolt that plunged Stewart headfirst through the hatch to the deck below. He was seriously injured.
Stewart sued Dutra in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts under the Jones Act, 38 Stat. 1185, as amended, 41 Stat. 1007 and 96 Stat. 1955, 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a), alleging that he was a seaman injured by Dutra’s negligence. He also filed an alternative claim under § 5(b) of the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 905(b), which authorizes covered employees to sue a “vessel” owner as a third party for an injury caused by the owner’s negligence.
Dutra moved for summary judgment on the Jones Act claim, arguing that Stewart was not a seaman. The company acknowledged that Stewart was “a member of the [Super Scoop’s] crew,” 230 F. 3d 461, 466 (CA1 2000); that he spent “[n]inety-nine percent of his time while on the job” aboard the Super Scoop, App. 20 (Defendant’s Memorandum in Support of Summary Judgment); and that his “duties contributed to the function” of the Super Scoop, id., at 32. Dutra argued only that the Super Scoop was not a vessel for purposes of the Jones Act. Dutra pointed to the Court of Appeals’ en banc decision in DiGiovanni v. Traylor Brothers, Inc., 959 F. 2d 1119 (CA1 1992), which held that “if a barge ... or other float’s purpose or primary business is not navigation or commerce, then workers assigned thereto for its shore enterprise are to be considered seamen only when it is in actual navigation or transit” at the time of the plaintiff’s injury. Id., at 1123 (internal quotation marks omitted). The District Court granted summary judgment to Dutra, because the Super Scoop’s primary purpose was dredging rather than transportation and because it was stationary at the time of Stewart’s injury.
On interlocutory appeal, the Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that it too was bound by DiGiovanni. 230 F. 3d, at 467-468. The court reasoned that the Super Scoop’s primary function was construction and that “[a]ny navigation or transportation that may be required is incidental to this primary function.” Id., at 468. The court also concluded that the scow’s movement at the time of the accident did not help Stewart, because his status as a seaman depended on the movement of the Super Scoop (which was stationary) rather than the scow. Id., at 469.
On remand, the District Court granted summary judgment in favor of Dutra on Stewart’s alternative claim that Dutra was liable for negligence as an owner of a “vessel” under the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 905(b). The Court of Appeals again affirmed. It noted that Dutra had conceded that the Super Scoop was a “vessel” for purposes of § 905(b), explaining that “the LHWCA’s definition of ‘vessel’ is ‘significantly more inclusive than that used for evaluating seaman status under the Jones Act.’ ” 343 F. 3d 10, 13 (CA1 2003) (quoting Morehead v. Atkinson-Kiewit, J/V, 97 F. 3d 603, 607 (CA1 1996) (en banc)). The Court of Appeals nonetheless agreed with the District Court’s conclusion that Dutra’s alleged negligence was committed in its capacity as an employer rather than as owner of the vessel under § 905(b).
We granted certiorari to resolve confusion over how to determine whether a watercraft is a “vessel” for purposes of the LHWCA. 540 U. S. 1177 (2004).
II
Prior to the passage of the Jones Act, general maritime law usually entitled a seaman who fell sick or was injured both to maintenance and cure (or the right to be cared for and paid wages during the voyage, see, e. g., Harden v. Gordon, 11 F. Cas. 480, 482-483 (No. 6,047) (CC Me. 1823) (Story, J.)), and to damages for any “injuries received ... in consequence of the unseaworthiness of the ship,” The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, 175 (1903). Suits against shipowners for negligence, however, were barred. Courts presumed that the seaman, in signing articles of employment for the voyage, had assumed the risks of his occupation; thus a seaman was “not allowed to recover an indemnity for the negligence of the master, or any member of the crew.” Ibid.
Congress enacted the Jones Act in 1920 to remove this bar to negligence suits by seamen. See Chandris, Inc. v. Latsis, 515 U. S. 347, 354 (1995). Specifically, the Jones Act provides:
“Any seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment may, at his election, maintain an action for damages at law, with the right of trial by jury, and in such action all statutes of the United States modifying or extending the common-law right or remedy in cases of personal injury to railway employees shall apply.” 46 U. S. C. App. § 688(a).
Although the statute is silent on who is a “seaman,” both the maritime law backdrop against which Congress enacted the Jones Act and Congress’ subsequent enactments provide some guidance.
First, “seaman” is a term of art that had an established meaning under general maritime law. We have thus presumed that when the Jones Act made available negligence remedies to “[a]ny seaman who shall suffer personal injury in the course of his employment,” Congress took the term “seaman” as the general maritime law found it. Chandris, supra, at 355 (citing Warner v. Goltra, 293 U. S. 155, 159 (1934)); G. Gilmore & C. Black, Law of Admiralty § 6—21, pp. 328-329 (2d ed. 1975).
Second, Congress provided further guidance in 1927 when it enacted the LHWCA, which provides scheduled compensation to land-based maritime workers but which also excepts from its coverage “a master or member of a crew of any vessel.” 33 U. S. C. §902(3)(G). This exception is simply “a refinement of the term ‘seaman’ in the Jones Act.” McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, 498 U. S. 337, 347 (1991). Thus, the Jones Act and the LHWCA are complementary regimes that work in tandem: The Jones Act provides tort remedies to sea-based maritime workers, while the LHWCA provides workers’ compensation to Zand-based, maritime employees. Ibid.; Swanson v. Marra Brothers, Inc., 328 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1946).
Still, discerning the contours of “seaman” status, even with the general maritime law and the LHWCA’s language as aids to interpretation, .has not been easy. See Chandris, supra, at 356. We began clarifying the definition of “seaman” in a pair of cases, McDermott Int’l, Inc. v. Wilander, supra, and Chandris, supra, that addressed the relationship a worker must have to a vessel in order to be a “master or member” of its crew. We now turn to the other half of the LHWCA’s equation: how to determine whether a watercraft is a “vessel.”
A
Just as Congress did not define the term “seaman” in the Jones Act, it did not define the term “vessel” in the LHWCA itself. However, Congress provided a definition elsewhere. At the time of the LHWCA’s enactment, §§ 1 and 3 of the Revised Statutes of 1873 specified:
“In determining the meaning of the revised statutes, or of any act or resolution of Congress passed subsequent to February twenty-fifth, eighteen hundred and seventy-one, . •. . [t]he word ‘vessel’ includes every description of water-craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.” 18 Stat., pt. 1, p. 1.
Sections 1 and 3 show that, because the LHWCA is an Act of Congress passed after February 25, 1871, the LHWCA’s use of the term “vessel” “includes every description of water-craft or other artificial contrivance used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.” Ibid.
Section 3’s definition, repealed and recodified in 1947 as part of the Rules of Construction Act, 1 U. S. C. § 3, has remained virtually unchanged from 1873 to the present. Even now, §3 continues to supply the default definition of “vessel” throughout the U. S. Code, “unless the context indicates otherwise.” 1 U. S. C. § 1. The context surrounding the LHWCA’s enactment indicates that § 3 defines the term “vessel” for purposes of the LHWCA.
Section 3 merely codified the meaning that the term “vessel” had acquired in general maritime law. See 1 S. Friedell, Benedict on Admiralty § 165 (rev. 7th ed. 2004). In the decades following its enactment, § 3 was regularly used to define the term “vessel” in maritime jurisprudence. Taking only the issue presented here — whether a dredge is a vessel— prior to passage of the Jones Act and the LHWCA, courts often used §3’s definition to conclude that dredges were vessels.
From the very beginning, these courts understood the differences between dredges and more traditional seagoing vessels. Though smaller, the dredges at issue in the earliest cases were essentially the same as the Super Scoop here. For instance, the court could have been speaking equally of the Super Scoop as of The Alabama when it declared:
“The dredge and scows have no means of propulsion of their own except that the dredge, by the use of anchors, windlass, and rope, is moved for short distances, as required in carrying on the business of dredging. Both the dredge and the scows are moved from place to place where they may be employed by being towed, and some of the tows have been for long distances and upon the high seas. The dredge and scows are not made for or adapted to the carriage of freight or passengers, and the evidence does not show that, in point of fact, this dredge and scows had ever been so used and employed.” The Alabama, 19 F. 544, 545 (SD Ala. 1884).
See also Huismann v. The Pioneer, 30 F. 206 (EDNY 1886). None of this prevented the court from recognizing that dredges are vessels because they are watercraft with “the capacity to be navigated in and upon the waters.” The Alabama, supra, at 546; see also The Pioneer, supra, at 207; The International, 89 F. 484, 485 (CA3 1898).
This Court also treated dredges as vessels prior to the passage of the Jones Act and the LHWCA. It did so in a pair of cases, first implicitly in The “Virginia Ehrman” and the “Agnese,” 97 U. S. 309 (1878), and then explicitly in Ellis v. United States, 206 U. S. 246 (1907). In Ellis, this Court considered, inter alia, whether workers aboard various dredges and scows were covered by a federal labor law. Just as in the present case, one of the Ellis appellants argued that the dredges at issue were “vessels” within the meaning of Rev. Stat. §3, now 1 U. S. C. §3. 206 U. S., at 249. The United States responded that dredges were only vessels, if at all, when in actual navigation as they were “towed from port to port.” Id., at 253. Citing §3, Justice Holmes rejected the Government’s argument, stating that “[t]he scows and floating dredges were vessels” that “were within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States.” Id., at 259.
These early cases show that at the time Congress enacted the Jones Act and the LHWCA in the 1920’s, it was settled that § 3 defined the term “vessel” for purposes of those statutes. It was also settled that a structure’s status as a vessel under § 3 depended on whether the structure was a means of maritime transportation. See R. Hughes, Handbook of Admiralty Law §5, p. 14 (2d ed. 1920). For then, as now, dredges served a waterborne transportation function, since in performing their work they carried machinery, equipment, and crew over water. See, e. g., Butler v. Ellis, 45 F. 2d 951, 955 (CA4 1930) (finding the vessel status of dredges “sustained by the overwhelming weight of authority”); The Hurricane, 2 F. 2d 70, 72 (ED Pa. 1924) (expressing “no doubt” that dredges are vessels), aff’d, 9 F. 2d 396 (CA3 1925).
This Court’s cases have continued to treat §3 as defining the term “vessel” in the LHWCA, and they have continued to construe § 3’s definition in light of the term’s established meaning in general maritime law. For instance, in Norton v. Warner Co., 321 U. S. 565 (1944), the Court considered whether a worker on a harbor barge was “a master or member of a crew of any vessel” under the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 902(3)(G). In finding that the “barge [was] a vessel within the meaning of the Act,” the Court not only quoted §3’s definition of the term “vessel,” but it also cited in support of its holding several earlier cases that had held dredges to be vessels based on the general maritime law. 321 U. S., at 571, and n. 4. This Court therefore confirmed in Norton that § 3 defines the term “vessel” in the LHWCA and that §3 should be construed consistently with the general maritime law. Since Norton, this Court has often said that dredges and comparable watercraft qualify as vessels under the Jones Act and the LHWCA.
B
Despite this Court’s reliance on § 3 in cases like Ellis and Norton, Dutra argues that the Court has implicitly narrowed § 3’s definition. Section 3 says that a “vessel” must be “used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water.” 18 Stat., pt. 1, p. 1. In a pair of cases, the Court held that a drydock, Cope v. Vallette Dry Dock Co., 119 U. S. 625, 630 (1887), and a wharfboat attached to the mainland, Evansville & Bowling Green Packet Co. v. Chero Cola Bottling Co., 271 U. S. 19, 22 (1926), were not vessels under §3, because they were not practically capable of being used to transport people, freight, or cargo from place to place. According to Dutra, Cope and Evansville adopted a definition of “vessel” narrower than § 3’s text.
Dutra misreads Cope and Evansville. In Cope, the plaintiff sought a salvage award for having prevented a drydock from sinking after a steamship collided with it. 119 U. S., at 625-626. At the time of the accident, the drydock, a floating dock used for repairing vessels, was “moored and lying at [the] usual place” it had occupied for the past 20 years. Id., at 626. In those circumstances, the dry-dock was a “fixed structure” that had been “permanently moored,” rather than a vessel that had been temporarily anchored. Id., at 627. Evansville involved a wharfboat secured by cables to the mainland. Local water, electricity, and telephone lines all ran from shore to the wharfboat, evincing a “permanent location.” 271 U. S., at 22. And the wharfboat, like the drydock in Cope, was neither “taken from place to place” nor “used to carry freight from one place to another.” 271 U. S., at 22. As in Cope, the Court concluded that the wharfboat “was not practically capable of being used as a means of transportation.” 271 U. S., at 22.
Cope and Evansville did no more than construe § 3 in light of the distinction drawn by the general maritime law between watercraft temporarily stationed in a particular location and those permanently affixed to shore or resting on the ocean floor. See, e. g., The Alabama, 19 F., at 546 (noting that vessels possess “mobility and [the] capacity to navigate,” as distinct from fixed structures like wharves, dry-docks, and bridges). Simply put, a watercraft is not “capable of being used” for maritime transport in any meaningful sense if it has been permanently moored or otherwise rendered practically incapable of transportation or movement.
This distinction is sensible: A ship and its crew do not move in and out of Jones Act coverage depending on whether the ship is at anchor, docked for loading or unloading, or berthed for minor repairs, in the same way that ships taken permanently out of the water as a practical matter do not remain vessels merely because of the remote possibility that they may one day sail again. See Pavone v. Mississippi Riverboat Amusement Corp., 52 F. 3d 560, 570 (CA5 1995) (floating casino was no longer a vessel where it “was moored to the shore in a semi-permanent or indefinite manner”); Kathriner v. Unisea, Inc., 975 F. 2d 657, 660 (CA9 1992) (floating processing plant was no longer a vessel where a “large opening [had been] cut into her hull,” rendering her incapable of moving over the water). Even if the general maritime law had not informed the meaning of § 3, its definition would not sweep within its reach an array of fixed structures not commonly thought of as capable of being used for water transport. See, e.g., Leocal v. Ashcroft, ante, at 9 (“When interpreting a statute, we must give words their ‘ordinary or natural' meaning” (quoting Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 228 (1993))).
Applying §3 brings within the purview of the Jones Act the sorts of watercraft considered vessels at the time Congress passed the Act. By including special-purpose vessels like dredges, § 3 sweeps broadly, but the other prerequisites to qualifying for seaman status under the Jones Act provide some limits, notwithstanding §3’s breadth. A maritime worker seeking Jones Act seaman status must also prove that his duties contributed to the vessel’s function or mission, and that his connection to the vessel was substantial both in nature and duration. Chandris, 515 U. S., at 376. Thus, even though the Super Scoop is a “vessel,” workers injured aboard the Super Scoop are eligible for seaman status only if they are “master[s] or member[s]” of its crew.
C
The Court of Appeals, relying on its previous en banc decision in DiGiovanni v. Traylor Brothers, Inc., 959 F. 2d 1119 (CA1 1992), held that the Super Scoop is not a “vessel” because its primary purpose is not navigation or commerce and because it was not in actual transit at the time of Stewart’s injury. 230 F. 3d, at 468-469. Neither prong of the Court of Appeals’ test is consistent with the text of § 3 or the established meaning of the term “vessel” in general maritime law.
Section 3 requires only that a watercraft be “used, or capable of being used, as a means of transportation on water” to qualify as a vessel. It does not require that a watercraft be used primarily for that purpose. See The Alabama, supra, at 546; The International, 89 F., at 485. As the Court of Appeals recognized, the Super Scoop’s “function was to move through Boston Harbor, . . . digging the ocean bottom as it moved.” 343 F. 3d, at 12. In other words, the Super Scoop was not only “capable of being used” to transport equipment and workers over water — it was used to transport those things. Indeed, it could not have dug the Ted Williams Tunnel had it been unable to traverse the Boston Harbor, carrying with it workers like Stewart.
Also, a watercraft need not be in motion to qualify as a vessel under §3. Looking to whether a watercraft is mo-, tionless or moving is the sort of “snapshot” test that we rejected in Chandris. Just as a worker does not “oscillate back and forth between Jones Act coverage and other remedies depending on the activity in which the worker was engaged while injured,” Chandris, 515 U. S., at 363, neither does a watercraft pass in and out of Jones Act coverage depending on whether it was moving at the time of the accident.
Granted, the Court has sometimes spoken of the requirement that a vessel be “in navigation,” id., at 373-374, but never to indicate that a structure’s locomotion at any given moment mattered. Rather, the point was that structures may lose their character as vessels if they have been withdrawn from the water for extended periods of time. Ibid.; Roper v. United States, 368 U. S. 20, 21, 23 (1961); West v. United States, 361 U. S. 118, 122 (1959). The Court did not mean that the “in navigation” requirement stood apart from § 3, such that a “vessel” for purposes of § 3 might nevertheless not be a “vessel in navigation” for purposes of the Jones Act or the LHWCA. See, e. g., United States v. Templeton, 378 F. 3d 845, 851 (CA8 2004) (“[T]he definition of Vessel in navigation’ under the Jones Act is not as expansive as the general definition of ‘vessel’ ”).
Instead, the “in navigation” requirement is an element of the vessel status of a watercraft. It is relevant to whether the craft is “used, or capable of being used” for maritime transportation. Á ship long lodged in a drydock or shipyard can again be put to sea, no less than one permanently moored to shore or the ocean floor can be cut loose and made to sail. The question remains in all cases whether the watercraft’s use “as a means of transportation on water” is a practical possibility or merely a theoretical one. Supra, at 493. In some cases that inquiry may involve factual issues for the jury, Chandris, supra, at 373, but here no relevant facts were in dispute. Dutra conceded that the Super Scoop was only temporarily stationary while Stewart and others were repairing the scow; the Super Scoop had not been taken out of service, permanently anchored, or otherwise rendered practically incapable of maritime transport.
Finally, although Dutra argues that the Super Scoop is not a “vessel” under § 902(3)(G), which is the LHWCA provision that excludes seamen from the Act’s coverage, Dutra conceded below that the Super Scoop is a “vessel” under § 905(b), which is the LHWCA provision that imposes liability on vessel owners for negligence to longshoremen. The concession was necessary because the Court of Appeals had previously held that §905(b)’s use of the term “vessel” is “ ‘significantly more inclusive than that used for evaluating seaman status under the Jones Act.’ ” 343 F. 3d, at 13 (quoting Morehead v. Atkinson-Kiewit, 97 F. 3d, at 607). The Court of Appeals’ approach is no longer tenable. The LHWCA does not meaningfully define the term “vessel” as it appears in either §902(3)(G) or § 905(b), see n. 2, supra, and 1 U. S. C. § 3 defines the term “vessel” throughout the LHWCA.
Ill
At the time that Congress enacted the LHWCA and since, Rev. Stat. §3, now 1 U. S. C. §3, has defined the term “vessel” in the LHWCA. Under § 3, a “vessel” is any watercraft practically capable of maritime transportation, regardless of its primary purpose or state of transit at a particular moment. Because the Super Scoop was engaged in maritime transportation at the time of Stewart’s injury, it was a vessel within the meaning of 1 U. S. C. § 3. Despite the seeming incongruity of grouping dredges alongside more traditional seafaring vessels under the maritime statutes, Congress and the courts have long done precisely that:
“[I]t seems a stretch of the imagination to class the deck hands of a mud dredge in the quiet waters of a Potomac creek with the bold and skillful mariners who breast the angry waves of the Atlantic; but such and so far-reaching are the principles which underlie the jurisdiction of the courts of admiralty that they adapt themselves to all the new kinds of property and new sets of operatives and new conditions which are brought into existence in the progress of the world.” Saylor v. Taylor, 77 F. 476, 479 (CA4 1896).
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 Chief Justice took no part in the decision of this case.
The Shipping Act, 1916, defines the term “vessel” for purposes of the Jones Act. See 46 U. S. C. App. §801. However, the provision of the Jones Act at issue here, § 688(a), speaks not of “vessels,” but of “seamen.” In any event, because we have identified a Jones Act “seaman” with reference to the LHWCA’s exclusion, see 38 U. S. C. § 902(3)(G) (“a master or member of a crew of any vessel”), it is the LHWCA’s use of the term “vessel” that matters. And, as we explain, the context surrounding Congress’ enactment of the LHWCA suggests that Rev. Stat. §3, now 1 U. S. C. §3, provides the controlling definition of the term “vessel” in the LHWCA.
As part of its 1972 Amendments to the LHWCA, Congress amended the Act with what appeal’s at first blush to be a definition of the term “vessel”: “Unless the context requires otherwise, the term ‘vessel’ means any vessel upon which or in connection with which any person entitled to benefits under this chapter suffers injury or death arising out of or in the course of his employment, and said vessel’s owner, owner pro hac vice, agent, operator, charter or bare boat charterer, master, officer, or crew member.” 33 U. S. C. §902(21). However, Congress enacted this definition in conjunction with the third-party vessel owner provision of § 905(b). Rather than specifying the characteristics of a vessel, §902(21) instead lists the parties liable for the negligent operation of a vessel. See McCarthy v. The Bark Peking, 716 F. 2d 130, 133 (CA2 1983) (§ 902(21) is “circular” and “does not provide precise guidance as to what is included within the term ‘vessel’ ”).
Congress had used substantially the same definition before, first in an 1866 antismuggling statute, see § 1, 14 Stat. 178, and then in an 1870 statute “providfing] for the Relief of sick and disabled Seamen,” ch. CLXIX, 16 Stat. 169 (italics deleted); see id., § 7, at 170.
During the 1947 codification, the hyphen was removed from the word “watercraft.” §3, 61 Stat. 633.
See, e. g., The Alabama, 19 F. 544, 546 (SD Ala. 1884) (dredge was a vessel and subject to maritime liens); Huismann v. The Pioneer, 30 F. 206, 207 (EDNY 1886) (dredge was a vessel under § 3); Saylor v. Taylor, 77 F. 476, 477 (CA4 1896) (dredge was a vessel under § 3, and its workers were seamen); The International, 89 F. 484, 484-485 (CA3 1898) (dredge was a vessel under §3); Eastern S. S. Corp. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 256 F. 497, 500-501 (CA1 1919) (type of dredge called a “drillboat” was a vessel under § 3); Los Angeles v. United Dredging Co., 14 F. 2d 364, 365-366 (CA9 1926) (dredge was a vessel under §3 and its engineers were seamen).
See, e. g., Jerome B. Grubart, Inc. v. Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co., 513 U. S. 527, 535, and n. 1 (1995) (indicating that a stationary crane barge was a “vessel” under the Extension of Admiralty Jurisdiction Act); Southwest Marine, Inc. v. Gizoni, 502 U. S. 81, 92 (1991) (holding that a jury could reasonably find that floating platforms were “vessels in navigation” under the Jones Act); Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. v. Pfeifer, 462 U. S. 523, 528-530 (1983) (treating coal barge as a “vessel” under the LHWCA, 33 U. S. C. § 905(b)); cf. Senko v. LaCrosse Dredging Corp., 352 U. S. 370, 372 (1957) (assuming that a dredge was a Jones Act vessel); id., at 375, n. 1 (Harlan, J., dissenting) (same).
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease concerns the respective provinces of state and federal law in determining what is property for purposes of federal tax lien legislation. At the time of his mother’s death, petitioner Rohn F. Drye, Jr., was insolvent and owed the Federal Government some $825,000 on unpaid tax assessments for which notices of federal tax liens had been filed. His mother died intestate, leaving an estate with a total value of approximately $233,000 to which he was sole heir. After the passage of several months, Drye disclaimed his interest in his mother’s estate, which then passed by operation of state law to his daughter. This case presents the question whether Drye’s interest as heir to his mother’s estate constituted "property” or a “righ[t] to property” to which the federal tax liens attached under 26 U. S. C. § 6321, despite Drye’s exercise of the prerogative state law accorded him to disclaim the interest retroactively.
We hold that the disclaimer did not defeat the federal tax liens. The Internal Revenue Code’s prescriptions are most sensibly read to look to state law for delineation of the taxpayer’s rights or interests, but to leave to federal law the determination whether those rights or interests constitute "property” or "rights to property” within the meaning of § 6321. "[Ojnee it has been determined that state law creates sufficient interests in the [taxpayer] to satisfy the requirements of [the federal tax lien provision], state law is inoperative to prevent the attachment of liens created by federal statutes in favor of the United States.” United States v. Bess, 357 U. S. 51, 56-57 (1958).
I
A
The relevant facts are not in dispute. On August 3,1994, Irma Deliah Drye died intestate, leaving an estate worth approximately $233,000, of which $158,000 was personalty and $75,000 was realty located in Pulaski Comity, Arkansas. Petitioner Rohn F. Drye, Jr., her son, was sole heir to the estate under Arkansas law. See Ark. Code Ann. § 28-9-214 (1987) (intestate interest passes “[fjirst, to the children of the intestate”). On the date of his mother’s death, Drye was insolvent and owed the Government approximately $325,000, representing assessments for tax deficiencies in years 1988, 1989, and 1990. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS or Service) had made assessments against Drye in November 1990 and May 1991 and had valid tax liens against all of Drye’s “property and rights to property” pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 6321.
Drye petitioned the Pulaski County Probate Court for appointment as administrator of his mother’s estate and was so appointed on August 17, 1994. Almost six months later, on February 4, 1995, Drye filed in the Probate Court and land records of Pulaski County a written disclaimer of all interests in his mother’s estate. Two days later, Drye resigned as administrator of the estate.
Under Arkansas law, an heir may disavow his inheritance by filing a written disclaimer no later than nine months after the death of the decedent. Ark. Code Ann. §§ 28-2-101, 28-2-107 (1987). The disclaimer creates the legal fiction that the disclaimant predeceased the decedent; consequently, the diselaimant’s share of the estate passes to the person next in line to receive that share. The disavowing heir’s creditors, Arkansas law provides, may not reach property thus disclaimed. §28-2-108. In the ease at hand, Drye’s disclaimer caused the estate to pass to his daughter, Theresa Drye, who succeeded her father as administrator and promptly established the Drye Family 1995 Trust (Trust).
On March 10, 1995, the Probate Court declared valid Drye’s disclaimer of all interest in his mother’s estate and accordingly ordered final distribution of the estate to Theresa Drye. Theresa Drye then used the estate’s proceeds to fund the Trust, of which she and, during their lifetimes, her parents are the beneficiaries. Under the Trust’s terms, distributions are at the discretion of the trustee, Drye’s counsel Daniel M. Traylor, and may be made only for the health, maintenance, and support of the beneficiaries. The Trust is spendthrift, and under state law, its assets are therefore shielded from creditors seeking to satisfy the debts of the Trust’s beneficiaries.
Also in 1995, the IRS and Drye began negotiations regarding Drye’s tax liabilities. During the course of the negotiations, Drye revealed to the Service his beneficial interest in the Trust. Thereafter, on April 11, 1996, the IRS filed with the Pulaski County Circuit Clerk and Recorder a notice of federal tax lien against the Trust as Drye’s nominee. The Service also served a notice of levy on accounts held in the Trust’s name by an investment bank and notified the Trust of the levy.
B
On May 1, 1996, invoking 26 U. S. C. § 7426(a)(1), the Trust filed a wrongful levy action against the United States in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. The Government counterclaimed against the Trust, the trustee, and the trust beneficiaries, seeking to reduce to judgment the tax assessments against Drye, confirm its right to seize the Trust’s assets in collection of those debts, foreclose on its liens, and sell the Trust property. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court ruled in the Government’s favor.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s judgment. Drye Family 1995 Trust v. United States, 152 F. 3d 892 (1998). The Court of Appeals understood our precedents to convey that “state law determines whether a given set of circumstances creates a right or interest; federal law then dictates whether that right or interest constitutes ‘property’ or the ‘right to property’ under § 6321.” Id., at 898.
We granted certiorari, 526 U. S. 1063 (1999), to resolve a conflict between the Eighth Circuit’s holding and decisions of the Fifth and Ninth Circuits. We now affirm.
HH
Under the relevant provisions of the Internal Revenue Code, to satisfy a tax deficiency, the Government may impose a lien on any “property” or “rights to property” belonging to the taxpayer. Section 6821 provides: “If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount... shall be a lien in favor of the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal, belonging to such person.” 26 U. S. C. §6321. A complementary provision, § 6331(a), states:
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary to collect such tax... by levy upon all property and rights to property (except such property as is exempt under section 6334) belonging to such person or on which there is a lien provided in this chapter for the payment of such tax.”
The language in §§6321 and 6331(a), this Court has observed, “is broad and reveals on its face that Congress meant to reach every interest in property that a taxpayer might have.” United States v. National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S. 713, 719-720 (1985) (citing 4 B. Bittker, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts ¶ 111.5.4, p. 111-100 (1981)); see also Glass City Bank v. United States, 326 U. S. 265, 267 (1945) (“Stronger language could hardly have been selected to reveal a purpose to assure the collection of taxes.”). When Congress so broadly uses the term “property,” we recognize, as we did in the context of the gift tax, that the Legislature aims to reach “ ‘every species of right or interest protected by law and having an exchangeable value.’ ” Jewett v. Commissioner, 455 U. S. 305, 309 (1982) (quoting S. Rep. No. 665, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 39 (1932); H. R. Rep. No. 708, 72d Cong., 1st Sess., 27 (1932)).
Section 6334(a) of the Code is corroborative. That provision lists property exempt from levy. The list includes 13 categories of items; among the enumerated exemptions are certain items necessary to clothe and care for one’s family, unemployment compensation, and workers’ compensation benefits. §§ 6334(a)(1), (2), (4), (7). The enumeration contained in § 6334(a), Congress directed, is exclusive: “Notwithstanding any other law of the United States..., no property or rights to property shall be exempt from levy other than the property specifically made exempt by subsection (a).” § 6334(c). Inheritances or devises disclaimed under state law are not included in § 6334(a)’s catalog of property exempt from levy. See Bess, 357 U. S., at 57 (“The fact that . . . Congress provided specific exemptions from distraint is evidence that Congress did not intend to recognize further exemptions which would prevent attachment of [federal tax] liens[.]”); United States v. Mitchell, 403 U. S. 190, 205 (1971) (“Th[e] language [of § 6334] is specific and it is clear and there is no room in it for automatic exemption of property that happens to be exempt from state levy under state law.”). The absence of any recognition of disclaimers in §§ 6321, 6322, 6331(a), and 6334(a) and (c), the relevant tax collection provisions, contrasts with § 2518(a) of the Code, which renders qualifying state-law disclaimers “with respect to any interest in property” effective for federal wealth-transfer tax purposes and for those purposes only.
Drye nevertheless refers to cases indicating that state law is the proper guide to the critical determination whether his interest in his mother’s estate constituted “property” or “rights to property” under §6321. His position draws support from two recent appellate opinions: Leggett v. United States, 120 F. 3d 592, 597 (CA5 1997) (“Section 6321 adopts the state’s definition of property interest.”); and Mapes v. United States, 15 F. 3d 138, 140 (CA9 1994) (“For the answer to th[e] question [whether taxpayer had the requisite interest in property], we must look to state law, not federal law.”). Although our decisions in point have not been phrased so meticulously as to preclude Drye’s argument, we are satisfied that the Code and interpretive case law place under federal, not state, control the ultimate issue whether a taxpayer has a beneficial interest in any property subject to levy for unpaid federal taxes.
I II
As restated in National Bank of Commerce: The question whether a state-law right constitutes ‘property* or ‘rights to property* is a matter of federal law.** 472 U. S., at 727. We look initially to state law to determine what rights the taxpayer has in the property the Government seeks to reach, then to federal law to determine whether the taxpayer’s state-delineated rights qualify as “property” or “rights to property” within the compass of the federal tax lien legislation. Cf. Morgan v. Commissioner, 309 U. S. 78, 80 (1940) (“State law creates legal interests and rights. The federal revenue acts designate what interests or rights, so created, shall be taxed.”).
In line with this division of competence, we held that a taxpayer’s right under state law to withdraw the whole of the proceeds from a joint bank account constitutes “property” or the “righ[t] to property” subject to levy for unpaid federal taxes, although state law would not allow ordinary creditors similarly to deplete the account. National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S., at 723-727. And we earlier held that a taxpayer’s right under a life insurance policy to compel his insurer to pay him the cash surrender value qualifies as “property” or a “righ[t] to property” subject to attachment for unpaid federal taxes, although state law shielded the cash surrender value from creditors’ liens. Bess, 357 U. S., at 56-57. By contrast, we also concluded, again as a matter of federal law, that no federal tax lien could attach to policy proceeds unavailable to the insured in his lifetime. Id., at 55-56 (“It would be anomalous to view as ‘property' subject to lien proceeds never within the insured’s reach to enjoy.”).
Just as “exempt status under state law does not bind the federal collector,” Mitchell, 403 U. S., at 204, so federal tax law “is not struck blind by a disclaimer,” United States v. Irvine, 511 U. S. 224, 240 (1994). Thus, in Mitchell, the Court held that, although a wife’s renunciation of a marital interest was treated as retroactive under state law, that state-law disclaimer did not determine the wife’s liability for federal tax on her share of the community income realized before the renunciation. See 403 U. S., at 204 (right to renounce does not indicate that taxpayer never had a right to property).
IV
The Eighth Circuit, with fidelity to the relevant Code provisions and our case law, determined first what rights state law accorded Drye in his mother’s estate. It is beyond debate, the Court of Appeals observed, that under Arkansas law Drye had, at his mother’s death, a valuable, transferable, legally protected right to the property at issue. See 152 F. 3d, at 895 (although Code does not define "property” or "rights to property,” appellate courts read those terms to encompass "state-law rights or interests that have pecuniary value and are transferable”). The court noted, for example, that a prospective heir may effectively assign his expectancy in an estate under Arkansas law, and the assignment will be enforced when the expectancy ripens into a present estate. See id., at 895-896 (citing several Arkansas Supreme Court decisions, including: Clark v. Rutherford, 227 Ark. 270, 270-271, 298 S. W. 2d 327, 330 (1957); Bradley Lumber Co. of Ark. v. Burbridge, 213 Ark. 165, 172, 210 S. W. 2d 284, 288 (1948); Leggett v. Martin, 203 Ark. 88, 94, 156 S. W. 2d 71, 74-75 (1941)).
Drye emphasizes his undoubted right under Arkansas law to disclaim the inheritance, see Ark. Code Ann. § 28-2-101 (1987), a right that is indeed personal and not marketable. See Brief for Petitioners 13 (right to disclaim is not transferable and has no pecuniary value). But Arkansas law primarily gave Drye a right of considerable value — the right either to inherit or to channel the inheritance to a close family member (the next lineal descendant). That right simply cannot be written off as a mere "personal right... to accept or reject [a] gift.” Ibid.
In pressing the analogy to a rejected gift, Drye overlooks this crucial distinction. A donee who declines an inter vivos gift generally restores the status quo ante, leaving the donor to do with the gift what she will. The disclaiming heir or devisee, in contrast, does not restore the status quo, for the decedent cannot be revived. Thus the heir inevitably exercises dominion over the property. He determines who will receive the property — himself if he does not disclaim, a known other if he does. See Hirsch, The Problem of the Insolvent Heir, 74 Cornell L. Rev. 587, 607-608 (1989). This power to channel the estate’s assets warrants the conclusion that Drye held “property” or a “righ[t] to property” subject to the Government’s liens.
* * *
In sum, in determining whether a federal taxpayer’s state-law rights constitute “property” or “rights to property,” “[t]he important consideration is the breadth of the control the [taxpayer] could exercise over the property.” Morgan, 309 U. S., at 83. Drye had the unqualified right to receive the entire value of his mother’s estate (less administrative expenses), see National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S., at 725 (confirming that unqualified “right to receive property is itself a property right” subject to the tax collector’s levy), or to channel that value to his daughter. The control rein he held under state law, we hold, rendered the inheritance “property” or “rights to property” belonging to him within the meaning of § 6321, and hence subject to the federal tax liens that sparked this controversy.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is
Affirmed.
In the view of those courts, state law holds sway. Under their approach, in a State adhering to an acceptance-rejection theory, under which a property interest vests only when the beneficiary accepts the inheritance or devise, the disclaiming taxpayer prevails and the federal liens do not attach. If, instead, the State holds to a transfer theory, under which the property is deemed to vest in the beneficiary immediately upon the death of the testator or intestate, the taxpayer loses and the federal lien runs with the property. See Leggett v. United States, 120 F. 3d 592, 594 (CA5 1997); Mapes v. United States, 15 F. 3d 138, 140 (CA9 1994); accord, United States v. Davidson, 55 F. Supp. 2d 1152, 1155 (Colo. 1999). Drye maintains that Arkansas adheres to the acceptance-rejection theory.
The Code further provides:
"Unless another date is specifically fixed by law, the lien imposed by section 6321 shall arise at the time the assessment is made and shall continue until the liability for the amount so assessed (or a judgment against the taxpayer arising out of such liability) is satisfied or becomes unenforceable by reason of lapse of time.” 26 U. S. C. § 6322.
See Pennell, Recent Wealth Transfer Tax Developments, in Sophisticated Estate Planning Techniques 69, 117-118 (ALI-ABA Continuing Legal Ed. 1997) (“The fact that a qualified disclaimer by an estate beneficiary is deemed to relate back to the decedent’s death for state property law or federal gift tax purposes is not sufficient to preclude a federal tax lien for the disclaimant’s delinquent taxes from attaching to the disclaimed property as of the moment of the decedent’s death. . . . [T]he qualified disclaimer provision in §2518 only applies for purposes of Subtitle B and the lien provisions are in Subtitle F.”).
See, e. g., United States v. National Bank of Commerce, 472 U. S. 713, 722 (1985) (“[T]he federal statute ‘creates no property rights but merely attaches consequences, federally defined, to rights created under state law.’”) (quoting United States v. Bess, 357 U.S. 51, 55 (1958)).
Accord, Bank One Ohio Trust Co. v. United States, 80 F. 3d 173, 176 (CA6 1996) (“Federal law did not create [the taxpayer’s] equitable income interest [in a spendthrift trust], but federal law must be applied in determining whether the interest constitutes ‘property* for purposes of § 6321.”); 21 West Lancaster Corp. v. Main Line Restaurant, Inc., 790 F. 2d 354, 357-358 (CA3 1986) (although a liquor license did not constitute “property” and could not be reached by creditors under state law, it was nevertheless “property” subject to federal tax lien); W. Plumb, Federal Tax Liens 27 (3d ed. 1972) (“[I]t is not material that the economic benefit to which the [taxpayer’s local law property] right pertains is not characterized as 'property* by local law.”).
Compatibly, in Aquilino v. United States, 363 U. S. 509 (1960), we held that courts should look first to state law to determine “‘the nature of the legal interest’” a taxpayer has in the property the Government seeks to reach under its tax lien. Id., at 513 (quoting Morgan v. Commissioner, 309 U. S. 78, 82 (1940)). We then reaffirmed that federal law determines whether the taxpayer’s interests are sufficient to constitute “property” or “rights to property” subject to the Government’s lien. 363 U. S., at 513-514. We remanded in Aquilino for a determination whether the contractor-taxpayer held any beneficial interest, as opposed to “bare legal title,” in the fluids at issue. Id., at 515-516; see also Note, Property Subject to the Federal Tax Lien, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1485, 1491 (1964) (“Aquilino supports the view that the Court has chosen to apply a federal test of classification, for the contractor concededly had legal title to the funds and yet in remanding the Court indicated that this state-created incident of ownership was not a sufficient “right to property5 in the contract proceeds to allow the tax lien to attach. In this sense Aquilino follows Bess in requiring that the taxpayer must have a beneficial interest in any property subject to the lien.” (footnote omitted)).
In recognizing that state-law rights that have pecuniary value and are transferable fall within §6321, we do not mean to suggest that transferability is essential to the existence of “property” or “rights to property” under that section. For example, although we do not here decide the matter, we note that an interest in a spendthrift trust has been held to constitute “‘property’ for purposes of §6321” even though the beneficiary may not transfer that interest to third parties. See Bank One, 80 F. 3d, at 176. Nor do we mean to suggest that an expectancy that has pecuniary value and is transferable under state law would fall within § 6321 prior to the time it ripens into a present estate.
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 |
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Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires that we again consider the standard district courts must apply when deciding whether to grant summary judgment in an antitrust conspiracy case.
I — I
Stating the facts of this case is a daunting task. The opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit runs to 69 pages; the primary opinion of the District Court is more than three times as long. In re Japanese Electronic Products Antitrust Litigation, 723 F. 2d 238 (CA3 1983); 513 F. Supp. 1100 (ED Pa. 1981). Two respected District Judges each have authored a number of opinions in this case; the published ones alone would fill an entire volume of the Federal Supplement. In addition, the parties have filed a 40-volume appendix in this Court that is said to contain the essence of the evidence on which the District Court and the Court of Appeals based their respective decisions.
We will not repeat what these many opinions have stated and restated, or summarize the mass of documents that constitute the record on appeal. Since we review only the standard applied by the Court of Appeals in deciding this case, and not the weight assigned to particular pieces of evidence, we find it unnecessary to state the facts in great detail. What follows is a summary of this case’s long history.
A
Petitioners, defendants below, are 21 corporations that manufacture or sell “consumer electronic products” (CEPs)— for the most part, television sets. Petitioners include both Japanese manufacturers of CEPs and American firms, controlled by Japanese parents, that sell the Japanese-manufactured products. Respondents, plaintiffs below, are Zenith Radio Corporation (Zenith) and National Union Electric Corporation (NUE). Zenith is an American firm that manufactures and sells television sets. NUE is the corporate successor to Emerson Radio Company, an American firm that manufactured and sold television sets until 1970, when it withdrew from the market after sustaining substantial losses. Zenith and NUE began this lawsuit in 1974, claiming that petitioners had illegally conspired to drive American firms from the American CEP market. According to respondents, the gist of this conspiracy was a “ ‘scheme to raise, fix and maintain artificially high prices for television receivers sold by [petitioners] in Japan and, at the same time, to fix and maintain low prices for television receivers exported to and sold in the United States.’” 723 F. 2d, at 251 (quoting respondents’ preliminary pretrial memorandum). These “low prices” were allegedly at levels that produced substantial losses for petitioners. 513 F. Supp., at 1125. The conspiracy allegedly began as early as 1953, and according to respondents was in full operation by sometime in the late 1960’s. Respondents claimed that various portions of this scheme violated §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, §2(a) of the Robinson-Patman Act, § 73 of the Wilson Tariff Act, and the Antidumping Act of 1916.
After several years of detailed discovery, petitioners filed motions for summary judgment on all claims against them. The District Court directed the parties to file, with preclu-sive effect, “Final Pretrial Statements” listing all the documentary evidence that would be offered if the case proceeded to trial. Respondents filed such a statement, and petitioners responded with a series of motions challenging the admissibility of respondents’ evidence. In three detailed opinions, the District Court found the bulk of the evidence on which Zenith and NUE relied inadmissible.
The District Court then turned to petitioners’ motions for summary judgment. In an opinion spanning 217 pages, the court found that the admissible evidence did not raise a genuine issue of material fact as to the existence of the alleged conspiracy. At bottom, the court found, respondents’ claims rested on the inferences that could be drawn from petitioners’ parallel conduct in the Japanese and American markets, and from the effects of that conduct on petitioners’ American competitors. 513 F. Supp., at 1125-1127. After reviewing the evidence both by category and in toto, the court found that any inference of conspiracy was unreasonable, because (i) some portions of the evidence suggested that petitioners conspired in ways that did not injure respondents, and (ii) the evidence that bore directly on the alleged price-cutting conspiracy did not rebut the more plausible inference that petitioners were cutting prices to compete in the American market and not to monopolize it. Summary judgment therefore was granted on respondents’ claims under § 1 of the Sherman Act and the Wilson Tariff Act. Because the Sherman Act §2 claims, which alleged that petitioners had combined to monopolize the American CEP market, were functionally indistinguishable from the § 1 claims, the court dismissed them also. Finally, the court found that the Robinson-Patman Act claims depended on the same supposed conspiracy as the Sherman Act claims. Since the court had found no genuine issue of fact as to the conspiracy, it entered judgment in petitioners’ favor on those claims as well.
B
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. The court began by examining the District Court’s eviden-tiary rulings, and determined that much of the evidence excluded by the District Court was in fact admissible. 723 F. 2d, at 260-303. These evidentiary rulings are not before us. See 471 U. S. 1002 (1985) (limiting grant of certiorari).
On the merits, and based on the newly enlarged record, the court found that the District Court’s summary judgment decision was improper. The court acknowledged that “there are legal limitations upon the inferences which may be drawn from circumstantial evidence,” 723 F. 2d, at 304, but it found that “the legal problem... is different” when “there is direct evidence of concert of action.” Ibid. Here, the court concluded, “there is both direct evidence of certain kinds of concert of action and circumstantial evidence having some tendency to suggest that other kinds of concert of action may have occurred.” Id., at 304-305. Thus, the court reasoned, cases concerning the limitations on inferring conspiracy from ambiguous evidence were not dispositive. Id., at 305. Turning to the evidence, the court determined that a factfinder reasonably could draw the following conclusions:
1. The Japanese market for CEPs was characterized by oligopolistic behavior, with a small number of producers meeting regularly and exchanging information on price and other matters. Id., at 307. This created the opportunity for a stable combination to raise both prices and profits in Japan. American firms could not attack such a combination because the Japanese Government imposed significant barriers to entry. Ibid.
2. Petitioners had relatively higher fixed costs than their American counterparts, and therefore needed to operate at something approaching full capacity in order to make a profit. Ibid.
3. Petitioners’ plant capacity exceeded the needs of the Japanese market. Ibid.
4. By formal agreements arranged in cooperation with Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), petitioners fixed minimum prices for CEPs exported to the American market. Id., at 310. The parties refer to these prices as the “check prices,” and to the agreements that require them as the “check price agreements.”
5. Petitioners agreed to distribute their products in the United States according to a “five company rule”: each Japanese producer was permitted to sell only to five American distributors. Ibid.
6. Petitioners undercut their own check prices by a variety of rebate schemes. Id., at 311. Petitioners sought to conceal these rebate schemes both from the United States Customs Service and from MITI, the former to avoid various customs regulations as well as action under the antidumping laws, and the latter to cover up petitioners’ violations of the check-price agreements.
Based on inferences from the foregoing conclusions, the Court of Appeals concluded that a reasonable factfinder could find a conspiracy to depress prices in the American market in order to drive out American competitors, which conspiracy was funded by excess profits obtained in the Japanese market. The court apparently did not consider whether it was as plausible to conclude that petitioners’ price-cutting behavior was independent and not conspiratorial.
The court found it unnecessary to address petitioners’ claim that they could not be held liable under the antitrust laws for conduct that was compelled by a foreign sovereign. The claim, in essence, was that because MITI required petitioners to enter into the check-price agreements, liability could not be premised on those agreements. The court concluded that this case did not present any issue of sovereign compulsion, because the check-price agreements were being used as “evidence of a low export price conspiracy” and not as an independent basis for finding antitrust liability. The court also believed it was unclear that the check prices in fact were mandated by the Japanese Government, notwithstanding a statement to that effect by MITI itself. Id., at 315.
We granted certiorari to determine (i) whether the Court of Appeals applied the proper standards in evaluating the District Court’s decision to grant petitioners’ motion for summary judgment, and (ii) whether petitioners could be held liable under the antitrust laws for a conspiracy in part compelled by a foreign sovereign. 471 U. S. 1002 (1985). We reverse on the first issue, but do not reach the second.
J — I 1 — I
We begin by emphasizing what respondents’ claim is not. Respondents cannot recover antitrust damages based solely on an alleged cartelization of the Japanese market, because American antitrust laws do not regulate the competitive conditions of other nations’ economies. United States v. Aluminum Co. of America, 148 F. 2d 416, 443 (CA2 1945) (L. Hand, J.); 1 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 236d (1978). Nor can respondents recover damages for any conspiracy by petitioners to charge higher than competitive prices in the American market. Such conduct would indeed violate the Sherman Act, United States v. Trenton Potteries Co., 273 U. S. 392 (1927); United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 223 (1940), but it could not injure respondents: as petitioners’ competitors, respondents stand to gain from any conspiracy to raise the market price in CEPs. Cf. Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 488-489 (1977). Finally, for the same reason, respondents cannot recover for a conspiracy to impose non-price restraints that have the effect of either raising market price or limiting output. Such restrictions, though harmful to competition, actually benefit competitors by making supra-competitive pricing more attractive. Thus, neither petitioners’ alleged supracompetitive pricing in Japan, nor the five company rule that limited distribution in this country, nor the check prices insofar as they established minimum prices in this country, can by themselves give respondents a cognizable claim against petitioners for antitrust damages. The Court of Appeals therefore erred to the extent that it found evidence of these alleged conspiracies to be “direct evidence” of a conspiracy that injured respondents. See 723 F. 2d, at 304-305.
Respondents nevertheless argue that these supposed conspiracies, if not themselves grounds for recovery of antitrust damages, are circumstantial evidence of another conspiracy that is cognizable: a conspiracy to monopolize the American market by means of pricing below the market level. The thrust of respondents’ argument is that petitioners used their monopoly profits from the Japanese market to fund a concerted campaign to price predatorily and thereby drive respondents and other American manufacturers of CEPs out of business. Once successful, according to respondents, petitioners would cartelize the American CEP market, restricting output and raising prices above the level that fair competition would produce. The resulting monopoly profits, respondents contend, would more than compensate petitioners for the losses they incurred through years of pricing below market level.
The Court of Appeals found that respondents’ allegation of a horizontal conspiracy to engage in predatory pricing, if proved, would be a per se violation of § 1 of the Sherman Act. 723 F. 2d, at 306. Petitioners did not appeal from that conclusion. The issue in this case thus becomes whether respondents adduced sufficient evidence in support of their theory to survive summary judgment. We therefore examine the principles that govern the summary judgment determination.
Ill
To survive petitioners’ motion for summary judgment, respondents must establish that there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether petitioners entered into an illegal conspiracy that caused respondents to suffer a cognizable injury. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e); First National Bank of Arizona v. Cities Service Co., 391 U. S. 253, 288-289 (1968). This showing has two components. First, respondents must show more than a conspiracy in violation of the antitrust laws; they must show an injury to them resulting from the illegal conduct. Respondents charge petitioners with a whole host of conspiracies in restraint of trade. Supra, at 582-583. Except for the alleged conspiracy to monopolize the American market through predatory pricing, these alleged conspiracies could not have caused respondents to suffer an “antitrust injury,” Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S., at 489, because they actually tended to benefit respondents. Supra, at 582-583. Therefore, unless, in context, evidence of these “other” conspiracies raises a genuine issue concerning the existence of a predatory pricing conspiracy, that evidence cannot defeat petitioners’ summary judgment motion.
Second, the issue of fact must be “genuine.” Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 56(c), (e). When the moving party has carried its burden under Rule 56(c), its opponent must do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts. See DeLuca v. Atlantic Refining Co., 176 F. 2d 421, 423 (CA2 1949) (L. Hand, J.), cert. denied, 338 U. S. 943 (1950); 10A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2727 (1983); Clark, Special Problems in Drafting and Interpreting Procedural Codes and Rules, 3 Vand. L. Rev. 493, 504-505 (1950). Cf. Sartor v. Arkansas Natural Gas Corp., 321 U. S. 620, 627 (1944). In the language of the Rule, the nonmoving party must come forward with “specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e) (emphasis added). See also Advisory Committee Note to 1963 Amendment of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 626 (purpose of summary judgment is to “pierce the pleadings and to assess the proof in order to see whether there is a genuine need for trial”). Where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is no “genuine issue for trial.” Cities Service, supra, at 289.
It follows from these settled principles that if the factual context renders respondents’ claim implausible — if the claim is one that simply makes no economic sense — respondents must come forward with more persuasive evidence to support their claim than would otherwise be necessary. Cities Service is instructive. The issue in that case was whether proof of the defendant’s refusal to deal with the plaintiff supported an inference that the defendant willingly had joined an illegal boycott. Economic factors strongly suggested that the defendant had no motive to join the alleged conspiracy. 391 U. S., at 278-279. The Court acknowledged that, in isolation, the defendant’s refusal to deal might well have sufficed to create a triable issue. Id., at 277. But the refusal to deal had to be evaluated in its factual context. Since the defendant lacked any rational motive to join the alleged boycott, and since its refusal to deal was consistent with the defendant’s independent interest, the refusal to deal could not by itself support a finding of antitrust liability. Id., at 280.
Respondents correctly note that “[o]n summary judgment the inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts... must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion.” United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U. S. 654, 655 (1962). But antitrust law limits the range of permissible inferences from ambiguous evidence in a § 1 case. Thus, in Monsanto Co. v. Spray-Rite Service Corp., 465 U. S. 752 (1984), we held that conduct as consistent with permissible competition as with illegal conspiracy does not, standing alone, support an inference of antitrust conspiracy. Id., at 764. See also Cities Service, supra, at 280. To survive a motion for summary judgment or for a directed verdict, a plaintiff seeking damages for a violation of § 1 must present evidence “that tends to exclude the possibility” that the alleged conspirators acted independently. 465 U. S., at 764. Respondents in this case, in other words, must show that the inference of conspiracy is reasonable in light of the competing inferences of independent action or collusive action that could not have harmed respondents. See Cities Service, supra, at 280.
Petitioners argue that these principles apply fully to this case. According to petitioners, the alleged conspiracy is one that is economically irrational and practically infeasible. Consequently, petitioners contend, they had no motive to engage in the alleged predatory pricing conspiracy; indeed, they had a strong motive not to conspire in the manner respondents allege. Petitioners argue that, in light of the absence of any apparent motive and the ambiguous nature of the evidence of conspiracy, no trier of fact reasonably could find that the conspiracy with which petitioners are charged actually existed. This argument requires us to consider the nature of the alleged conspiracy and the practical obstacles to its implementation.
IV
A
A predatory pricing conspiracy is by nature speculative. Any agreement to price below the competitive level requires the conspirators to forgo profits that free competition would offer them. The forgone profits may be considered an investment in the future. For the investment to be rational, the conspirators must have a reasonable expectation of recovering, in the form of later monopoly profits, more than the losses suffered. As then-Professor Bork, discussing predatory pricing by a single firm, explained:
“Any realistic theory of predation recognizes that the predator as well as his victims will incur losses during the fighting, but such a theory supposes it may be a rational calculation for the predator to view the losses as an investment in future monopoly profits (where rivals are to be killed) or in future undisturbed profits (where rivals are to be disciplined). The future flow of profits, appropriately discounted, must then exceed the present size of the losses.” R. Bork, The Antitrust Paradox 145 (1978).
See also McGee, Predatory Pricing Revisited, 23 J. Law & Econ. 289, 295-297 (1980). As this explanation shows, the success of such schemes is inherently uncertain: the short-run loss is definite, but the long-run gain depends on successfully neutralizing the competition. Moreover, it is not enough simply to achieve monopoly power, as monopoly pricing may breed quick entry by new competitors eager to share in the excess profits. The success of any predatory scheme depends on maintaining monopoly power for long enough both to recoup the predator’s losses and to harvest some additional gain. Absent some assurance that the hoped-for monopoly will materialize, and that it can be sustained for a significant period of time, “[t]he predator must make a substantial investment with no assurance that it will pay off.” Easter-brook, Predatory Strategies and Counterstrategies, 48 U. Chi. L. Rev. 263, 268 (1981). For this reason, there is a consensus among commentators that predatory pricing schemes are rarely tried, and even more rarely successful. See, e. g., Bork, supra, at 149-155; Areeda & Turner, Predatory Pricing and Related Practices Under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, 88 Harv. L. Rev. 697, 699 (1975); Easterbrook, supra; Roller, The Myth of Predatory Pricing — An Empirical Study, 4 Antitrust Law & Econ. Rev. 105 (1971); McGee, Predatory Price Cutting: The Standard Oil (N. J.) Case, 1 J. Law & Econ. 137 (1958); McGee, Predatory Pricing Revisited, 23 J. Law & Econ., at 292-294. See also Northeastern Telephone Co. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 651 F. 2d 76, 88 (CA2 1981) (“[N]owhere in the recent outpouring of literature on the subject do commentators suggest that [predatory] pricing is either common or likely to increase”), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 943 (1982).
These observations apply even to predatory pricing by a single firm seeking monopoly power. In this case, respondents allege that a large number of firms have conspired over a period of many years to charge below-market prices in order to stifle competition. Such a conspiracy is incalculably more difficult to execute than an analogous plan undertaken by a single predator. The conspirators must allocate the losses to be sustained during the conspiracy’s operation, and must also allocate any gains to be realized from its success. Precisely because success is speculative and depends on a willingness to endure losses for an indefinite period, each conspirator has a strong incentive to cheat, letting its partners suffer the losses necessary to destroy the competition while sharing in any gains if the conspiracy succeeds. The necessary allocation is therefore difficult to accomplish. Yet if conspirators cheat to any substantial extent, the conspiracy must fail, because its success depends on depressing the market price for all buyers of CEPs. If there are too few goods at the artificially low price to satisfy demand, the would-be victims of the conspiracy can continue to sell at the “real” market price, and the conspirators suffer losses to little purpose.
Finally, if predatory pricing conspiracies are generally unlikely to occur, they are especially so where, as here, the prospects of attaining monopoly power seem slight. In order to recoup their losses, petitioners must obtain enough market power to set higher than competitive prices, and then must sustain those prices long enough to earn in excess profits what they earlier gave up in below-cost prices. See Northeastern Telephone Co. v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., supra, at 89; Areeda & Turner, 88 Harv. L. Rev., at 698. Two decades after their conspiracy is alleged to have commenced, petitioners appear to be far from achieving this goal: the two largest shares of the retail market in television sets are held by RCA and respondent Zenith, not by any of petitioners. 6 App. to Brief for Appellant in No. 81-2331 (CA3), pp. 2575a-2576a. Moreover, those shares, which together approximate 40% of sales, did not decline appreciably during the 1970⅛. Ibid. Petitioners’ collective share rose rapidly during this period, from one-fifth or less of the relevant markets to close to 50%. 723 F. 2d, at 316. Neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals found, however, that petitioners’ share presently allows them to charge monopoly prices; to the contrary, respondents contend that the conspiracy is ongoing — that petitioners are still artificially depressing the market price in order to drive Zenith out of the market. The data in the record strongly suggest that that goal is yet far distant.
The alleged conspiracy’s failure to achieve its ends in the two decades of its asserted operation is strong evidence that the conspiracy does not in fact exist. Since the losses in such a conspiracy accrue before the gains, they must be “repaid” with interest. And because the alleged losses have accrued over the course of two decades, the conspirators could well require a correspondingly long time to recoup. Maintaining supracompetitive prices in turn depends on the continued cooperation of the conspirators, on the inability of other would-be competitors to enter the market, and (not incidentally) on the conspirators’ ability to escape antitrust liability for their minimum price-fixing cartel. Each of these factors weighs more heavily as the time needed to recoup losses grows. If the losses have been substantial — as would likely be necessary in order to drive out the competition — petitioners would most likely have to sustain their cartel for years_simply to break even.
Nor does the possibility that petitioners have obtained supracompetitive profits in the Japanese market change this calculation. Whether or not petitioners have, the means to sustain substantial losses in this country over a long period of time, they have no motive to sustain such lósses'abséñt "some strong likelihood that the alleged conspiracy in this country will eventually pay off. The courts below found no evidence of any such success, and — as indicated above — the facts actually are to the contrary: RCA and Zenith, not any of the petitioners, continue to hold the largest share of the American retail market in color television sets. More important, there is nothing to suggest any relationship between petitioners’ profits in Japan and the amount petitioners could expect to gain from a conspiracy to monopolize the American market. In the absence of any such evidence, the possible existence of supracompetitive profits in Japan simply cannot overcome the economic obstacles to the ultimate success of this alleged predatory conspiracy.
B
In Monsanto, we emphasized thatcourts should notnermit factfinders to infer conspiracies when such inferences are implausible, because the effect of such practices is often~tcTdeter procompetitive conduct. Monsanto, 465 U. S., at 762-764. Respondents, petitioners’ competitors, seek to hold petitioners liable for damages caused by the alleged conspiracy to cut prices. Moreover, they seek to establish this conspiracy indirectly, through evidence of other combinations (such as the check-price agreements and the five company rule) whose natural tendency is to raise prices, and through evidence of rebates and other price-cutting activities that respondents argue tend to prove a combination to suppress prices. But cutting prices in order to increase business often is the very essence of competition. Thus, mistaken inferences in cases such as this one are especially costly, because they chill the very conduct the antitrust laws are designed to protect. See Monsanto, supra, at 763-764. “[W]e must be concerned lest a rule or precedent that authorizes a search for a particular type of undesirable pricing behavior end up by discouraging legitimate price competition.” Barry Wright Corp. v. ITT Grinnell Corp., 724 F. 2d 227, 234 (CA1 1983).
In most cases, this concern must be balanced against the desire that illegal conspiracies be identified and punished. That balance is, however, unusually one-sided in cases such as this one. As we earlier explained, supra, at 588-593, predatory pricing schemes require conspirators to suffer losses in order eventually to realize their illegal gains; moreover, the gains depend on a host of uncertainties, making such schemes more likely to fail than to succeed. These economic realities tend to make predatory pricing conspiracies self-deterring: unlike most other conduct that violates the antitrust laws, failed predatory pricing schemes are costly to the conspirators. See Easterbrook, The Limits of Antitrust, 63 Texas L. Rev. 1, 26 (1984). Finally, unlike predatory pricing by a single firm, successful predatory pricing conspiracies involving a large number of firms can be identified and punished once they succeed, since some form of minimum price-fixing agreement would be necessary in order to reap the benefits of predation. Thus, there is little reason to be concerned that by granting summary judgment in cases where the evidence of conspiracy is speculative or ambiguous, courts will encourage such conspiracies.
V
As our discussion in Part IV-A shows, petitioners had no motive to enter into the alleged conspiracy. To the contrary, as presumably rational businesses, petitioners had every incentive not to engage in the conduct with which they are charged, for its likely effect would be to generate losses for petitioners with no corresponding gains. Cf. Cities Service, 391 U. S., at 279. The Court of Appeals did not take account of the absence of a plausible motive to enter into the alleged predatory pricing conspiracy. It focused instead on whether there was “direct evidence of concert of action.” 723 F. 2d, at 304. The Court of Appeals erred in two respects: (i) the “direct evidence” on which the court relied had little, if any, relevance to the alleged predatory pricing conspiracy; and (ii) the court failed to consider the absence of a plausible motive to engage in predatory pricing.
The “direct evidence” on which the court relied was evidence of other combinations, not of a predatory pricing conspiracy. Evidence that petitioners conspired to raise prices in Japan provides little, if any, support for respondents’ claims: a conspiracy to increase profits in one market does not tend to show a conspiracy to sustain losses in another. Evidence that petitioners agreed to fix minimum prices (through the check-price agreements) for the American market actually works in petitioners’ favor, because it suggests that petitioners were seeking to place a floor under prices rather than to lower them. The same is true of evidence that petitioners agreed to limit the number of distributors of their products in the American market — the so-called five company rule. That practice may have facilitated a horizontal territorial allocation, see United States v. Topco Associates, Inc., 405 U. S. 596 (1972), but its natural effect would be to raise market prices rather than reduce them. Evidence that tends to support any of these collateral conspiracies thus says little, if anything, about the existence of a conspiracy to charge below-market prices in the American market over a period of two decades.
That being the case, the absence of any plausible motive to engage in the conduct charged is highly relevant to whether a “genuine issue for trial” exists within the meaning of Rule 56(e). Lack of motive bears on the range of permissible conclusions that might be drawn from ambiguous evidence: if petitioners had no rational economic motive to conspire, and if their conduct is consistent with other, equally plausible explanations, the conduct does not give rise to an inference of conspiracy. See Cities Service, supra, at 278-280. Here, the conduct in question consists largely of (i) pricing at levels that succeeded in taking business away from respondents, and (ii) arrangements that may have limited petitioners’ ability to compete with each other (and thus kept prices from going even lower). This conduct suggests either that petitioners behaved competitively, or that petitioners conspired to raise prices. Neither possibility is consistent with an agreement among 21 companies to price below market levels. Moreover, the predatory pricing scheme that this conduct is said to prove is one that makes no practical sense: it calls for petitioners to destroy companies larger and better established than themselves, a goal that remains far distant more than two decades after the conspiracy’s birth. Even had they succeeded in obtaining their monopoly, there is nothing in the record to suggest that they could recover the losses they would need to sustain along the way. In sum, in light of the absence of any rational motive to conspire, neither petitioners’ pricing practices, nor their conduct in the Japanese market, nor their agreements respecting prices and distribution in the American market, suffice to create a “genuine issue for trial.” Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56(e).
On remand, the Court of Appeals is free to consider whether there is other evidence that is sufficiently unambiguous to permit a trier of fact to find that petitioners conspired to price predatorily for two decades despite the absence of any apparent motive to do so. The evidence must “ten[d] to exclude the possibility” that petitioners underpriced respondents to compete for business rather than to implement an economically senseless conspiracy. Monsanto, 465 U. S., at 764. In the absence of such evidence, there is no “genuine issue for trial” under Rule 56(e), and petitioners are entitled to have summary judgment reinstated.
<! ) — I
Our decision makes it unnecessary to reach the sovereign compulsion issue. The heart of petitioners’ argument on that issue is that MITI, an agency of the Government of Japan, required petitioners to fix minimum prices for export to the United States, and that petitioners are therefore immune from antitrust liability for any scheme of which those minimum prices were an integral part. As we discussed in Part II, supra, respondents could not have suffered a cognizable injury from any action that raised prices in the American CEP market. If liable at all, petitioners are liable for conduct that is distinct from the check-price agreements. The sovereign compulsion question that both petitioners and the Solicitor General urge us to decide thus is not presented here.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
NUE had filed its complaint four years earlier, in the District Court’for the District of New Jersey. Zenith’s complaint was filed separately in 1974, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The two eases were consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in 1974.
The inadmissible evidence included various government records and reports, Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., 505 F. Supp. 1125 (ED Pa. 1980), business documents offered pursuant to various hearsay exceptions, Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., 505 F. Supp. 1190 (ED Pa. 1980), and a large portion of the expert testimony that respondents proposed to introduce. Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., 505 F. Supp. 1313 (ED Pa. 1981).
The District Court ruled separately that petitioners were entitled to summary judgment on respondents’ claims under the Antidumping Act of 1916. Zenith Radio Corp. v. Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., 494 F. Supp. 1190 (ED Pa. 1980). Respondents appealed this ruling, and the Court of Appeals reversed in a separate opinion issued the same day as the opinion concerning respondents’ other claims. In re Japanese Electronic Products Antitrust Litigation, 723 F. 2d 319 (CA3 1983).
Petitioners ask us to review the Court of Appeals’ Antidumping Act decision along with its decision on the rest of this mammoth case. The Antidumping Act claims were not, however, mentioned in the questions presented in the petition for certiorari, and they have not been independently argued by the parties. See this Court’s Rule 21.1(a). We therefore decline the invitation to review the Court of Appeals’ decision on those claims.
As to 3 of the 24 defendants, the Court of Appeals affirmed the entry of summary judgment. Petitioners are the 21 defendants who remain in the case.
In addition to these inferences, the court noted that there was expert opinion evidence that petitioners’ export sales “generally were at prices which produced losses, often as high as twenty-five percent on sales.” 723 F. 2d, at 311. The court did not identify any direct evidence of below-cost pricing; nor did it place particularly heavy reliance on this aspect of the expert evidence. See n. 19, infra.
The Sherman Act does reach conduct outside our borders, but only when the conduct has an effect on American commerce. Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carb
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 motion to dismiss is granted and the appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question.
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 principal question presented by these cases is whether a federal district court has jurisdiction to review a final order of the Secretary of Health and Human Services refusing to reimburse a State for a category of expenditures under its Medicaid program. All of the Courts of Appeals that have confronted this precise question have agreed that district courts do have jurisdiction in such cases. We implicitly answered the question in the same way when we accepted jurisdiction and decided the merits in Connecticut Dept. of Income Maintenance v. Heckler, 471 U. S. 524 (1985). Moreover, although the Medicaid program was established in 1965, the novel proposition that the Claims Court is the exclusive forum for judicial review of this type of agency action does not appear to have been advocated by the Secretary until this case reached the Court of Appeals. As we shall explain, the conclusion that the District Court had jurisdiction in these cases is supported by the plain language of the relevant statutes, their legislative history, and a practical understanding of their efficient administration. Before turning to the legal arguments, however, it is appropriate to say a few words about the mechanics of the federal financial participation (FFP) in the States’ Medicaid programs and the character of the issue decided by the District Court.
I
In 1965 Congress authorized the Medicaid program by adding Title XIX to the Social Security Act, 79 Stat. 343. The program is “a cooperative endeavor in which the Federal Government provides financial assistance to participating States to aid them in furnishing health care to needy persons.” Harris v. McRae, 448 U. S. 297, 308 (1980). Subject to the federal standards incorporated in the statute and the Secretary’s regulations, each participating State must develop its own program describing conditions of eligibility and covered services. At present, 18 different categories of medical assistance are authorized. See Connecticut Dept. of Income Maintenance v. Heckler, 471 U. S., at 528-529.
Although the federal contribution to a State’s Medicaid program is referred to as a “reimbursement,” the stream of revenue is actually a series of huge quarterly advance payments that are based on the State’s estimate of its anticipated future expenditures. The estimates are periodically adjusted to reflect actual experience. Overpayments may be withheld from future advances or, in the event of a dispute over a disallowance, may be retained by the State at its option pending resolution of the dispute.
Two procedures are available to the Secretary if he believes that a State’s expenditures do not comply with either the Act or his regulations. First: If he concludes that the State’s administration of its plan is in “substantial noncompliance” with federal requirements, he may initiate a compliance proceeding pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1316(a); in such a proceeding he may order termination of FFP for entire categories of state assistance, or even (theoretically) the entire state program. Should the Secretary subsequently conclude that his initial determination was incorrect, the statute provides that “he shall certify restitution forthwith in a lump sum of any funds incorrectly withheld or otherwise denied.” § 1316(c). A final order in a compliance proceeding is reviewable in the “United States court of appeals for the circuit in which such State is located.” § 1316(a)(3). Second: The Secretary may “disallow” reimbursement for “any item or class of items.” § 1316(d). “In general,... a disallowance represents an isolated and highly focused inquiry into a State’s operation of the assistance program.” The statute does not expressly provide for judicial review of a disallowance order. In several cases a State has sought direct review of a dis-allowance order in a Court of Appeals, but in each such case the court has concluded that the State should proceed in the district court. See Illinois Dept. of Public Aid v. Schweiker, 707 F. 2d 273 (CA7 1983),- and cases cited therein.
Massachusetts has participated in the. Medicaid program continuously since 1966. One of the categories of assistance covered by the Massachusetts program is the provision of medical and rehabilitative services to patients in intermediate care facilities for the mentally retarded (ICF/MR services). These services include such matters as “‘training in “the activities of daily living” (such as dressing and feeding oneself),”’ Massachusetts v. Heckler, 616 F. Supp. 687, 691 (Mass. 1985) (citation omitted) (case below), and are performed jointly by personnel from the State Departments of Mental Health and Education, working pursuant to state mental health and “special education” laws. See Massachusetts v. Secretary of Health and Human Services, 816 F. 2d 796, 798 (CA1 1987) (case below). Although the Secretary apparently would have regarded these services as covered had they been performed solely by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health, his auditors classified them as uncovered educational services because they were performed in part by employees of the State Department of Education. On August 23, 1982, the Regional Administrator of the Department’s Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) notified the State that he had disallowed $6,414,964 in FFP for the period July 1, 1978, to December 31, 1980. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 97a. The Departmental Grant Appeals Board affirmed this decision on May 31, 1983. Id., at 53a.
On August 26, 1983, the State filed a complaint in the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts. The State’s complaint invoked federal jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1331 and alleged that the United States had waived its sovereign immunity through 5 U. S. C. §702. The complaint requested declaratory and injunctive relief and specifically asked the District Court to “set aside” the Board’s order. While the case was pending, on August 20, 1984, the HCFA notified the State of a $4,908,994 FFP dis-allowance for the same category of ICF/MR services based on its audit of the period January 1, 1981, through June 30, 1982. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 92a. On March 29, 1985, this second disallowance period was upheld by the Board. On June 5, 1985, the State filed a second complaint in District Court, seeking to overturn the second disallowance. Id., at 89a.
On August 27, 1985, the District Court issued an opinion in the first disallowance case. It did not discuss the jurisdictional issue. On the merits, it held that the services in question were in fact rehabilitative, and that this classification was not barred by the fact that the Department of Education had played a role in their provision. Massachusetts v. Heckler, 616 F. Supp. 687 (Mass. 1985) (case below). Its judgment, dated October 7, 1985, simply “reversed” the Board’s decision disallowing reimbursement of the sum of $6,414,964 in FFP under the Medicaid program. App. to Pet. for Cert. 32a. On November 25, 1985, in a second opinion relying on the analysis of the first, the court reversed the Board’s second disallowance determination. Massachusetts v. Heckler, 622 F. Supp. 266 (Mass. 1985) (case below). It entered an appropriate judgment on December 2, 1985. App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a. That judgment did not purport to state what amount of money, if any, was owed by the United States to Massachusetts, nor did it order that any payment be made.
The Secretary at first had challenged the District Court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, but later filed a memorandum stating that as “a matter of policy, HHS has decided not to press the defense of lack of jurisdiction in this action.” App. 20. In his consolidated appeal to the First Circuit, the Secretary reexamined this policy decision and decided to argue that the District Court did not have jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals accepted the Secretary’s argument that the District Court could not order him to pay money to the State, but held that the District Court had jurisdiction to review the Board’s disallowance decision and to grant declaratory and injunctive relief. The court explained its understanding of the difference between relief that was wholly retrospective in nature and relief that affected the future relationship between the parties as follows:
“The disallowance decision at issue in this case, unlike that at issue in [Massachusetts v. Departmental Grant Appeals Bd. of Health and Human Services, 815 F. 2d 778 (CA1 1987)], represents an ongoing policy that has significant prospective effect. The structure of the Medicaid program (in which the Secretary ‘reimburses’ the states in advance) makes it inevitable that disallowance decisions concern money past due. Yet the Secretary uses these decisions to implement important policies governing ongoing programs. Grant Appeals Board concerned the unusual situation in which the disallowance decision had no significant prospective effect; the challenge only concerned the money allegedly past due.
“Here, in contrast, the interpretation of the Medicaid Act announced in the disallowance decision affects far more than any money past due. The special education exclusion defines the respective roles of the Commonwealth and HHS in a continuing program.
“Prospective relief is important to the Commonwealth both because the ICF/MR program is still active and because the legal issues involved have ramifications that affect other aspects of the Medicaid program. What is at stake here is the scope of the Medicaid program, not just how many dollars Massachusetts should have received in any particular year.” 816 F. 2d, at 799 (emphasis in original).
On the merits, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the Secretary could not lawfully exclude the rehabilitative services provided to the mentally retarded just because the State had labeled them (in part) “educational” services and had used Department of Education personnel to help provide them. It therefore affirmed the District Court’s holding that the decisions of the Grant Appeals Board must be reversed because the Secretary’s “special education exclusion” violated the statute. It held, however, that it could not rule that the services in dispute were reimbursable because it had “no evidentiary basis for doing so.” Id., at 804. In sum, the Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s declaratory judgment, vacated the “money judgment” against the Secretary, and remanded to the Secretary for further determinations regarding whether the services are reimbursable.
In his petition for certiorari, the Secretary asked us to decide that the United States Claims Court had exclusive jurisdiction over the State’s claim. In its cross-petition, the State asked us to decide that the District Court had jurisdiction to grant complete relief. We granted both petitions. 484 U. S. 1003 (1988). The basic jurisdictional dispute is over the meaning of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U. S. C. §§702, 704. The Secretary argues that § 702, as amended in 1976, does not authorize review because this is not an action “seeking relief other than money damages” within the meaning of the 1976 amendment to that section; he also argues that even if §702 is satisfied, §704 bars relief because the State has an adequate remedy in the Claims Court. The State must overcome both arguments in order to prevail; we shall discuss them separately.
II
Since it is undisputed that the 1976 amendment to §702 was intended to broaden the avenues for judicial review of agency action by eliminating the defense of sovereign immunity in cases covered by the amendment, it is appropriate to begin by quoting the original text of § 702. Prior to 1976, it simply provided:
“A person suffering legal wrong because of agency action, or adversely affected or aggrieved by agency action within the meaning of a relevant statute, is entitled to judicial review thereof.”
In 1975, in a case seeking review of a disallowance decision by the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit concluded that the decision was reviewable in the District Court. County of Alameda v. Weinberger, 520 F. 2d 344. It would be difficult to question the fact that the disallowance decision was “agency action” that “adversely affected” the State, and that, accordingly, the State was “entitled to judicial review thereof.”
The 1976 amendment contains no language suggesting that Congress disagreed with the Ninth Circuit decision. The amendment added the following sentence to the already broad coverage of §702:
“An action in a court of the United States seeking relief other than money damages and stating a claim that an agency or an officer or employee thereof acted or failed to act in an official capacity or under color of legal authority shall not be dismissed nor relief therein be denied on the ground that it is against the United States dr that the United States is an indispensable party.”
There are two reasons why the plain language of this amendment does not foreclose judicial review of the actions brought by the State challenging the Secretary’s disallowance decisions. First, insofar as the complaints sought declaratory and injunctive relief, they were certainly not actions for money damages. Second, and more importantly, even the monetary aspects of the relief that the State sought are not “money damages” as that term is used in the law.
Neither a disallowance decision, nor the reversal of a dis-allowance decision, is properly characterized as an award of “damages.” Either decision is an adjustment — and, indeed, usually a relatively minor one — in the size of the federal grant to the State that is payable in huge quarterly installments. Congress has used the terms “overpayment” and “underpayment” to describe such adjustments in the open account between the parties, and the specific agency action that reverses a disallowance decision'is described as “restitution” in the statute.
Our cases have long recognized the distinction between an action at law for damages — which are intended to provide a victim with monetary compensation for an injury to his person, property, or reputation — and an equitable action for specific relief — which may include an order providing for the reinstatement of an employee with backpay, or for “the recovery of specific property or monies, ejectment from land, or injunction either directing or restraining the defendant officer’s actions.” Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 688 (1949) (emphasis added). The fact that a judicial remedy may require one party to pay money to another is not a sufficient reason to characterize the relief as “money damages.” Thus, we have recognized that relief that orders a town to reimburse parents for educational costs that Congress intended the town to pay is not “damages”:
“Because Congress undoubtedly did not intend this result, we are confident that by empowering the court to grant ‘appropriate’ relief Congress meant to include retroactive reimbursement to parents as an available remedy in a proper case.
“In this Court, the Town repeatedly characterizes reimbursement as ‘damages,’ but that simply is not the case. Reimbursement merely requires the Town to belatedly pay expenses that it should have paid all along and would have borne in the first instance had it developed a proper IEP.” School Committee of Burlington v. Department of Education of Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 359, 370-371 (1985).
Judge Bork’s explanation of the plain meaning of the critical language in this statute merits quotation in full. In his opinion for the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Maryland Dept. of Human Resources v. Department of Health and Human Services, 246 U. S. App. D. C. 180, 763 F. 2d 1441 (1985), he wrote:
“We turn first to the question whether the relief Maryland seeks is equivalent to money damages. Maryland asked the district court for a declaratory judgment and for injunctive relief ‘enjoin[ing] defendants from reducing funds otherwise due to plaintiffs, or imposing any sanctions on such funds for alleged Title XX violations.’... We are satisfied that the relief Maryland seeks here is not a claim for money damages, although it is a claim that would require the payment of money by the federal government.
“We begin with the ordinary meaning of the words Congress employed. The term ‘money damages,’ 5 U. S. C. §702, we think, normally refers to a sum of money used as compensatory relief. Damages are given to the plaintiff to substitute for a suffered loss, whereas specific remedies ‘are not substitute remedies at all, but attempt to give the plaintiff the very thing to which he was entitled.’ D. Dobbs, Handbook on the Law of Remedies 135 (1973). Thus, while in many instances an award of money is an award of damages, ‘[ojccasionally a money award is also a specie remedy.’ Id. Courts frequently describe equitable actions for monetary relief under a contract in exactly those terms. See, e..g., First National State Bank v. Commonwealth Federal Savings & Loan Association, 610 F. 2d 164, 171 (3d Cir. 1979) (specific performance of contract to borrow money); Crouch v. Crouch, 566 F. 2d 486, 488 (5th Cir. 1978) (contrasting lump-sum damages for breach of promise to pay monthly support payments with an order decreeing specific performance as to future installments); Joyce v. Davis, 539 F. 2d 1262, 1265 (10th Cir. 1976) (specific performance of a promise to pay money bonus under a royalty contract).
“In the present case, Maryland is seeking funds to which a statute allegedly entitles it, rather than money in compensation for the losses, whatever they may be, that Maryland will suffer or has suffered by virtue of the withholding of those funds. If the program in this case involved in-kind benefits this would be altogether evident. The fact that in the present case it is money rather than in-kind benefits that pass from the federal government to the states (and then, in the form of services, to program beneficiaries) cannot transform the nature of the relief sought — specific relief, not relief in the form of damages. Cf. Clark v. Library of Congress, 750 F. 2d 89, 104 n. 33 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (dictum) (describing an action to compel an official to repay money improperly recouped as ‘in essence, specific relief’).” Id., at 185, 763 F. 2d, at 1446 (emphasis in original) (citation omitted).
In arguing for a narrow construction of the 1976 amendment — which was unquestionably intended to broaden the coverage of §702 — the Secretary asks us to substitute the words “monetary relief” for the words “money damages” actually selected by Congress. Given the obvious difference in meaning between the two terms and the well-settled presumption that Congress understands the state of existing law when it legislates, see, e. g., Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 696-697 (1979), only the most compelling reasons could justify a revision of a statutory text that is this unambiguous. Nevertheless, we have considered the Secretary’s argument that the legislative history of § 702 supports his reading of the amendment.
The 1976 amendment to § 702 was an important part of a major piece of legislation designed to remove “technical” obstacles to access to the federal courts. The statute was the culmination of an effort generated by scholarly writing and bar association work in the early 1960’s. Although the Department of Justice initially opposed the proposal, it eventually reversed course and offered its support. We shall comment first on the legislative materials that relate directly to the bill that passed in 1976, and then refer to the 1970 Hearing on which the Government places its principal reliance.
Two propositions are perfectly clear. The first concerns the text of the amendment. There is no evidence that any legislator in 1976 understood the words “money damages” to have any meaning other than the ordinary understanding of the term as used in the common law for centuries. No one suggested that the term was the functional equivalent of a broader concept such as “monetary relief” and no one proposed that the broader term be substituted for the familiar one. Each of the Committee Reports repeatedly used the term “money damages”; the phrase “monetary relief” was used in each Report once, and only in intentional juxtaposition and distinction to “specific relief,” indicating that the drafters had in mind the time-honored distinction between damages and specific relief. There is no support in that history for a departure from the plain meaning of the text that Congress enacted.
Second, both the House and Senate Committee Reports indicate that Congress understood that §702, as amended, would authorize judicial review of the “administration of Federal grant-in-aid programs.” The fact that grant-in-aid programs were expressly included in the list of proceedings in which the Committees wanted to be sure the sovereign-immunity defense was waived is surely strong affirmative evidence that the members did not regard judicial review of an agency’s disallowance decision as an action for damages.
If we turn to the 1970 Hearing and the earlier scholarly writings, we find that the terms “monetary relief” and “money damages” were sometimes used interchangeably. That fact is of only minimal significance, however, for several reasons. First, given the high caliber of the scholars who testified, it seems obvious that if they had intended the exclusion for proceedings seeking “money, damages” to encompass all proceedings seeking any form' of monetary relief, they would have drafted their proposal differently. Second, they cited cases involving challenges to federal grant-in-aid programs as examples of the Government’s reliance on a sovereign-immunity defense that should be covered by the proposed legislation. Third, the case that they discussed at the greatest length in the 1970 Hearing was Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682 (1949). Although they criticized the reliance on sovereign immunity in that opinion, they made no objection to its recognition of the classic distinction between the recovery of money damages and “the recovery of specific property or monies.” Id., at 688.
Judge Bork’s summary of the legislative history is especially convincing:
“Neither the House nor Senate Reports (there was no Conference Report) intimates, that Congress intended the term ‘money damages’ as a shorthand for ‘whatever forms of monetary relief would- -be available under the Tucker Act.’ To the contrary, the federal sovereign immunity case law, which the Reports discuss at length, see H. R. Rep. No. 1656, supra, at 5-8; S. Rep. No. 996, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4-8 (1976), suggests that Congress would have understood the recovery of specific monies to be specific relief in this context. See, e. g., Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 337 U. S. 682, 688 (1949) (contrasting ‘damages’ and ‘specific relief’ and including in the latter category ‘the recovery of specific property or monies’).
“Moreover, while reiterating that Congress intended ‘suits for damages’ to be barred, both Reports go on to say that ‘the time [has] now come to eliminate the sovereign immunity defense in all equitable actions for specific relief against a Federal agency or officer acting in an official capacity.’ H. R. Rep. No. 1656, supra, at 9; S. Rep. No. 996, supra, at 8, U. S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1976, p. 6129 (emphasis added). That sweeping declaration strongly suggests that Congress intended to authorize equitable suits for specific monetary relief as we have defined that category. This inference is made virtually conclusive by the fact that both Reports then enumerate several kinds of cases in which the sovereign immunity defense had continued to pose an undesirable bar to consideration of the merits: that listing includes cases involving ‘administration of Federal grant-in-aid programs.’ H. R. Rep. No. 1656, supra, at 9; S. Rep. No. 996, supra, at 8, U. S. Code Cong. & Admin. News 1976, p. 6129. Specific relief in cases involving such programs will, of course, often result in the payment of money from the federal treasury. It seems to us, then, that the legislative history supports the proposition that Congress used the term ‘money damages’ in its ordinary signification of compensatory relief. We therefore hold that Maryland’s claims for specific relief, albeit monetary, are for ‘relief other than money damages’ and therefore within the waiver of sovereign immunity in section 702.” 246 U. S. App. D. C., at 186-187, 763 F. 2d, at 1447-1448.
Thus, the combined effect of the 1970 Hearing and the 1976 legislative materials is to demonstrate conclúsively that the exception for an action seeking “money damages” should not be broadened beyond the meaning of its plain language. The State’s suit to enforce § 1396b(a) of the Medicaid Act, which provides that the Secretary “shall pay” certain amounts for appropriate Medicaid services, is not a suit seeking money in compensation for the damage sustained by the failure of the Federal Government to pay as mandated; rather, it is a suit seeking to enforce the statutory mandate itself, which happens to be one for the payment of money. The fact that the mandate is one for the payment of money must not be confused with the question whether such payment, in these circumstances, is a payment of money as damages or as specific relief. Judge Bork’s explanation bears repeating:
“[The State] is seeking funds to which a statute allegedly.entitles it, rather than money in compensation for the losses, whatever they may be, that [the State] will suffer or has suffered by virtue of the withholding of those funds. If the program in this case involved in-kind benefits this wmuld be altogether evident. The fact that in the present case it is money rather than in-kind benefits that pass from the federal government to the states (and then, in the form of services, to program beneficiaries) cannot transform the nature of the relief sought — specific relief, not relief in the form of damages.” 246 U. S. App. D. C., at 185, 763 F. 2d, at 1446.
III
The Secretary’s novel submission that the entire action is barred by § 704 must be rejected because the doubtful and limited relief available in the Claims Court is not an adequate substitute for review in the District Court. A brief review of the principal purpose of § 704 buttresses this conclusion.
Section 704 was enacted in 1946 as § 10(c) of the APA. In pertinent part, it provided:
“Every agency action made reviewable by statute and every final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in any court shall be subject to judicial review.” 60 Stat. 243.
Earlier drafts of what became §704 provided that “only final actions, rules, or orders, or those for which there is no other adequate judicial remedy... shall be subject to such review,” or that “[e]very final agency action, or agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in any court, shall be subject to judicial review.” Professor Davis, a widely respected administrative law scholar, has written that § 704 “has been almost completely ignored in judicial opinions,” and has discussed §704’s bar to judicial review of agency action when there is an “adequate remedy” elsewhere as merely a restatement of the proposition that “[o]ne need not exhaust administrative remedies that are inadequate.”
However, although the primary thrust of §704 was to codify the exhaustion requirement, the provision as enacted also makes it clear that Congress did not intend the general grant of review in the APA to duplicate existing procedures for review of agency action. As Attorney General Clark put it the following year, §704 “does not provide additional judicial remedies in situations where the Congress has provided special and adequate review procedures. ” At the time the APA was enacted, a number of statutes creating administrative agencies defined the specific procedures to be followed in reviewing a particular agency’s action; for example, Federal Trade Commission and National Labor Relations Board orders were directly reviewable in the regional courts of appeals, and Interstate Commerce Commission orders were subject to review in specially constituted three-judge district courts. When Congress enacted the APA to provide a general authorization for review of agency action in the district courts, it did not intend that general grant of jurisdiction to duplicate the previously established special statutory procedures relating to specific agencies.
The exception that was intended to avoid such duplication should not be construed to defeat the central purpose of providing a broad spectrum of judicial review of agency action.
In our leading opinion explaining the significance of this provision, Justice Harlan wrote:
“The Administrative Procedure Act provides specifically not only for review of ‘[a]gency action made reviewable by statute’ but also for review of ‘final agency action for which there is no other adequate remedy in a court,’ 5 U. S. C. § 704. The legislative material elucidating that seminal act manifests a congressional intention that it cover a broad spectrum of administrative actions, and this Court has echoed that theme by noting that the Administrative Procedure Act’s ‘generous review provisions’ must be given a ‘hospitable’ interpretation.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 140-141 (1967) (footnote omitted).
A restrictive interpretation of § 704 would unquestionably, in the words of Justice Black, “run counter to § 10 and § 12 of the Administrative Procedure Act. Their purpose was to remove obstacles to judicial review of agency action under subsequently enacted statutes....” Shaughnessy v. Pedreiro, 349 U. S. 48, 51 (1955).
The Secretary argues that § 704 should be construed to bar review of the agency action in the District Court because monetary relief against the United States is available in the Claims Court under the Tucker Act. This restrictive — and unprecedented — interpretation of §704 should be rejected because the remedy available to the State in the Claims Court is plainly not the kind of “special and adequate review procedure” that will oust a district court of its normal jurisdiction under the APA. Moreover, the availability of any review of a disallowance decision in the Claims Court is doubtful.
The Claims Court does not have the general equitable powers of a district court to grant prospective relief. Indeed, we have stated categorically that “the Court of Claims has no power to grant equitable relief.” As the facts of these cases illustrate, the interaction between the State’s administration of its responsibilities under an approved Medicaid plan and the Secretary’s interpretation of his regulations may make it appropriate for judicial review to culminate in the entry of declaratory or injunctive relief that requires the Secretary to modify future practices.. We are not willing to assume, categorically, that a naked money judgment against the United States will always be an adequate substitute for prospective relief fashioned in the light of the rather complex ongoing relationship between the parties.
Moreover, in some cases the jurisdiction of the Claims Court to'entertain the action,'or perhaps even to enter a specific money judgment against the United States, would be at least doubtful. Regarding the former dilemma: If a State elects to retain the amount covered by a disallowance until completion of review by the Grant Appeals Board, see 42 U. S. C, § 1396b(d)(5); n. 3, supra, it will not be able to file suit in the Claims Court until after the disallowance is recouped from a future quarterly payment. It is no answer to suggest that a State will not be harmed as long as it retains the money, because its interest in planning future programs for groups such as the mentally retarded who must be trained in ICF’s may be more pressing than the monetary amount in dispute. Such planning may make it important to seek judicial review — perhaps in the form of a motion for a preliminary-injunction — as promptly as possible after the agency action becomes final. A district court has jurisdiction both to grant such relief and to do so while the funds are still on the State’s side of the ledger (assuming administrative remedies have been exhausted); the Claims Court can neither grant equitable relief, supra, at 905, nor act in any fashion so long as the Federal Government has not yet offset the disallowed amount from a future payment. See § 1396b(d)(5); n. 3, supra. Regarding the latter problem: Given the fact that the quarterly payments of federal money are actually advances against expenses that have not yet been incurred by the State, it is arguable that a dispute concerning the status of the open account is not one in which the State can claim an entitlement to a specific sum of money that the Federal Government owes to it.
Further, the nature of the controversies that give rise to disallowance decisions typically involve state governmental activities that a district court would be in a better position to understand and evaluate than a single tribunal headquartered in Washington. We have a settled and firm policy of deferring to regional courts of appeals in matters that involve the construction of state law. That policy applies with special force in this context because neither the Claims Court nor the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has any special expertise in considering the state-law aspects of the controversies that give rise to disallowances under grant-in-aid programs. It would be nothing less than remarkable to conclude that Congress intended judicial review of these complex questions of federal-state interaction to be reviewed in a specialized forum such as the Court of Claims. More specifically, it is anomalous to assume that Congress would channel the review of compliance decisions to the regional courts of appeals, see 42 U. S. C. § 1316(a)(3); supra, at 885, and yet intend that the same type of questions arising in the disallowance context should be resolved by the Claims Court or the Federal Circuit.
IV
We agree with the position advanced by the State in its cross-petition — that the judgments of the District Court should have been affirmed in their entirety — for two independent reasons. First, neither of the District Court’s orders in these cases was a “money judgment,” as the Court of Appeals held. The first order (followed in the second, see Part I, supra) simply “reversed” the “decision of the Department Grant Appeals Board of the United States Department of Health and Human Services in Decision No. 438 (May 31, 1983).” It is true that it describes Decision No. 438 as one that had disallowed reimbursement of $6,414,964 to the State, but it did not order that amount to be paid, and it did not purport to be based on a finding that the Federal Government owed Massachusetts that amount, or indeed, any amount of money. Granted, the judgment tells the United States that it may not disallow the reimbursement on the grounds given, and thus it is likely that the Government will abide by this declaration and reimburse Massachusetts the requested sum. But to the extent that the District Court’s judgment engenders this result, this outcome is a mere byproduct of that court’s primary function of reviewing the Secretary’s interpretation of federal law.
Second, even if the District Court’s orders are construed in part as orders for the payment of money by the Federal Government to the State, such payments are not “money damages,” see Part II, supra, and the orders are not excepted from §702’s grant of power by §704, see Part III, supra. That is, since the orders are for specific relief (they undo the Secretary’s refusal to reimburse the State) rather than for money damages (they do not provide relief that substitutes for that which ought to have been done) they are within the District Court’s jurisdiction under § 702’s waiver of sovereign immunity. See Part II, 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: | 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.
Petitioner brought this action against the United States to secure the proceeds of a National Service Life Insurance Policy taken out by Evelyn Haizlip, a member of the Women’s Army Corps. Before insured’s death in 1945, petitioner, described by insured as her “brother,” had been designated as beneficiary. The husband of the insured was interpleaded as a conflicting claimant. If petitioner, who was insured’s brother by virtue of an adoption decree, is not within the permissible class of beneficiaries under § 602 (g) of the National Service Life Insurance Act of 1940, the husband is entitled to the proceeds in this case.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court which had held that an adopted brother was not a permissible beneficiary under § 602 (g). 185 F. 2d 134 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1950). See also the prior opinion of that court in this proceeding, 167 F. 2d 774 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1948). The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had reached a directly contrary conclusion under similar circumstances. Carpenter v. United States, 168 F. 2d 369 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1948). Our grant of certiorari was limited to the question whether a brother by adoption is within the permissible class of beneficiaries under § 602 (g) of the National Service Life Insurance Act of 1940. 340 U. S. 929 (1951).
We have examined the Act, its legislative history and related statutory provisions and have considered the various inferences drawn from the legislative materials by counsel. The short of the matter is that Congress has not expressed itself in regard to the question before us. In resolving the conflict of decisions, we must determine whether the word “brother,” as used in this federal statute, restricts the policyholder’s choice of beneficiaries to brothers of the blood. We are persuaded by the policy against drawing such a distinction in the family relationship. Contemporaneous legal treatment of adopted children as though born into the family is a manifestation of that policy. See Carpenter v. United States, supra; McDonald v. United States, 91 F. Supp. 163 (D. C. D. Mass. 1950). Consequently, we hold that a brother by adoption is a permissible beneficiary under § 602 (g) of the National Service Life Insurance Act of 1940.
Reversed.
“The insurance shall be payable only to a widow, widower, child . . . , parent, brother or sister of the insured. The insured shall have the right to designate the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the insurance, but only within the classes herein provided, . . . .” 54 Stat. 1008,1010, as amended, 38 U. S. C. § 802 (g).
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.
Petition for rehearing denied.
Former decision, 559 U.S. 43, 130 S. Ct. 1171, 175 L. Ed. 2d 1003, 2010 U.S. LEXIS 1037.
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 Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.
In 1969 the Interstate Commerce Commission promulgated two “car service rules” that would have the general effect of requiring that freight cars, after being unloaded, be returned in the direction of the lines of the road owning the cars. Several railroads and shippers instituted two separate suits under 28 U. S. C. §§ 2321-2325 to enjoin enforcement of these rules. In Florida East Coast R. Co. v. United States, 327 F. Supp. 1076 (MD Fla. 1971), the action of the Commission was sustained by a three-judge court, but in the case now before us a similar court for the Western District of Pennsylvania held the Commission’s order invalid. 325 F. Supp. 352 (WD Pa. 1971). We noted probable jurisdiction, 404 U. S. 937, and for the reasons hereinafter stated we conclude that the Commission’s action here challenged was within the scope of the authority conferred upon it by Congress and conformed to procedural requirements.
The country’s railroads long ago abandoned the custom of shifting freight between the cars of connecting roads, and adopted the practice of shipping the same loaded car over connecting lines to its ultimate destination. The freight cars of the Nation thus became in essence a single common pool, used by all roads. This practice necessarily required some arrangements for eventual return of a freight car to the lines of the road which owned it, and in 1902 the railroads through their trade association dealt with this and related problems in a code of car-service rules with which the roads agreed among themselves to comply. The effect of the Commission’s order now under review is to promulgate two of these rules as the Commission’s own, with the result that sanctions attach to their violation by the railroads.
Because of critical freight-car shortages experienced during World War I, Congress enacted the Esch Car Service Act of 1917, which empowered the Commission to establish reasonable rules and practices with respect to car service by railroads. 40 Stat. 101, 49 U. S. C. §1(14) (a). The pertinent language of that Act provides:
“The Commission may . . . establish reasonable rules, regulations, and practices with respect to car service by common carriers by railroad subject to this chapter . . .
No party to this proceeding has questioned that the rules promulgated by the Commission are “rules, regulations, and practices with respect to car service,” and therefore the issue before us is whether these rules are “reasonable” as that term is used in the Esch Act. The court below concluded, and the appellees here contend, that for a number of reasons the rules in question do not meet the statutory requirement of reasonableness. Appellees also contend that the findings of the Corn-mission are insufficient under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 551 et seg.
The record of proceedings before the Commission establishes that the Commission has been increasingly concerned with recurring shortages of freight cars available to serve the Nation’s shippers. It found that shortages of varying duration and severity occur both as an annual phenomenon at peak loading periods and also during times of national emergency. The result of these shortages has been that roads were unable to promptly supply freight cars to shippers who had need of them.
Underlying these chronic shortages of available freight cars, the Commission found, was an inadequate supply of freight cars owned by the Nation’s railroads. The Commission concluded that one of the principal factors causing this inadequate supply of freight cars was the operation of the national car-pool system. In practice this system resulted in freight cars being on lines other than those of the owning road for long periods of time, since the rules providing for the return of unloaded freight cars in the direction of the lines of the owning road were observed more often than not in the breach. Since the owning road was deprived of the use of its own freight cars for extended periods of time, the Commission found, there was very little incentive for it to acquire new freight cars. In addition, since a road which owned a supply of freight cars inadequate to serve its own on-line shippers could generally, by hook or by crook, arrange to utilize cars owned by other roads, the national car-pool system significantly reduced the normal incentive for a railroad to acquire sufficient equipment to serve its customers. The rules promulgated by the Commission are intended to make those railroads whose undersupply of freight cars contributes to the national shortage more directly feel the pinch resulting from the shortage that they have helped to cause. By thus requiring each road to face up to any inadequacies in its ownership of freight cars, the rules are intended in the long run to correct the nationwide short supply of freight cars that the Commission has found to exist.
Central to the justification for the Commission's promulgation of these rules is its finding that there was a nationwide shortage of freight car ownership. The court below assumed the correctness of that finding, and we conclude that it was supported by substantial evidence.
Shortly after the Second World War, the Commission conducted an investigation into the adequacy of freight car supply and utilization by the Nation's railroads. The Commission in that proceeding concluded that there was “an inadequacy in freight car ownership by rail carriers as a group.” Recognizing that this inadequacy was caused at least in part by the inability of the railroads to acquire new equipment, first during an era of wartime demand and then during an era of post-war boom, the Commission at that time imposed no obligation on the railroads except to require them to file with it their rules and regulations with respect to car service.
In 1963 the Commission began this investigation into the adequacy of car ownership, distribution, and utilization. At the conclusion of the investigatory phase of the proceeding in 1964, the Commission determined that there was a shortage of freight cars in general service. 323 I. C. C. 48 (1964). Formal notification of proposed rulemaking was then issued, and a questionnaire was submitted to the various railroads for the purpose of compiling data on car ownership and use. After these data were gathered, railroads, shippers, and other interested parties were permitted to file verified statements providing further factual material and to adduce legal arguments. The Commission, through its Bureau of Operations, presented to the Hearing Examiner tabular collations of the freight car ownership and use data, and suggested a formula by which a railroad might compute the sufficiency of its freight car ownership. The Bureau also proposed that the entire Code of Car Service Rules adopted by the Association of American Railroads be promulgated by the Commission for mandatory observance.
Many railroads and shippers opposed mandatory enforcement of the rules. Some roads and shippers appeared in favor of at least some mandatory enforcement of the rules, arguing that unless some compulsion were used in enforcing them, cars purchased by a railroad for use by its shippers would continue to be detained for inordinately long periods of time by other roads.
After 50 days of hearings, the Trial Examiner issued his report, recommending against mandatory enforcement of the car-service rules. Although the Commission, prior to referring the matter to him, had previously made a definitive finding that a shortage of freight cars existed, the Examiner’s report stated that there was no competent evidence in the record developed before him upon which such a determination could be made. The Examiner assigned several reasons for recommending against mandatory enforcement of the rules.
The Commission issued a comprehensive opinion disagreeing with the trial examiner in many respects, and ordering that two of the car-service rules be promulgated as rules of the Commission with sanctions attaching to noncompliance. Finding that “[t]he continuing relocation of cars on owner’s lines is of major importance to the maintenance of an adequate car supply,” the Commission concluded that the inconveniences feared by the shippers were outweighed by the long-term benefit that would accrue from the mandatory enforcement of the two car-service rules.
After its first order adopting the two rules was issued, the Commission considered claims that there was need for some procedure for exceptions to the mandatory enforcement of the rules. A supplemental order that established another rule that permitted the railroads to seek exception from the Commission’s Bureau of Operations, in order to alleviate inequities and hardships.
The court below held that the rules were not “reasonable,” as that term is used in the Esch Act, for three reasons. First, although there was a general finding of a nationwide freight car shortage, the court said that a specific shortage on owner lines should have been found in order to justify the promulgation of these rules. Second, it said there should have been a finding as to the financial effects upon the railroads and shippers who would be affected by the rules. Finally, it supported its conclusion that the rules were not “reasonable” by the fact that even though violation of the rules could be enforced by monetary penalties, the Commission nonetheless conceded that obtaining complete compliance with them would be impossible.
The standard of judicial review for actions of the Interstate Commerce Commission in general, Western Chemical Co. v. United States, 271 U. S. 268 (1926), and for actions taken by the Commission under the authority of the Esch Act in particular, Assigned Car Cases, 274 U. S. 564 (1927), is well established by prior decisions of this Court. We do not weigh the evidence introduced before the Commission; we do not inquire into the wisdom of the regulations that the Commission promulgates, and we inquire into the soundness of the reasoning by which the Commission reaches its conclusions only to ascertain that the latter are rationally supported. In judicially reviewing these particular rules promulgated by the Commission, we must be alert to the differing standard governing review of the Commission’s exercise of its rulemaking authority, on the one hand, and that governing its adjudicatory function, on the other:
“In the cases cited, the Commission was determining the relative rights of the several carriers in a joint rate. It was making a partition; and it performed a function quasi-judicial in its nature. In the case at bar, the function exercised by the Commission is wholly legislative. Its authority to legislate is limited to establishing a reasonable rule. But in establishing a rule of general application, it is not a condition of its validity that there be adduced evidence of its appropriateness in respect to every railroad to which it will be applicable. In this connection, the Commission, like other legislators, may reason from the particular to the general.” Assigned Car Cases, supra, at 583.
The finding of the Commission as to a nationwide shortage of freight cars was based primarily on data submitted by the railroads themselves covering the years 1955 through 1964. Over this 10-year period total freight car ownership of Class I railroads dropped 12.4%, and aggregate carrying capacity of those railroads dropped 5%. Over the same period revenue tons orig-mated dropped 2.9%. The decline in ownership of plain box cars, as opposed to more sophisticated types of cars, was even more dramatic; ownership of cars over the 10-year period in question dropped 22.1%, while aggregate carrying capacity of such cars dropped 18.9%. Testimony of witnesses for the National Industrial Traffic League, the Western Wood Products Association, the American Plywood Association, and the Vulcan Materials Association also supported the finding of a car shortage. These statistics, taken together with the Commission’s post-war determination of a car shortage, portray a gradually worsening ratio of carrying capacity to revenue tons originated.
The Commission further found that freight car shortages, in the sense that a particular road was unable to promptly supply freight cars to particular shippers who needed them, have occurred chronically, both during peak loading seasons each year and during times of national emergency. It is quite true, as appellees suggest, that inability of the roads to supply cars to shippers at particular times is not conclusive evidence that there is a national shortage of freight car ownership. Conceivably, freight car ownership could be adequate, yet poor utilization of the supply could result in shortages. Nonetheless, the Commission may fairly rely on these chronic shortages in availability of freight cars as one factor upon which to base its conclusion that there was an overall shortage of ownership of freight cars.
The Commission also found that a surprisingly low percentage of freight cars was actually on the tracks of the roads owning the cars at any given time, and that this percentage had been decreasing during the period in question. In March 1966, less than 30% of the railroads’ plain box cars were on the line of their owner, and during the preceding year that percentage remained mostly in the low thirties. The Commission summarized the factual situation it found in these words:
“From the evidence adduced and the data collected, it is obvious thdt an adequate freight car supply is as much a problem today as it was during the period considered in our last proceeding in 1947. Car service which involves a shortage of approximately one out of every ten cars ordered or even one out of every fifteen cars ordered demands that every available means be marshalled to eliminate such deficiencies.” 335 I. C. C., at 285.
One of the means marshaled by the Commission to eliminate such deficiencies was the promulgation of the two rules under attack here. The thrust of these rules is to require that freight cars after unloading be dispatched in the direction of the lines of the owning road.
Thus, the Commission concluded after investigation that the railroads were frequently unable to supply shippers with freight cars. It reasoned from this fact, and from statistics showing a significantly more rapid decline in aggregate carrying capacity than in revenue tons originated, that an underlying and important cause of the unavailability of box cars to shippers was that the Nation’s railroads simply did not jointly own a sufficient number of freight cars to adequately serve shippers of goods over their lines. Because of the existence of the national pool of freight cars, whereby roads may service on-line shippers with foreign cars, it was difficult, if not impossible, to relate inadequate ownership statistically to any particular road or roads. The Commission therefore chose to make mandatory two of the car-service rules that would have the effect of aligning more closely than at present the ownership of freight cars on the part of the road with the availability of those freight cars to the owning road for use of its on-line shippers. The result of these rules, over the long term, the Commission reasoned, would be to bring home to those roads which themselves had an inadequate supply of cars to serve their on-line shippers that fact, and also without doubt to supply incentive to such roads to augment their supply of freight cars in order to adequately serve their on-line shippers. The national supply of freight cars would thereby be augmented, and the railroads as a result would be better able to supply the needs of shippers.
Appellees’ fundamental substantive contention is that the short-term consequences of the enforcement of these rules will so seriously disrupt established industry practices as to outweigh any possible long-term benefits in service that might accrue from them, and that therefore the rules are not “reasonable” as that term is used in the Esch Act. While, of course, conceding that the railroads themselves originally promulgated the rules for voluntary compliance, appellees argue that because the rules have been observed largely in the breach, usages and practices have grown up that permit far more efficient utilization of the existing fleet of freight cars than would be permitted if the two rules in question were enforced by the Commission. Appellees state that in reliance on the existence of a national pool of freight cars, and on the consequent availability to shippers of cars not owned by the line originating the shipment, manufacturing plants have been located and enlarged. They claim that enforcement of the rules now would seriously hamper the movement of freight traffic from these and other shipping points.
It may be conceded that the immediate effect of the Commission's order will be to disrupt some established practices with respect to the handling and routing of freight cars, and on occasion to cause serious inconvenience to shippers and railroads alike. If the Commission were thrusting these regulations upon an admittedly smoothly functioning transportation industry, well supplied with necessary rolling stock and adequately serving all shippers, the rationality of its action might well be open to question.
But such is not the case. The Commission’s finding that there are recurring periods of significant length when there is not an adequate freight car supply to service shippers is supported by substantial evidence. While the flexible system of routing freight cars presently in existence may well have short-term advantages both for some shippers and some roads, the Commission could quite reasonably conclude that it has long-term drawbacks as well. The otherwise adverse effect on a road’s ability to serve shippers that would result from its owning too few cars is cushioned; the beneficial effect on a road’s ability to serve shippers that would result from its owning a sufficient supply of cars is dissipated. The Commission undoubtedly felt that rules designed only to most efficiently utilize the existing inadequate fleet of freight cars would have little or no effect on the nationwide shortage of such cars. Indeed, the appellees stress the concession by the Commission that these rules “are not designed to improve the utilization of freight cars, except insofar as return loading is compatible with the primary objective of increasing availability of cars to the owner.” 335 I. C. C., at 294.
But only if we were to hold that Congress, in enacting the Esch Car Service Act, intended that the only-criterion that the Commission might consider in establishing “reasonable rules, regulations, and practices with respect to car service” was the optimum utilization of an existing fleet of freight cars, however numerically inadequate that fleet might be, could this argument be sustained. Neither the language that Congress used nor the legislative history of the Act supports such a narrow reading of its grant of authority to the Commission. On the record before it, the Commission was justified in deciding that the railroads and the shippers were afflicted with an economic illness that might have to get worse before it got better. Existing practices respecting car service tended to destroy any incentive on the part of railroads to acquire new cars, and the resulting failure to acquire new equipment contributed to an overall nationwide shortage of freight cars that prevented the railroad industry from adequately serving shippers. Car-service rules that would tend to restore incentive to the various roads to augment their supply of freight cars, even at the temporary expense of optimum utilization of the existing fleet of freight cars, conform under these circumstances to the statutory requirement of reasonableness.
Appellees support their claim that the Commission’s promulgation of these rules is not “reasonable” under the Esch Act on two grounds not directly related to the rules’ claimed adverse effect on the ability of the roads to serve shippers. They attack the absence of a Commission finding as to the financial ability of roads inadequately supplied with freight cars to purchase new ones, and they cite the conceded impossibility of obtaining complete compliance with the rules as additional evidence of their unreasonableness.
The Commission’s order does not require any road to purchase any freight cars. It abridges to some extent the existing practice among railroads of treating the freight cars that they own as a pool, and for that reason may ultimately cause roads that do not have an adequate supply of freight cars to serve on-line shippers to be less able to serve such shippers than they are now. If, as a result of this fact, such roads are placed under economic and competitive pressure to acquire additional freight cars, there is certainly no principle of law we know of that would require the Commission to permit them to avoid this economic pressure by continuing to borrow freight cars acquired and owned by other lines.
The Commission, acceding to the arguments of shippers and railroads on rehearing, agreed that mandatory total compliance with the rules promulgated would be impossible in view of the tremendous number of units involved, and, accordingly a procedure by which exceptions might be applied for was established. How the provision for exceptions will be administered in practice is a matter about which we could only speculate at present. It is well established that an agency’s authority to proceed in a complex area such as car-service regulation by means of rules of general application entails a concomitant authority to provide exemption procedures in order to allow for special circumstances. Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 784-786 (1968). What bearing any of these factors might have on an action under the provisions of 49 U. S. C. § 1 (17) for the collection of penalties for a violation of the rules in question is a question best decided in such a proceeding. The fact that violation of a rule promulgated under the E'sch Car Service Act may be the basis for a proceeding to collect a penalty does not either expand or contract the statutory definition of “reasonable” found in that Act.
What we have said thus far is enough to indicate our view that there is sufficient relationship between the Commission’s conclusions and the factual bases in the record upon which it relied to substantively support this exercise of its authority under the Esch Act. Appellees press on us an additional claim that the Commission failed to comply with the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 551 et seq., citing Burlington Truck Lines v. United States, 371 U. S. 156 (1962), and Secretary of Agriculture v. United States, 347 U. S. 645 (1954). Burlington Truck Lines is clearly inapposite, however, since in that case the Court was dealing with adjudication, not rulemaking. In criticizing the Commission’s action there, the Court said that “the Administrative Procedure Act will not permit us to accept such adjudicatory practice,” 371 U. S., at 167. In Secretary of Agriculture v. United States, supra, the Court reviewed the Commission’s action, not under the Administrative Procedure Act, but on the basis of its prior cases establishing the standard for judicial review of agency action. Commenting that “[i]n dealing with technical and complex matters like these, the Commission must necessarily have wide discretion in formulating appropriate solutions,” the Court went on to conclude that the Commission “has not adequately explained its departure from prior norms and has not sufficiently spelled out the legal basis of its decision.” 347 U. S., at 652-653. For the reasons previously stated, we find no such infirmities here.
This Court has held that the Administrative Procedure Act applies to proceedings before the Interstate Commerce Commission. Minneapolis & St. Louis R. Co. v. United States, 361 U. S. 173, 192 (1959). Appellees claim that the Commission’s procedure here departed from the provisions of 5 U. S. C. §§ 556 and 557 of the Act. Those sections, however, govern a rule-making proceeding only when 5 U. S. C. § 553 so requires. The latter section, dealing generally with rulemaking, makes applicable the provisions of §§ 556 and 557 only “[w]hen rules are required by statute to be made on the record after opportunity for an agency hearing . . . The Esch Act, authorizing the Commission “after hearing, on a complaint or upon its own initiative without complaint, [to] establish reasonable rules, regulations, and practices with respect to car service . . . ,” 49 U. S. C. §1 (14) (a), does not require that such rules “be made on the record.” 5 U. S. C. § 553. That distinction is determinative for this case. “A good deal of significance lies in the fact that some statutes do expressly require determinations on the record.” 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 13.08, p. 225 (1958). Sections 556 and 557 need be applied “only where the agency statute, in addition to providing a hearing, prescribes explicitly that it be ‘on the record.’ ” Siegel v. Atomic Energy Comm’n, 130 U. S. App. D. C. 307, 314, 400 F. 2d 778, 785 (1968); Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. v. Dillon, 120 U. S. App. D. C. 112, 115 n. 9, 344 F. 2d 497, 500 n. 9 (1965). Cf. First National Bank v. First Federal Savings & Loan Assn., 96 U. S. App. D. C. 194, 225 F. 2d 33 (1955). We do not suggest that only the precise words “on the record” in the applicable statute will suffice to make §§ 556 and 557 applicable to rule-making proceedings, but we do hold that the language of the Esch Car Service Act is insufficient to invoke these sections.
Because the proceedings under review were an exercise of legislative rulemaking power rather than adjudicatory hearings as in Wong Yang Sung v. McGrath, 339 U. S. 33 (1950), and Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 301 U. S. 292 (1937), and because 49 U. S. C. §1 (14) (a) does not require a determination “on the record,” the provisions of 5 U. S. C. §§ 556 and 557 were inapplicable.
This proceeding, therefore, was governed by the provisions of 5 U. S. C. § 553 of the Administrative Procedure Act, requiring basically that notice of proposed rulemaking shall be published in the Federal Register, that after notice the agency give interested persons an opportunity to participate in the rulemaking through appropriate submissions, and that after consideration of the record so made the agency shall incorporate in the rules adopted a concise general statement of their basis and purpose. The “Findings” and “Conclusions” embodied in the Commission’s report fully comply with these requirements, and nothing more was required by the Administrative Procedure Act.
We conclude that the Commission’s action in promulgating these rules was substantively authorized by the Esch Act and procedurally acceptable under the Administrative Procedure Act. The judgment of the District Court must therefore be
Reversed.
“Rule 1. Foreign cars, empty at a junction with the home road, must be:
“(a) Loaded at that junction to or via home rails, or,
“(b) Delivered empty at that junction to home road, except in instances where Rule 6 has been invoked, or unless otherwise agreed by roads involved.
“Rule 2. Foreign empty cars other than those covered in Rule 1 shall be:
“(a) Loaded to or via owner’s rails.
“(b) Loaded to a destination closer to owner’s rails than is the loading station or delivered empty to a short line or switch loading road for such loading. (Car Selection Chart is designed to aid in so selecting cars for loading.)
“(c) Delivered empty to the home road at any junction subject to Rule 6.
“(d) Delivered empty to the road from which originally received under load, at the junction where received, Except that when handled in road haul service, cars of direct connection ownership may not be delivered empty to a road which does not have a direct connection with the car owner.
“(e) Returned empty to the delivering road when handled only in switching service.” Jurisdictional Statement 64.
335 I. C. C. 264, 293 (1969).
“Rule 19 — Exceptions
“Exceptions to the rules (prescribed by the Interstate Commerce Commission for mandatory observance) for the purpose of further improving car supply and utilization, increasing availability of cars to their owners, improving the efficiency of railroad operations, or alleviating inequities or hardships, may be authorized by the Director or Assistant Director of the Bureau of Operations, Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D. C.” Jurisdictional Statement 172.
Three separate briefs have been filed here in support of appellees, each of which understandably presents the case for affirmance in slightly differing form, and no one of which completely adopts the reasoning of the District Court. We have not found it necessary in deciding the case to deal with each separate argument in support of affirmance, since we believe all of them to be generally subsumed under those claims with which we deal.
49 U. S. C. § 1 (14) (a) likewise requires the Commission to conduct a hearing before promulgating rules.
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Upon the petition of Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 102, the National Labor Relations Board ordered that a representation election be held among the pipefitters employed by respondent, Natural Gas Utility District of Hawkins County, Tennessee, 167 N. L. R. B. 691 (1967). In the representation proceeding, respondent objected to the Board’s jurisdiction on the sole ground that as a “political subdivision” of Tennessee, it was not an “employer” subject to Board jurisdiction under § 2 (2) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 137, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (2). When the Union won the election and was certified by the Board as bargaining representative of the pipefitters, respondent refused to comply with the Board’s certification and recognize and bargain with the Union. An unfair labor practice proceeding resulted and the Board entered a cease-and-desist order against respondent on findings that respondent was in violation of §§ 8 (a)(1) and 8(a)(5) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§158 (a)(1) and 158(a)(5). 170 N. L. R. B. 1409 (1968). Respondent continued its noncompliance and the Board sought enforcement of the order in the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Enforcement was refused, the court holding that respondent was a “political subdivision,” as contended. 427 F. 2d 312 (1970). We granted certiorari, 400 U. S. 990 (1971). We affirm.
The respondent was organized under Tennessee’s Utility District Law of 1937, Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 6-2601 to 6-2627 (1955). In First Suburban Water Utility District v. McCanless, 177 Tenn. 128, 146 S. W. 2d 948 (1941), the Tennessee Supreme Court held that a utility district organized under this Act was an operation for a state governmental- or public purpose. The Court of Appeals held that this decision “was of controlling importance on the question whether the District was a political subdivision of the state” within § 2 (2) and “was binding on the Board.” 427 F. 2d, at 315. The Board, on the other hand, had held that “while such State law declarations and interpretations are given careful consideration . . . , they are not necessarily controlling.” 167 N. L. R. B., at 691. We disagree with the Court of Appeals and agree with the Board. Federal, rather than state, law governs the determination, under §2 (2), whether an entity created under state law is a “political subdivision” of the State and therefore not an “employer” subject to the Act.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dealt with this question in NLRB v. Randolph Electric Membership Corp., 343 F. 2d 60 (1965), where the Board had determined that Randolph Electric was not a “political subdivision” within § 2 (2). We adopt as correct law what was said at 62-63 of the opinion in that case:
“There are, of course, instances in which the application of certain federal statutes may depend on state law. . . .
“But this is controlled by the will of Congress. In the absence of a plain indication to the contrary, however, it is to be assumed when Congress enacts a statute that it does not intend to make its application dependent on state law. Jerome v. United States, 318 U. S. 101, 104 .. . (1943).
“The argument of the electric corporations fails to persuade us that Congress intended the result for which they contend. Furthermore, it ignores the teachings of the Supreme Court as to the congressional purpose in enacting the national labor laws. In National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 123 . . . (1944), the Court dealt with the meaning of the term 'employee' as used in the Wagner Act, saying:
“ ‘Both the terms and the purposes of the statute, as well as the legislative history, show that Congress had in mind no . . . patchwork plan for securing freedom of employees’ organization and of collective bargaining. The Wagner Act is federal legislation, administered by a national agency, intended to solve a national problem on a national scale. . . . Nothing in the statute’s background, history, terms or purposes indicates its scope is to be limited by . . . varying local conceptions, either statutory or judicial, or that it is to be administered in accordance with whatever different standards the respective states may see fit to adopt for the disposition of unrelated, local problems.’
“Thus, it is clear that state law is not controlling and that it is to the actual operations and characteristics of [respondents] that we must look in deciding whether there is sufficient support for the Board’s conclusion that they are not 'political subdivisions’ within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act.”
We turn then to identification of the governing federal law. The term “political subdivision” is not defined in the Act and the Act’s legislative history does not disclose that Congress explicitly considered its meaning. The legislative history does reveal, however, that Congress enacted the §' 2 (2) exemption to except from Board cognizance the labor relations of federal, state, and municipal governments, since governmental employees did not usually enjoy the right to strike. In the light of that purpose, the Board, according to its Brief, p. 11, “has limited the exemption for political subdivisions to entities that are either (1) created directly by the state, so as to constitute departments or administrative arms of the government, or (2) administered by individuals who are responsible to public officials or to the general electorate.”
The Board’s construction of the broad statutory term is, of course, entitled to great respect. Randolph Electric, supra, at 62. This case does not however require that we decide whether “the actual operations and characteristics” of an entity must necessarily feature one or the other of the Board’s limitations to qualify an entity for the exemption, for we think that it is plain on the face of the Tennessee statute that the Board erred in its reading of it in light of the Board’s own test. The Board found that “the Employer in this case is neither created directly by the State, nor administered by State-appointed or elected officials.” 167 N. L. R. B., at 691-692 (footnotes omitted). But the Board test is not whether the entity is administered by “State-appointed or elected officials.” Rather, alternative (2) of the test is whether the entity is “administered by individuals who are responsible to public officials or to the general electorate” (emphasis added), and the Tennessee statute makes crystal clear that respondent is administered by a Board of Commissioners appointed by an elected county judge, and subject to removal proceedings at the instance of the Governor, the county prosecutor, or private citizens. Therefore, in the light of other “actual operations and characteristics” under that administration, the Board’s holding that respondent “exists as an essentially private venture, with insufficient identity with or relationship to the State of Tennessee,” 167 N. L. R. B., at 691, has no “warrant in the record” and no “reasonable basis in law.” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 131 (1944).
Respondent is one of nearly 270 utility districts established under the Utility District Law of 1937. Under that statute, Tennessee residents may create districts to provide a wide range of public services such as the furnishing of water, sewers, sewage disposal, police protection, fire protection, garbage collection, street lighting, parks, and recreational facilities as well as the distribution of natural gas. Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2608 (Supp. 1970). Acting under the statute, 38 owners of real property submitted in 1957 a petition to the county court of Hawkins County requesting the incorporation of a utility district to distribute natural gas within a specified portion of the county. The county judge, after holding a required public hearing and making required findings that the “public convenience and necessity requires the creation of the district,” and that “the creation of the district is economically sound and desirable,” Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2604 (Supp. 1970), entered an order establishing the District. The judge’s order and findings were appealable to Tennessee’s appellate courts by any party “having an interest in the subject-matter.” Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2606 (1955).
To carry out its functions, the District is granted not only all the powers of a private corporation, Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2610 (1955), but also “all the powers necessary and requisite for the accomplishment of the purpose for which such district is created, capable of being delegated by the legislature.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2612 (1955). This delegation includes the power of eminent domain, which the District may exercise even against other governmental entities. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2611 (1955). The District is operated on a nonprofit basis, and is declared by the statute to be “a 'municipality’ or public corporation in perpetuity under its corporate name and the same shall in that name be a body politic and corporate with power of perpetual succession, but without any power to levy or collect taxes.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2607 (Supp. 1970). The property and revenue of the District are exempted from all state, county, and municipal taxes, and the District’s bonds are similarly exempt from such taxation, except for inheritance, transfer, and estate taxes. Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2626 (1955).
The District’s records are “public records” and as such open for inspection. Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2615 (Supp. 1970). The District is required to publish its annual statement in a newspaper of general circulation, showing its financial condition, its earnings, and its method of setting rates. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2617 (Supp. 1970). The statute requires the District’s commissioners to hear any protest to its rates filed within 30 days of publication of the annual statement at a public hearing, and to make and to publish written findings as to the reasonableness of the rates. Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2618 (1955). The commissioners’ determination may be challenged in the county court, under procedures prescribed by the statute. Ibid.
The District’s commissioners are initially appointed, from among persons nominated in the petition, by the county judge, who is an elected public official. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2604 (Supp. 1970). The commissioners serve four-year terms and, contrary to the Board’s finding that the State reserves no “power to remove or otherwise discipline those responsible for the Employer’s operations,” 167 N. L. R. B., at 692, are subject to removal under Tennessee’s General Ouster Law, which provides procedures for removing public officials from office for misfeasance or nonfeasance. Tenn. Code Ann. § 8-2701 et seq. (1955); First Suburban Water Utility District v. McCanless, 177 Tenn., at 138, 146 S. W. 2d, at 952. Proceedings under the law may be initiated by the Governor, the state attorney general, the county prosecutor, or ten citizens. Tenn. Code Ann. §§ 8-2708, 8-2709, 8-2710 (1955). When a vacancy occurs, the county judge appoints a new commissioner if the remaining two commissioners cannot agree upon a replacement. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2614 (Supp. 1970). In large counties, all vacancies are filled by popular election. Ibid. The commissioners are generally empowered to conduct the District’s business. They have the power to subpoena witnesses and to administer oaths in investigating District affairs, Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2616 (5) (1955), and they serve for only nominal compensation. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2615 (Supp. 1970). Plainly, commissioners who are beholden to an elected public official for their appointment, and are subject to removal procedures applicable to all public officials, qualify as “individuals who are responsible to public officials or to the general electorate” within the Board’s test.
In such circumstances, the Board itself has recognized that authority to exercise the power of eminent domain weighs in favor of finding an entity to be a political subdivision. New Jersey Turnpike Authority, 33 L. R. R. M. 1528 (1954). We have noted that respondent’s power of eminent domain may be exercised even against other governmental units. And the District is further given an extremely broad grant of “all the powers necessary and requisite for the accomplishment of the purpose for which such district is created, capable of being delegated by the legislature.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 6-2612 (1955). The District’s “public records” requirement and the automatic right to a public hearing and written “decision” by the commissioners accorded to all users betoken a state, rather than a private, instrumentality. The commissioners’ power of subpoena and their nominal compensation further suggest the public character of the District.
Moreover, a conclusion that the District is a political subdivision finds support in the treatment of the District under other federal laws. Income from its bonds is exempt from federal income tax, as income from an obligation of a “political subdivision” under 26 U. S. C. § 103. Social Security benefits for the District’s employees are provided through voluntary rather than mandatory coverage since the District is considered a political subdivision under the Social Security Act. 42 U. S. C. § 418.
Respondent is therefore an entity “administered by individuals [the commissioners] who are responsible to public officials [an elected county judge]” and this together with the other factors mentioned satisfies us that its relationship to the State is such that respondent is a “political subdivision” within the meaning of § 2 (2) of the Act. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals’ judgment denying enforcement of the Board’s order is
Affirmed.
Section 2 (2), 29 U. S. C. § 152 (2), provides:
“The term ‘employer’ includes any person acting as an agent of an employer, directly or indirectly, but shall not include the United States or any wholly owned Government corporation, or any Federal Reserve Bank, or any State or political subdivision thereof, or any corporation or association operating a hospital, if no part of the net earnings inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, or any person subject to the Railway Labor Act, as amended from time to time, or any labor organization (other than when acting as an employer), or anyone acting in the capacity of officer or agent of such labor organization.”
Respondent agrees in its brief in this Court, p. 13, that state law is not controlling.
See 78 Cong. Rec. 10351 et seq.; Hearings on Labor Disputes Act before the House Committee on Labor, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 179; 93 Cong. Rec. 6441 (Sen. Taft). See also C. Rhyne, Labor Unions and Municipal Employee Law 436-437 (1946). Vogel, What About the Rights of the Public Employee?, 1 Lab. L. J. 604, 612-615 (1950).
The commissioners’ initial terms are staggered, with one commissioner appointed to a two-year term, one to a three-year term, and one to a four-year term. Tenn. Code Ann. §6-2604 (Supp. 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: | 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.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. Although petitioner received a hearing on the issue of his competence to stand trial, there appears to have been no hearing or inquiry into the issue of his competence to waive his constitutional right to the assistance of counsel and proceed, as he did, to conduct his own defense. “The constitutional right of an accused to be represented by counsel invokes, of itself, the protection of a trial court, in which the accused — whose life or liberty is at stake — is without counsel. This protecting duty imposes the serious and weighty responsibility upon the trial judge of determining whether there is an intelligent and competent waiver by the accused.” Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 465; Carnley v. Cochran, 369 U. S. 506.
From an independent examination of the record, we conclude that the question whether this “protecting duty” was fulfilled should be re-examined in light of our decision this Term in Pate v. Robinson, 383 U. S. 375. Accordingly, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for proceedings not inconsistent herewith.
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: | 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.
Mr. Justice Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On May 2, 1966, petitioner filed a class action on behalf of himself and all other odd-lot traders on the New York Stock Exchange (the Exchange). The complaint charged respondents with violations of the antitrust and securities laws and demanded damages for petitioner and his class. Eight years have elapsed, but there has been no trial on the merits of these claims. Both the parties and the courts are still wrestling with the complex questions surrounding petitioner’s attempt to maintain his suit as a class action under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 23. We granted certiorari to resolve some of these difficulties. 414 U. S. 908 (1973).
I
Petitioner brought this class action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Originally, he sued on behalf of all buyers and sellers of odd lots on the Exchange, but subsequently the class was limited to those who traded in odd lots during the period-from May 1, 1962, through June 30, 1966. 52 F. E. D. 253, 261 (1971). Throughout this period odd-lot trading was not part of the Exchange’s regular auction market but was handled exclusively by special odd-lot dealers, who bought and sold for their own accounts as principals. Eespondent brokerage firms Carlisle & Jacquelin and DeCoppet & Doremus together handled 99% of the Exchange’s odd-lot business. S. E. C., Report of Special Study of Securities Markets, H. Rv Doc. No. 95, pt. 2, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 172 (1963). They were compensated by the odd-lot differential, a surcharge imposed on the odd-lot investor in addition to the standard brokerage commission applicable to round-lot transactions. For the period in question the differential was % of a point (12%-<é) per share on stocks trading below $40 per share and % of a point (25$) per share on stocks trading at or above $40 per share.
Petitioner charged that respondent brokerage firms had monopolized odd-lot trading and set the differential at an excessive level in violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 15 U. S. C. §§ 1 and 2, and he demanded treble damages for the amount of the overcharge. Petitioner also demanded unspecified money damages from the Exchange for its alleged failure to regulate the differential for the protection of investors in violation of §§ 6 and 19 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. §§ 78f and 78s. Finally, he requested attorneys’ fees and injunctive prohibition of future excessive charges.
A critical fact in this litigation is that petitioner’s individual stake in the damages award he seeks is only $70. No competent attorney would undertake this complex antitrust action to recover so inconsequential an amount. Economic reality dictates that petitioner’s suit proceed as a class action or not at all. Opposing counsel have therefore engaged in prolonged combat over the various requirements of Rule 23. The result has been an exceedingly complicated series of decisions by both the District Court and the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. To understand the labyrinthian history of this litigation, a preliminary overview of the decisions may prove useful.-
In the beginning, the District Court determined that petitioner’s suit was not maintainable as a class action. On appeal, the Court of Appeals issued two decisions known popularly as Eisen I and Eisen II. The first held that the District Court’s decision was a final order and thus appealable. In the second the Court of Appeals intimated that petitioner’s suit could satisfy the requirements of Rule 23, but it remanded the case to permit the District Court to consider the matter further. After conducting several evidentiary hearings on remand, the District Court decided that the suit could be maintained as a class action and entered orders intended to fulfill the notice requirements of Rule 23. Once again, the case was appealed. The Court of Appeals then issued its decision in Eisen III and ended the trilogy by denying class action status to petitioner’s suit. We now review these developments in more detail.
Eisen I
As we have seen, petitioner began this action in May 1966. In September of that year the District Court dismissed the suit as a class action. 41 F. R. D. 147. Following denial of his motion for interlocutory review under 28 U. S.‘ C. § 1292 (b), petitioner took an appeal as of right under § 1291. Respondents then moved to dismiss on the ground that the order appealed from was not final. In Eisen I, the Court of Appeals held that the denial of class action status in this case was appealable as a final order under § 1291. 370 F. 2d 119 (1966), cert. denied, 386 U. S. 1035 (1967). This was so because, as a practical matter, the dismissal of the class action aspect of petitioner’s suit was a “death knell” for the entire action. The court thought this consequence rendered the order dismissing the class action appealable under Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U. S. 541, 546 (1949).
Eisen II
Nearly 18 months later the Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the class action in a decision known as Eisen II. 391 F. 2d 555 (1968). In reaching this result the court undertook an exhaustive but ultimately inconclusive analysis of Rule 23. Subdivision (a) of the Rule sets forth four prerequisites to the maintenance of any suit as a class action: “(1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, (2) there are questions of law or fact common to the class, (3) the claims or defenses of the representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class, and (4) the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.” The District Court had experienced little difficulty in finding that petitioner satisfied the first three prerequisites but had concluded that petitioner might not “fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class” as required by Rule 23 (a) (4). The Court of Appeals indicated its disagreement with the reasoning behind the latter conclusion and directed the District Court to reconsider the point.
In addition to meeting the four conjunctive requirements of 23 (a), a class action must also qualify under one of the three subdivisions of 23 (b). Petitioner argued that the suit was maintainable as a class action under all three subdivisions. The Court of Appeals held the first two subdivisions inapplicable to this suit and therefore turned its attention to the third subdivision, (b)(3). That subdivision requires a court to determine whether “questions of law or fact common to the members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members” and whether “a class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy.” More specifically, it identifies four factors relevant to these inquiries. After a detailed review of these provisions, the Court of Appeals concluded that the only potential barrier to maintenance of this suit as a class action was the Rule 23 (b) (3) (D) directive that a court evaluate “the difficulties likely to be encountered in the management of a class action.” Commonly referred to as “manageability,” this consideration encompasses the whole range of practical problems that may render the class action format inappropriate for a particular suit. With reference to this litigation, the Court of Appeals noted that the difficulties of distributing any ultimate recovery to the class members would be formidable, though • not necessarily insuperable, and commented that it was “reluctant to permit actions to proceed where they are not likely to benefit anyone but the lawyers who bring them.” 391 F. 2d, at 567. The Court therefore directed the District Court to conduct “a further inquiry... in order to consider the mechanics involved in the administration of the present action.” Ibid.
Finally, the Court of Appeals turned to the most imposing obstacle to this class action — the notice requirement of Rule 23 (c)(2). The District Court had held that both the Rule and the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment required individual notice to all class members who could be identified. 41 F. R. D., at 151. Petitioner objected that mailed notice to the entire class would be prohibitively expensive and argued that some form of publication notice would suffice. The Court of Appeals declined to settle this issue, noting that “[o]n the record before us we cannot arrive at any rational and satisfactory conclusion on the propriety of resorting to some form of publication as a means of giving the necessary notice to all members of the class on behalf of whom the action is stated to be commenced and maintained.” 391 F. 2d, at 569.
The outcome of Eisen II was a remand for an eviden-tiary hearing on the questions of notice, manageability, adequacy of representation, and “any other matters which the District Court may consider pertinent and proper.” Id., at 570. And in a ruling that aroused later controversy, the Court of Appeals expressly purported to retain appellate jurisdiction while the case was heard on remand.
Eisen III
After it held the evidentiary hearing on remand, which together with affidavits and stipulations provided the basis for extensive findings of fact, the District Court issued an opinion and order holding the suit maintainable as a class action. 52 F. R. D. 253 (1971). The court first noted that petitioner satisfied the criteria identified by the Court of Appeals for determining adequacy of representation under Rule 23 (a)(4). Then it turned to the more difficult question of manageability. Under this general rubric the court dealt with problems of the computation of damages, the mechanics of administering this suit as a class action, and the distribution of any eventual recovery. The last-named problem had most troubled the Court of Appeals, prompting its remark that if “class members are not likely ever to share in an eventual judgment, we would probably not permit the class action to continue.” 391 F. 2d, at 567. The District Court attempted to resolve this difficulty by embracing the idea of a “fluid class” recovery whereby damages would be distributed to future odd-lot traders rather than to the specific class members who were actually injured. The court suggested that “a fund equivalent to the amount of unclaimed damages might be established and the odd-lot differential reduced in an amount determined reasonable by the court until such time as the fund is depleted.” 52 F. R. D., at 265. The need to resort to this expedient of recovery by the “next best class” arose from the prohibitively high cost of computing and awarding multitudinous small damages claims on an individual basis.
Finally, the District Court took up the problem of notice. The court found that the prospective class included some six million individuals, institutions, and intermediaries of various sorts; that with reasonable effort some two million of these odd-lot investors could be identified by name and address; and that the names and addresses of an additional 250,000 persons who had participated in special investment programs involving odd-lot trading could also be identified with reasonable effort. Using the then..current first-class postage rate of six cents, the court determined that stuffing and mailing each individual notice form would cost 10 cents. Thus individual notice to all identifiable class members would cost $225,000 and additional expense would be incurred for suitable publication notice designed to reach the other four million class members.
The District Court concluded, however, that neither Rule 23 (c) (2) nor the Due Process Clause required so substantial an expenditure at the outset of this litigation. Instead, it proposed a notification scheme consisting of four elements: (1) individual notice to all member firms of the Exchange and to commercial banks with large trust departments; (2) individual notice to the approximately 2,000 identifiable class members with 10 or more odd-lot transactions during the relevant period; (3) individual notice to an additional 5,000 class members selected at random; and (4) prominent publication notice in the Wall Street Journal and in other newspapers in New York and California. The court calculated that this package would cost approximately $21,720.
The only issue not resolved by the District Court in its first opinion on remand from Eisen II was who should bear the cost of notice. Because petitioner understandably declined to pay $21,720 in order to litigate an action involving an individual stake of only $70, this question presented something of a dilemma:
“If the expense of notice is placed upon [petitioner], it would be the end of a possibly meritorious suit, frustrating both the policy behind private antitrust actions and the admonition that the new Rule 23 is to be given a liberal rather than a restrictive interpretation, Eisen II at 563. On the other hand, if costs were arbitrarily placed upon [respondents] at this point, the result might be the imposition of an unfair burden founded upon a groundless claim. In addition to the probability of encouraging frivolous class actions, such a step might also result in [respondents'] passing on to their customers, including many of the class members in this case, the expenses of defending these actions.” 52 F. R. D., at 269.
Analogizing to the laws of preliminary injunctions, the court decided to impose the notice cost on respondents if petitioner could show a strong likelihood of success on the merits, and it scheduled a preliminary hearing on the merits to facilitate this determination. After this hearing the District Court issued an opinion and order ruling that petitioner was “more than likely” to prevail at trial and that respondents should bear 90% of the cost of notice, or $19,548. 54 F. R. D. 565, 567 (1972).
Relying on the purported retention of jurisdiction by the Court of Appeals after Eisen II, respondents on May 1, 1972, obtained an order directing the clerk of the District Court to certify and transmit the record for appellate review. Subsequently, respondents also filed a notice of appeal under 28 U. S. C. § 1291. Petitioner's motion to dismiss on the ground that the appeal had not been taken from a final order was denied by the Court of Appeals on June 29, 1972.
On May 1, 1973, the Court of Appeals issued Eisen III. 479 F. 2d 1005. The majority disapproved the District Court's partial reliance on publication notice, holding that Rule 23 (c) (2) required individual notice to all identifiable class members. The majority further ruled that the District Court had no authority to conduct a preliminary hearing on the merits for the purpose of allocating costs and that the entire expense of notice necessarily fell on petitioner as representative plaintiff. Finally, the Court of Appeals rejected the expedient of a fluid-class recovery and concluded that the proposed class action was unmanageable under Rule 23 (b) (3) (D). For all of these reasons the Court of Appeals ordered the suit dismissed as a class action. One judge concurred in the result solely on the ground that the District Court had erred in imposing 90% of the notice costs on respondents. Petitioner’s requests for rehearing and rehearing en banc were denied. 479 F. 2d, at 1020.
Thus, after six and one-half years and three published decisions, the Court of Appeals endorsed the conclusion reached by the District Court in its original order in 1966 — that petitioner’s suit could not proceed as a class action. In its procedural history, at least, this litigation has lived up to Judge Lumbard’s characterization of it as a “Frankenstein monster posing as a class action.” Eisen II, 391 F. 2d, at 572.
II
At the outset we must decide whether the Court of Appeals in Eisen III had jurisdiction to review the District Court’s orders permitting the suit to proceed as a class action and allocating the cost of notice. Petitioner contends that it did not. Respondents counter by asserting two independent bases for appellate jurisdiction: first, that the orders in question constituted a “final” decision within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1291 and were therefore appealable as of right under that section; and, second, that the Court of Appeals in Eisen II expressly retained jurisdiction pending further development of a factual record on remand and that consequently no new jurisdictional basis was required for the decision in Eisen III. Because we agree with the first ground asserted by respondents, we have no occasion to consider the second.
Restricting appellate review to "final decisions” prevents the debilitating effect on judicial administration caused by piecemeal appellate disposition of what is, in practical consequence, but a single controversy. While the application of § 1291 in most cases is plain enough, determining the finality of a particular judicial order may pose a close question. No verbal formula yet devised can explain prior finality decisions with unerring accuracy or provide an utterly reliable guide for the future. We know, of course, that § 1291 does not limit appellate review to “those final judgments which terminate an action... Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U. S., at 545, but rather that the requirement of finality is to be given a “practical rather than a technical construction.” Id., at 546. The inquiry requires some evaluation of the competing considerations underlying all questions of finality — “the inconvenience and costs of piecemeal review on the one hand and the danger of denying justice by delay on the other.” Dickinson v. Petroleum Conversion Corp., 338 U. S. 507, 511 (1950) (footnote omitted).
We find the instant case controlled by our decision in Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., supra. There the Court considered the applicability in a federal diversity action of a forum state statute making the plaintiff in a stockholder’s derivative action liable for litigation expenses, if ultimately unsuccessful, and entitling the corporation to demand security in advance for their payment. The trial court ruled the statute inapplicable, and the corporation sought immediate appellate review over the stockholder’s objection that the order appealed from was not final. This Court held the order appeal-able on two grounds. First, the District Court’s finding was not “tentative, informal or incomplete,” 337 U. S., at 546, but settled conclusively the corporation’s claim that it was entitled by state law to require the shareholder to post security for costs. Second, the decision did not constitute merely a “step toward final disposition of the merits of the case....” Ibid. Rather, it concerned a collateral matter that could not be reviewed effectively on appeal from the final judgment. The Court summarized its conclusion in this way:
“This decision appears to fall in that small class which finally determine claims of right separable from, and collateral to, rights asserted in the action, too important to be denied review and too independent of the canse itself to require that appellate consideration be deferred until the whole case is adjudicated.” Ibid.
Analysis of the instant case reveals that the District Court’s order imposing 90% of the notice costs on respondents likewise falls within “that small class.” It conclusively rejected respondents’ contention that they could not lawfully be required to bear the expense of notice to the members of petitioner’s proposed class. Moreover, it involved a collateral matter unrelated to the merits of petitioner’s claims. Like the order in Cohen, the District Court’s judgment on the allocation of notice costs was “a final disposition of a claimed right which is not an ingredient of the cause of action and does not require consideration with it,” id., at 546-547, and it was similarly appealable as a “final decision” under § 1291. In our view the Court of Appeals therefore had jurisdiction to review fully the District Court’s resolution of the class action notice problems in this case, for that court’s allocation of 90% of the notice costs to respondents was but one aspect of its effort to construe the requirements of Rule 23 (c) (2) in a way that would permit petitioner’s suit to proceed as a class action.
Ill
Turning to the merits of the case, we find that the District Court’s resolution of the notice problems was erroneous in two respects. First, it failed to comply with the notice requirements of Rule 23 (c)(2), and second, it imposed part of the cost of notice on respondents.
A
Rule 23 (c) (2) provides that, in any class action maintained under subdivision (b)(3), each class member shall be advised that he has the right to exclude himself from the action on request or to enter an appearance through counsel, and further that the judgment, whether favorable or not, will bind all class members not requesting exclusion. To this end, the court is required to direct to class members "the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort.” We think the import of this language is unmistakable. Individual notice must be sent to all class members whose names and addresses may be ascertained through reasonable effort.
The Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 23 reinforces this conclusion. See 28 U. S. C. App., p. 7765. The Advisory Committee described subdivision (c) (2) as “not merely discretionary” and added that the “mandatory notice pursuant to subdivision (c) (2)... is designed to fulfill requirements of due process to which the class action procedure is of course subject.” Id., at 7768. The Committee explicated its incorporation of due process standards by citation to Mulleme v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950), and like cases.
In Mullane the Court addressed the constitutional sufficiency of publication notice rather than mailed individual notice to known beneficiaries of a common trust fund as part of a judicial settlement of accounts. The Court observed that notice and an opportunity to be heard were fundamental requisites of the constitutional guarantee of procedural due process. It further stated that notice must be “reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Id., at 314. The Court continued:
“But when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not due process. The means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it. The reasonableness and hence the constitutional validity of any chosen method may be defended on the ground that it is in itself reason-bly certain to inform those affected.” Id., at 315.
The Court then held that publication notice could not satisfy due process where the names and addresses of the beneficiaries were known. In such cases, “the reasons disappear for resort to means less likely than the mails to apprise them of [an action’s] pendency.” Id., at 318.
In Schroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208 (1962), decided prior to the promulgation of amended Rule 23, the Court explained that Múlleme required rejection of notice by publication where the name and address of the affected person were available. The Court stated that the “general rule” is that “notice by publication is not enough with respect to a person whose name and address are known or very easily ascertainable....” Id., at 212-213. The Court also noted that notice by publication had long been recognized as a poor substitute for actual notice and that its justification was “ 'difficult at best.’ ” Id., at 213.
Viewed in this context, the express language and intent of Rule 23 (c) (2) leave no doubt that individual notice must be provided to those class members who are identifiable through reasonable effort. In the present case, the names and addresses of 2,250,000 class members are easily ascertainable, and there is nothing to show that individual notice cannot be mailed to each. For these class members, individual notice is clearly the “best notice practicable” within the meaning of Rule 23 (c) (2) and our prior decisions.
Petitioner contends, however, that we should dispense with the requirement of individual notice in this case, and he advances two reasons for our doing so. First, the prohibitively high cost of providing individual notice to 2,250,000 class members would end this suit as a class action and effectively frustrate petitioner’s attempt to vindicate the policies underlying the antitrust and securities laws. Second, petitioner contends that individual notice is unnecessary in this case, because no prospective class member has a large enough stake in the matter to justify separate litigation of his individual claim. Hence, class members lack any incentive to opt out of the class action even if notified.
The short answer to these arguments is that individual notice to identifiable class members is not a discretionary consideration to be waived in a particular case. It is, rather, an unambiguous requirement of Rule 23. As the Advisory Committee’s. Note explained, the Rule was intended to insure that the judgment, whether favorable or not, would bind all class members who did not request exclusion from the suit. 28 U. S. C. App., pp. 7765, 7768. Accordingly, each class member who can be identified through reasonable effort must be notified that he may request exclusion from the action and thereby preserve his opportunity to press his claim separately or that he may remain in the class and perhaps participate in the management of the action. There is nothing in Rule 23 to suggest that the notice requirements can be tailored to fit the pocketbooks of particular plaintiffs.
Petitioner further contends that adequate representation, rather than notice, is the touchstone of due process in a class action and therefore satisfies Rule 23. We think this view has little to commend it. To begin with, Rule 23 speaks to notice as well as to adequacy of representation and requires that both be provided. Moreover, petitioner’s argument proves too much, for it quickly leads to the conclusion that no notice at all, published or otherwise, would be required in the present case. This cannot be so, for quite apart from what due process may require, the command of Rule 23 is clearly to the contrary. We therefore conclude that Rule 23 (c) (2) requires that individual notice be sent to all class members who can be identified with reasonable effort.
B
We also agree with the Court of Appeals that petitioner must bear the cost of notice to the members of his class. The District Court reached the contrary conclusion and imposed 90% of the notice cost on respondents. This decision was predicated on the court’s finding, made after a preliminary hearing on the merits of the case, that petitioner was “more than likely” to prevail on his claims. Apparently, that court interpreted Rule 23 to authorize such a hearing as part of the determination whether a suit may be maintained as a class action. We disagree.
We find nothing in either the language or history of Rule 23 that gives a court any authority to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a suit in order to determine whether it may be maintained as a class action. Indeed, such a procedure contravenes the Rule by allowing a representative plaintiff to secure the benefits of a class action without first satisfying the requirements for it. He is thereby allowed to obtain a determination on the merits of the claims advanced on behalf of the class without any assurance that a class action may be maintained. This procedure is directly contrary to the command of subdivision (c)(1) that the court determine whether a suit denominated a class action may be maintained as such “[a]s soon as practicable after the commencement of [the] action... In short, we agree with Judge Wisdom’s conclusion in Miller v. Mackey International, 452 F. 2d 424 (CA5 1971), where the court rejected a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a proposed class action:
“In determining the propriety of a class action, the question is not whether the plaintiff or plaintiffs have stated a cause of action or will prevail on the merits, but rather whether the requirements of Rule 23 are met.” Id., at 427.
Additionally, we might note that a preliminary determination of the merits may result in substantial prejudice to a defendant, since of necessity it is not accompanied by the traditional rules and procedures applicable to civil trials. The court’s tentative findings, made in the absence of established safeguards, may color the subsequent proceedings and place an unfair burden on the defendant.
In the absence of any support under Rule 23, petitioner’s effort to impose the cost of notice on respondents must fail. The usual rule is that a plaintiff must initially bear the cost of notice to the class. The exceptions cited by the District Court related to situations where a fiduciary duty pre-existed between the plaintiff and defendant, as in a shareholder derivative suit. Where, as here, the relationship between the parties is truly adversary, the plaintiff must pay for the cost of notice as part of the ordinary burden of financing his own suit.
Petitioner has consistently maintained, however, that he will not bear the cost of notice under subdivision (c) (2) to members of the class as defined in his original complaint. See 479 P. 2d, at 1008; 52 F. R. D., at 269. We therefore remand the cause with instructions to dismiss the class action as so defined.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the cause remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Odd lots are shares traded in lots of fewer than a hundred. Shares traded in units of a hundred or multiples thereof are round-lots.
On July 1, 1966, the $40 “breakpoint” was raised to $55.
“(b) Class Actions Maintainable.
“An action may be maintained as a class action if the prerequisites of subdivision (a) are satisfied, and in addition:
“(1) the prosecution of separate actions by or against individual members of the class would create a risk of
“(A) inconsistent or varying adjudications with respect to individual members of the class which would establish incompatible standards of conduct for the party opposing the class, or
“(B) adjudications with respect to individual members of the class which would as a practical matter be dispositive of the interests of the other members not parties to the adjudications or substantially impair or impede their ability to protect their interests; or
“(2) the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the class, thereby making appropriate final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief with respect to the class as a whole; or
“(3) the court finds that the questions of law or fact common to the members of the class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action is superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy. The matters pertinent to the findings include: (A) the interest of members of the class in individually controlling the prosecution or defense of separate actions; (B) the extent and nature of any litigation concerning the controversy already commenced by or against members of the class; (C) the desirability or undesirability of concentrating the litigation of the claims in the particular forum; (D) the difficulties likely to be encountered in the management of a class action.”
Before the Court of Appeals, petitioner dropped the contention that the suit qualified under subdivision (b)(1)(B). The court held subdivision (b) (1) (A) inapplicable on the ground that the prospective class consisted entirely of small claimants, none of whom could afford to litigate this action in order to recover his individual claim and that consequently there was little chance of “inconsistent or varying adjudications with respect to individual members of the class which would establish incompatible standards of conduct for the party opposing the class... Subdivision (b) (2) was held to- apply only to actions exclusively or predominantly for injunctive or declaratory relief. Advisory Committee’s Note, Proposed Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 7766.
These two million traders dealt with brokerage firms who transmitted their odd-lot transactions to respondents Carlisle & Jacquelin and DeCoppet & Doremus via teletype. By comparing the odd-lot firms’ computerized records of these teletype transactions and the general-services brokerage firms’ computerized records of all customer names and addresses, the names and addresses of these two million odd-lot traders can be obtained.
In the period from May 1962 through June 1968, 100,000 individuals had odd-lot transactions through participation in the Monthly Investment Plan operated by the Exchange and 150,000 persons traded in odd lots through participation in a number of payroll deduction plans operated by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith,
Adjusting this figure to reflect the subsequent 40 increase in first-class postage would yield a figure of $315,000.
Section 1291 provides:
“The courts of appeals shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the district courts of the United States, the United States District Court for the District of the Canal Zone, the District Court of Guam, and the District Court of the Virgin Islands, except where a direct review may be had in the Supreme Court.”
As long ago as 1892 the Court complained: “Probably no question of equity practice has been the subject of more frequent discussion in this court than the finality of decrees.... The cases, it must be conceded, are not altogether harmonious.” McGourkey v. Toledo & Ohio R. Co., 146 U. S. 536, 544-545. In the intervening years the difficulty of resolving such questions has not abated. As Mr. Justice Black commented in Gillespie v. U. S. Steel Corp., 379 U. S. 148, 152 (1964), “whether a ruling is 'final’ within the meaning of § 1291 is frequently so close a question that decision of that issue either way can be supported with equally forceful arguments, and... it is impossible to devise a formula to resolve all marginal cases coming within what might well be called the 'twilight zone’ of finality.”
As explained in Part III of this opinion, we find the notice requirements of Rule 23 to be dispositive of petitioner’s attempt to maintain the class action as presently defined. We therefore have no occasion to consider whether the Court of Appeals correctly resolved the issues of manageability and fluid-class recovery, or indeed, whether those issues were properly before the Court of Appeals under the theory of retained jurisdiction. notice required does not even name those whose attention it is supposed to attract, and does not inform acquaintances who might call it to attention.” 339 U. S., at 315.
Emphasis added. Subdivision (c)(2) provides in full:
“(2) In any class action maintained under subdivision (b)(3), the court shall direct to the members of the class the best notice practicable under the circumstances, including individual notice to all members who can be identified through reasonable effort. The notice shall advise each member that (A) the court will exclude him from the class if he so requests by a specified date; (B) the judgment, whether favorable or not, will include all members who do not request exclusion; and (C) any member who does not request exclusion may, if he desires, enter an appearance through his counsel.”
The Court’s discussion of the inadequacies of published notice bears attention:
“It would be idle to pretend that publication alone, as prescribed here, is a reliable means of acquainting interested parties of the fact that their rights are before the courts.... Chance alone brings to the attention of even a local resident an advertisement in small type inserted in the back pages of a newspaper, and if he makes his home outside the area of the newspaper’s normal circulation the odds that the information will never reach him are large indeed. The chance of actual notice is further reduced when, as here, the
Petitioner also argues that class members will not opt out because the statute of limitations has long since run out on the claims of all class members other than petitioner. This contention is disposed of by our recent decision in American Pipe & Construction Co
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 Goldberg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Certiorari was granted in this case, 370 U. S. 935, in order that the Court might consider whether the State of Washington’s rules governing the provision of transcripts to indigent criminal defendants for purposes of appeal were applied in this case so as to deprive petitioners of rights guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment.
This Court has dealt recently with the constitutional rights of indigents to free transcripts on appeal in Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12, and Eskridge v. Washington State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, 357 U. S. 214. The principle of Griffin is that “[d]estitute defendants must be afforded as adequate appellate review as defendants who have money enough to buy transcripts,” 351 U. S., at 19, a holding restated in Eskridge to be “that a State denies a constitutional right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment if it allows all convicted defendants to have appellate review except those who cannot afford to pay for the records of their trials,” 357 U. S., at 216. In Eskridge the question was the validity of Washington’s long-standing procedure whereby an indigent defendant would receive a stenographic transcript at public expense only if, in the opinion of the trial judge, “justice will thereby be promoted.” Id., at 215. This Court held per curiam that, given Washington’s guarantee of the right to appeal to the accused in all criminal prosecutions, Wash. Const., Art. I, § 22 and Amend. 10, “[t]he conclusion of the trial judge that there was no reversible error in the trial cannot be an adequate substitute for the right to full appellate review available to all defendants in Washington who can afford the expense of a transcript,” id., at 216, and remanded the cause for further proceedings not inconsistent with the opinion. In response, in Woods v. Rhay, 54 Wash. 2d 36, 338 P. 2d 332 (1959), a case which was remanded by this Court for reconsideration in light of Eskridge two weeks after that case was decided, 357 U. S. 575, the Supreme Court of Washington formulated a new set of rules to govern trial judges in passing upon indigents’ requests for free stenographic transcripts:
“1. An indigent defendant in his motion for a free statement of facts must set forth:
“a. The fact of his indigency
“b. The errors which he claims were committed; and if it is claimed that the evidence is insufficient to justify the verdict, he shall specify with particularity in what respect he believes the evidence is lacking. (The allegations of error need not be expressed in any technical form but must clearly indicate what is intended.)
“2. If the state is of the opinion that the errors alleged can properly be presented on appeal without a transcript of all the testimony,
“a. it may make a showing of what portion of the transcript will be adequate, or
“b. if it believes that a narrative statement will be adequate, it must show that such a statement is or will be available to the defendant.
“3. The trial court in disposing of an indigent’s motion for a statement of facts at county expense shall enter findings of fact upon the following matters:
“a. The defendant’s indigency
“b. Which of the errors, if any, are frivolous and the reasons why they are frivolous
“c. Whether a narrative form of statement of facts will be adequate to present the claimed errors for review and will be available to the defendant; and, if not
“d. What portion of the • stenographic transcript will be necessary to effectuate the indigent’s appeal.
“4. The trial court’s disposition of the motion shall be by definitive order.” 54 Wash. 2d, at 44-45, 338 P. 2d, at 337.
It is the application of these rules which is asserted by petitioners in the present case to be inconsistent with their constitutional rights as declared in the Griffin and Eskridge cases. Petitioners, who are concededly indigent, were each convicted of two counts of robbery by a jury and sentenced to two consecutive 20-year terms after a three-day trial ending on September 14, 1960, during which they were represented by court-appointed counsel. Their motions for new trials were denied. On October 20, acting pro se, they filed timely notices of appeal from the judgments of conviction, and then filed identical motions requesting the trial judge to order preparation of a free transcript of the record and statement of facts. Drawn inartistically, these requests asserted petitioners’ indi-gency and then set forth 12 allegations of error in the trial, relating to admission of testimony and exhibits, perjured and self-contradictory testimony, prejudice of the trial judge in the conduct of the trial, failure to enforce the rule as to exclusion of witnesses, and failure of the evidence to establish the elements of the crime charged. Each concluded that “ [ujnless Defendant is provided with a transcript and statement of facts at the county expense, he will be unable to prosecute this appeal.”
Petitioners’ motions were heard on November 28 by the judge who had presided at the jury trial. Petitioners were present at the hearing, having been brought from the State Penitentiary where they were and still are incarcerated. Although they no longer wished the aid of counsel, the judge, in accordance with a statement in Woods v. Rhay, directed trial counsel to speak in petitioners’ behalf. Counsel attempted, as best he could from his recollection of a trial which had occurred two and one-half months earlier, to elaborate upon the specifications of error in petitioners’ motions. The objections to exhibits, he stated, related to a gun introduced against petitioner Draper, and a jacket, claimed to have been found with money in it, introduced as belonging to petitioner Lorent-zen. Counsel explained at length that he regarded the foundation laid for introducing these items to have been extremely weak, and that receipt of the evidence on such a slim foundation was prejudicial. He suggested that petitioner Draper had been identified only by an alleged accomplice, Jennings, whose testimony was also contradictory and perjurious. Counsel also argued that the prosecution had failed to prove both the existence of the corporation which the indictment described as owning one of the robbed motels, and the possessory right of its agent to the money taken. “In my opinion,” he said, “those two omissions are very important, if not fatal in this case.” Further, counsel referred to petitioners’ contention that two witnesses were improperly allowed to sit in the courtroom prior to testifying, and said that he had no personal knowledge of the facts supporting the contention but that since defendants had invoked the exclusion-of-witnesses rule at trial there was perhaps something to the contention. Finally, counsel argued that petitioners’ contention that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the conviction was, under Woods v. Rhay and analogous decisions of this Court governing the rights of federal prisoners, enough in itself to entitle them to a transcript.
Since petitioners had not desired counsel’s assistance, petitioner Draper was allowed to argue when counsel finished. He stated in a layman’s way what he believed were the trial errors, but when interrogated by the trial judge for supporting details he asserted his inability to give any without a transcript.
The prosecutor opposed the motion both by affidavit and by argument at the hearing. His affidavit summarized in several paragraphs his contrary interpretation of the evidence, which according to him plainly established the defendants’ guilt. In his argument he undertook to refute each of petitioners’ assignments of error. He contended, therefore, that petitioners’ motions for free transcripts and statements of facts should be denied because “there is nothing here to support any substantial claim of error whatsoever.”
The trial judge, upon conclusion of the prosecutor’s argument, reviewed petitioners’ assignments of error and indicated orally that he would deny their motions. On December 12 he entered an order, coupled with formal findings of fact and conclusions of law, in which he concluded
“That the assignments of error as set out by each defendant are patently frivolous; that the guilt of each defendant as to each count of Robbery was established by overwhelming evidence, and that accordingly the furnishing of a statement of facts would result in a waste of public funds.”
His findings summarized in six paragraphs the facts which he thought had been proven at the three-day trial. This summary constituted only the trial judge’s conclusions about the operative facts, without any description whatsoever of the evidence upon which those conclusions were based. After stating these factual conclusions, the judge specifically rejected each of petitioners’ 12 assignments of error with a summary statement — almost wholly con-clusory — concerning each.
Petitioners sought review by certiorari of the trial court’s order in the Supreme Court of Washington. Department One of that court quashed the writ, holding that the trial court had properly applied the principles of Woods v. Rhay and had correctly found the appeal to be frivolous. 58 Wash. 2d 830, 365 P. 2d 31. By the very nature of the procedure, the Supreme Court’s ruling was made without benefit of reference to any portion of a stenographic transcript of the jury trial. Solely on the basis of the stenographic record of the hearing on the motion, the Supreme Court stated that “[i]t would serve no useful purpose to set forth . . . [the] evidence in detail,” 58 Wash. 2d, at 832, 365 P. 2d, at 33, and instead purported to summarize the operative facts briefly, based entirely and uncritically on the trial judge’s conclusions as to what had occurred. These conclusory statements, arrived at without any examination of the underlying evidence, were then (inevitably, given the nature of the trial judge's conclusions) characterized as sufficient to show that all of the elements of the crime of robbery were established by the evidence. The court concluded by briefly dealing with and rejecting petitioners' specific assignments of error, just as the trial judge had done.
Petitioners contend that the present Washington procedure for indigent appeals has not cured the constitutional defects disapproved in Eskridge. They argue that a standard which conditions effective appeal on a trial judge's finding, even though it be one of nonfrivolity instead of promotion of justice, denies them adequate appellate review. Under the present standard, just as under the disapproved one, they must convince the trial judge that their contentions of error have merit before they can obtain the free transcript necessary to prosecute their appeal. Failing to convince the trial judge, they continue, they are denied adequate appellate review because the Supreme Court then passes upon their assignments of error without consideration of the record of the trial proceedings, whereas defendants with money to buy a transcript are allowed a direct appeal to the Supreme Court, which affords them full review of their contentions. The State argues that this difference in procedure is justifiable because it safeguards against frivolous appeals by indigents while guaranteeing them appellate review in cases where such review is even of potential utility.
In considering whether petitioners here received an adequate appellate review, we reaffirm the principle, declared by the Court in Griffin, that a State need not purchase a stenographer’s transcript in every case where a defendant cannot buy it. 351 U. S., at 20. Alternative methods of reporting trial proceedings are permissible if they place before the appellate court an equivalent report of the events at trial from which the appellant’s contentions arise. A statement of facts agreed to by both sides, a full narrative statement based perhaps on the trial judge’s minutes taken during trial or on the court reporter’s untranscribed notes, or a bystander’s bill of exceptions might all be adequate substitutes, equally as good as a transcript. Moreover, part or all of the stenographic transcript in certain cases will not be germane to consideration of the appeal, and a State will not be required to expend its funds unnecessarily in such circumstances. If, for instance, the points urged relate only to the validity of the statute or the sufficiency of the indictment upon which conviction was predicated, the transcript is irrelevant and need not be provided. If the assignments of error go only to rulings on evidence or to its sufficiency, the transcript provided might well be limited to the portions relevant to such issues. Even as to this kind of issue, however, it is unnecessary to afford a record of the proceedings pertaining to an alleged failure of proof on a point which is irrelevant as a matter of law to the elements of the crime for which the defendant has been convicted. In the examples given, the fact that an appellant with funds may choose to waste his money by unnecessarily including in the record all of the transcript does not mean that the State must waste its funds by providing what is unnecessary for adequate appellate review. In all cases the duty of the State is to provide the indigent as adequate and effective an appellate review as that given appellants with funds — the State must provide the indigent defendant with means of presenting his contentions to the appellate court which are as good as those available to a nonindigent defendant with similar contentions.
Petitioners’ contentions in the present case were such that they could not be adequately considered by the State Supreme Court on the limited record before it. The arguments about improper foundation for introduction of the gun and coat, for example, could not be determined on their merits — as they would have been on a nonindi-gent’s appeal — without recourse, at a minimum, to the portions of the record of the trial proceedings relating to this point. Again, the asserted failure of proof with respect to identification of the defendants and the allegations of perjury and inconsistent testimony were similarly impossible to pass upon without direct study of the relevant portions of the trial record. Finally, the alleged failure of the evidence to sustain the conviction could not be determined on the inadequate information before the Washington Supreme Court.
The materials before the State Supreme Court in this case did not constitute a “record of sufficient completeness,” see Coppedge v. United States, 369 U. S. 438, 446, and p. 498, infra, for adequate consideration of the errors assigned. No relevant portions of the stenographic transcript were before it. The only available description of what occurred at the trial was the summary findings of the trial court and the counter-affidavit filed by the prosecutor. The former was not in any sense like a full narrative statement'based upon the detailed minutes of a judge kept during trial. It was, so far as we know, premised upon recollections as of a time nearly three months after trial and, far from being a narrative or summary of the actual testimony at the trial, was merely a set of conclusions. The prosecutor’s affidavit can by no stretch of the imagination be analogized to a bystander’s bill of exceptions. The fact recitals in it were in most summary form, were prepared by an advocate seeking denial of a motion for free transcript, and were contested by petitioners and their counsel at the hearing on that motion.
By allowing the trial court to prevent petitioners from having stenographic support or its equivalent for presentation of each of their separate contentions to the appellate tribunal, the State of Washington has denied them the rights assured them by this Court's decisions in Griffin and Eskridge. The rules set out in Woods v. Rhay contemplate a procedure which could have been followed here to afford the petitioners what the Constitution requires. Thus, in accordance with those rules, the State could have endeavored to show that a narrative statement or only a portion of the transcript would be adequate and available for appellate consideration of petitioners’ contentions. The trial judge would have complied with both the constitutional mandate and the rules in limiting the grant accordingly on the basis of such a showing by the State. What was impermissible was the total denial to petitioners of any means of getting adequate review on the merits in the State Supreme Court, when no such clog on the process of getting contentions before the State Supreme Court attends the appeals of defendants with money.
The Washington rules as applied here come to this: An indigent defendant wishing to appeal and needing a transcript to do so may only obtain it if the judge who has presided at his trial and has already overruled his motion for a new trial as well as his objections to evidence and to conduct of the trial finds that these contentions, upon which he has already ruled, are not frivolous. The predictable finding of frivolity is subject to review without any direct scrutiny of the relevant aspects of what actually occurred at the trial, but rather with examination only of what the parties argued at the hearing on the transcript motion and what the judge recalled and thereafter summarily found as to what went on at the trial.
This Court, in Coppedge v. United States, 369 U. S. 438, 446, dealt with similar vices in the federal courts by requiring that when a defendant denied leave to appeal in forma pauperis by the District Court applies to the Court of Appeals for leave to appeal, that court, when the substance of the applicant’s claims cannot be adequately ascertained from the face of his application (as in the present case), must provide a “record of sufficient completeness to enable him to attempt to make a showing that the District Court’s certificate of lack of 'good faith’ is in error and that leave to proceed ... in forma pauperis should be allowed.” Here, similarly, the Washington Supreme Court could not deny petitioners’ request for review of the denial of the transcript motion without first granting them a “record of sufficient completeness” to permit proper consideration of their claims. Such a grant would have ensured petitioners a right to review of their convictions as adequate and effective as that which Washington guarantees to nonindigents. Moreover, since nothing we say today militates against a State’s formulation and application of operatively nondiscriminatory rules to both indigents and nonindigents in order to guard against frivolous appeals, the affording of a “record of sufficient completeness” to indigents would ensure that, if the appeals of both indigents and non-indigents are to be tested for frivolity, they will be tested on the same basis by the reviewing court. Compare Ellis v. United States, 356 U. S. 674; Coppedge v. United States, supra, 369 U. S., at 447-448.
In Eskridge this Court held that “[t]he conclusion of the trial judge that there was no reversible error in the trial cannot be an adequate substitute for the right to full appellate review available to all defendants in Washington who can afford the expense of a transcript.” 357 U. S., at 216. We hold today that the conclusion of the trial judge that an indigent’s appeal is frivolous is a similarly inadequate substitute for the full appellate review available to nonindigents in Washington, when the effect of that finding is to prevent an appellate examination based upon a sufficiently complete record of the trial proceedings themselves.
The judgment of the Washington Supreme Court is reversed and the cause is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Washington practice refers to copies of the various documents filed with the clerk of the trial court as the “transcript of the record,” Rule 44 of the Rules on Appeal, and to the court reporter’s transcription of trial proceedings as the “statement of facts,” Rule 35 of the Rules on Appeal. In accordance with common usage, the latter will often be referred to herein as the “transcript” and the “stenographic transcript.”
“Where court-appointed counsel has represented the defendant at the trial, his services should be made available to the defendant for the purpose of- presenting the motion.” 54 Wash. 2d, at 44, n. 3, 338 P. 2d, at 337, n. 2.
The State Supreme Court twice declared that the defendants had not challenged the trial court's recollection of the evidence, apparently-implying that defendants had abandoned any claims resting on insufficiency of or inconsistencies in the evidence. However, the record, including the briefs filed in the State Supreme Court, does not support this conclusion. Petitioners' pro se brief in the State Supreme Court, such as it was, was based on the broad proposition that under Griffin and Eskridge they were entitled to a transcript in order to appeal, a pointless contention if by so stating the argument they meant to waive the right to have the State Supreme Court consider some or possibly all of the underlying allegations of error. Their vigorous arguments at the hearing on the transcript motion were meaningless if they were willing to accept the prosecution’s version of the facts. It should be noted, however, that the State Supreme Court did, notwithstanding its comments, consider petitioners’ assignments of error.
The State also argues that in practical effect there is no difference at all between the rights it affords indigents and nonindigents, because a moneyed defendant, motivated by a “sense of thrift,” will choose not to appeal in exactly the same circumstances that an indigent will be denied a transcript. We reject this contention as untenable. It defies common sense to think that a moneyed defendant faced with long-term imprisonment and advised by counsel that he has substantial grounds for appeal, as petitioners were here, will choose not to appeal merely to save the cost of a transcript. The State’s procedure for indigents, therefore, cannot be justified as an attempt to equalize the incidence of appeal as between indigents and nonindigents.
For example, the State Supreme Court here held that, under Washington law, proof of the existence of the corporation robbed is unnecessary to a conviction for robbery, thus obviating the need for a record of the testimony relevant to this point.
The Washington courts stated that the asserted lack of foundation went to the weight of the evidence and not to its admissibility. This conclusion, however, in contrast to the holding that the existence of the robbed corporation was irrelevant as a matter of law, necessarily depended upon an examination — never made — of the appropriate portions of the record to test whether the -evidence claimed to establish the foundation was in fact sufficient to meet the threshold standard of admissibility.
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Section 6331(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, 26 U. S. C. § 6331(a), provides that the Government may collect taxes of a delinquent taxpayer “by levy upon all property and rights to property... belonging to such person.” Section 6332(a) of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 6332(a), then provides that “any person in possession of (or obligated with respect to) property or rights to property subject to levy upon which a levy has been made shall, upon demand of the Secretary, surrender such property or rights... to the Secretary.”
The controversy in this case concerns two joint accounts in a bank in Arkansas. The issue is whether the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has a right to levy on those accounts for delinquent federal income taxes owed by only one of the persons in whose names the joint accounts stand in order that the IRS may obtain provisional control over the amount in question.
I
A
The relevant facts are stipulated. On December 10, 1979, the IRS assessed against Roy J. Reeves federal income taxes, penalties, and interest for the taxable year 1977 in the total amount of $3,607.45. As a result of payments and credits, the amount owing on the assessment was reduced to $856.61. App. 11.
On June 13, 1980, there were on deposit with respondent National Bank of Commerce, at Pine Bluff, Ark., the sum of $321.66 in a checking account and the sum of $1,241.60 in a savings account, each in the names of “Roy Reeves or Ruby Reeves or Neva R. Reeves.” Id., at 11-12. Each of the persons named, Roy Reeves, Ruby Reeves, and Neva R. Reeves, was authorized by contract with the bank to make withdrawals from each of these joint accounts. Id., at 12.
On the same date, that is, on June 13, 1980, a notice of levy was served on the respondent bank pursuant to § 6331(d) of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 6331(d), demanding that the bank pay over to the United States all sums the bank owed to Roy J. Reeves up to a total of $1,302.56. Subsequently, there was a Partial Release of Levy for the amount in excess of $856.61. On October 10, a final demand for payment was served on the bank.
The bank, contending that it did not know how much of the money on deposit belonged to Roy as opposed to Ruby and Neva, refused to comply with the levy. Ibid. The United States thereupon instituted this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas, pursuant to § 6332(c)(1) of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 6332(e)(1), seeking judgment against the bank in the amount of $856.61.
By way of a supplement to the stipulation of facts, it was agreed that “[n]o further evidence as to the ownership of the monies in the subject bank accounts will be submitted.” Id., at 17. As a consequence, we do not know which of the three codepositors, as a matter of state law, owned the funds in the two accounts, or in what proportion. The facts thus come to us in very bare form. We are not confronted with any dispute as to who owns what share of the accounts. We deal simply with two joint accounts in the names of three persons, with each of the three entitled to draw out all the money in each of the accounts.
B
The case was submitted to the District Court on cross-motions for summary judgment and on the respondent bank’s motion to dismiss the complaint. Id., at 18-24. The District Court granted the motion to dismiss, holding the case procedurally “premature.” 554 F. Supp. 110, 117 (1982). The court concluded that due process mandates “something more than the post-seizure lawsuit allowed” by the Code’s levy procedures. Id., at 114. In its view, “the minimum due process required in distraint actions against joint bank accounts,” ibid., compelled the IRS to identify the codeposi-tors of the delinquent taxpayer and to provide them with notice and an opportunity to be heard. Id., at 114-115. The court then outlined the procedures it believed the Constitution requires the IRS to follow when levying on a joint account. Specifically, it ruled that a bank, upon receiving a notice of levy, should freeze the assets in the account and provide the IRS with the names of the codepositors. Id., at 114. The IRS then should notify the codepositors and give them a reasonable time “in which to respond both to the government and to the bank by affidavit or other appropriate means, specifically setting out any ownership interest in the joint account which they claim and the factual and legal basis for that claim.” Id., at 115. If the bank, on the basis of such information, “believes that a genuine dispute exists as to the legality of any ownership claim made by” the codeposi-tors, “it may refuse to surrender any portion of the funds so claimed.” Id., at 116. At that point, “the government may bring suit to enforce the levy on the contested funds,” ibid., but it must name the codepositors as defendants along with the bank.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 726 F. 2d 1292 (1984). It expressed no opinion on the District Court’s constitutional analysis. Id., at 1293, 1300. It reached essentially the same result, however, as a matter of statutory construction. It ruled that the IRS, when levying on a joint bank account, has the burden of proving “the actual value of the delinquent taxpayer’s interest in jointly owned property.” Id., at 1293. It observed that here “the rights of the various parties,” id., at 1300, had not been determined. Therefore, the Government had not shown the bank to be in possession of property or rights to property belonging to the delinquent taxpayer, Roy J. Reeves, as § 6331(a) required.
The Court of Appeals acknowledged that “Roy could have withdrawn any amount he wished from the account and used it to pay his debts, including federal income taxes....” Id., at 1295. It rejected, however, the Government’s contention that it stood “in Roy’s shoes and could do anything Roy could do, subject to whatever duties Roy owes to Ruby or Neva,” id., at 1295-1296, for it observed that “at least as to ordinary creditors, [that] is not the law of Arkansas.” Id., at 1296. Under state garnishment law, the court noted, a creditor of a codepositor is not “subrogated to that co-owner’s power to withdraw the entire account.” Instead, a creditor must join both co-owners as defendants and permit them to “show by parol or otherwise the extent of his or her interest in the account.” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals then concluded that a similar precept should apply in administrative levy proceedings under the Internal Revenue Code. It accordingly ruled that the Government could not prevail without negating or quantifying the claims that Ruby or Neva might have to the funds in question. It expressed the belief that an IRS administrative levy “is not normally intended for use as against property in which third parties have an interest” or as “against property bearing on its face the names of third parties.” Id., at 1300. In such a situation, the Government was free to “brin[g] suit to foreclose its lien under Section 7403,” joining the codeposi-tors as defendants. Ibid.
Because the opinion of the Court of Appeals appeared to us to conflict, directly or in principle, with decisions of other Courts of Appeals, we granted certiorari. 469 U. S. 1105 (1985).
II
A
Section 6321 of the Code, 26 U. S. C. §6321, provides: “If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same after demand, the amount... shall be a lien in favor of the United States upon all property and rights to property, whether real or personal, belonging to such person.” Under the succeeding § 6322, the lien generally arises when an assessment is made, and it continues until the taxpayer’s liability “is satisfied or becomes unenforceable by reason of lapse of time.”
The statutory language “all property and rights to property,” appearing in §6321 (and, as well, in §§ 6331(a) and, essentially, in 6332(a), see nn. 1 and 2, supra), is broad and reveals on its face that Congress meant to reach every interest in property that a taxpayer might have. See 4 B. Bittker, Federal Taxation of Income, Estates and Gifts ¶ 111.5.4, p. 111-100 (1981) (Bittker). “Stronger language could hardly have been selected to reveal a purpose to assure the collection of taxes.” Glass City Bank v. United States, 326 U. S. 265, 267 (1945).
A federal tax lien, however, is not self-executing. Affirmative action by the IRS is required to enforce collection of the unpaid taxes. The Internal Revenue Code provides two principal tools for that purpose. The first is the lien-foreclosure suit. Section 7403(a) authorizes the institution of a civil action in federal district court to enforce a lien “to subject any property, of whatever nature, of the delinquent, or in which he has any right, title, or interest, to the payment of such tax.” Section 7403(b) provides: “All persons having liens upon or claiming any interest in the property involved in such action shall be made parties thereto.” The suit is a plenary action in which the court “shall... adjudicate all matters involved therein and finally determine the merits of all claims to and liens upon the property.” § 7403(c). See generally United States v. Rodgers, 461 U. S. 677, 680-682 (1983). The second tool is the collection of the unpaid tax by administrative levy. The levy is a provisional remedy and typically “does not require any judicial intervention.” Id., at 682. The governing statute is § 6331(a). See n. 1, supra. It authorizes collection of the tax by levy which, by § 6331(b), “includes the power of distraint and seizure by any means.”
In the situation where a taxpayer’s property is held by another, a notice of levy upon the custodian is customarily served pursuant to § 6332(a). This notice gives the IRS the right to all property levied upon, United States v. Eiland, 223 F. 2d 118, 121 (CA4 1955), and creates a custodial relationship between the person holding the property and the IRS so that the property comes into the constructive possession of the Government. Phelps v. United States, 421 U. S. 330, 334 (1975). If the custodian honors the levy, he is “discharged from any obligation or liability to the delinquent taxpayer with respect to such property or rights to property arising from such surrender or payment.” § 6332(d). If, on the other hand, the custodian refuses to honor a levy, he incurs liability to the Government for his refusal. § 6332(c)(1).
The administrative levy has been aptly described as a “provisional remedy.” 4 Bittker, ¶ 111.5.5, at 111-108. In contrast to the lien-foreclosure suit, the levy does not determine whether the Government’s rights to the seized property are superior to those of other claimants; it, however, does protect the Government against diversion or loss while such claims are being resolved. “The underlying principle” justifying the administrative levy is “the need of the government promptly to secure its revenues.” Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 596 (1931). “Indeed, one may readily acknowledge that the existence of the levy power is an essential part of our self-assessment tax system,” for it “enhances voluntary compliance in the collection of taxes.” G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S. 338, 350 (1977). “Among the advantages of administrative levy is that it is quick and relatively inexpensive.” United States v. Rodgers, 461 U. S., at 699.
The constitutionality of the levy procedure, of course, “has long been settled.” Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S., at 595. See G. M. Leasing Corp. v. United States, 429 U. S., at 352, n. 18.
B
It is well established that a bank account is a species of property “subject to levy,” within the meaning of §§ 6331_and 6332. A levy on a bank account has been permitted since the Revenue Act of 1924, § 1016, 43 Stat. 343, and the Treasury Regulations explicitly authorize such levies. Treas. Reg. §301.6331-1(a)(1), 26 CFR §301.6331-1(a)(1) (1984).
The courts uniformly have held that a bank served with an IRS notice of levy “has only two defenses for a failure to comply with the demand.” United States v. Sterling National Bank & Trust Co. of New York, 494 F. 2d 919, 921 (CA2 1974), and cases cited. One defense is that the bank, in the words of § 6332(a), is neither “in possession of” nor “obligated with respect to” property or rights to property belonging to the delinquent taxpayer. The other defense, again with reference to § 6332(a), is that the taxpayer’s property is “subject to a prior judicial attachment or execution.” 494 F. 2d, at 921. Accord, Bank of Nevada v. United States, 251 F. 2d 820, 824 (CA9 1957), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 938 (1958).
There is no suggestion here that the Reeves accounts were subject to a prior judicial attachment or execution. Nor is there any doubt that the bank was “obligated with respect to” the accounts because, as it concedes, “Roy Reeves did have a right under Arkansas law to make withdrawals from the bank accounts in question.” Brief for Respondent 2. The bank’s only defense, therefore, is that the joint accounts did not constitute “property or rights to property” of Roy J. Reeves. See § 6331(a).
C
“ ‘[I]n the. application of a federal revenue act, state law controls in determining the nature of the legal interest which the taxpayer had in the property.’” Aquilino v. United States, 363 U. S. 509, 513 (1960), quoting Morgan v. Commissioner, 309 U. S. 78, 82 (1940). See also Sterling National Bank, 494 F. 2d, at 921. This follows from the fact that the federal statute “creates no property rights but merely attaches consequences, federally defined, to rights created under state law.” United States v. Bess, 357 U. S. 51, 55 (1958). And those consequences are “a matter left to federal law.” United States v. Rodgers, 461 U. S., at 683. “[O]nce it has been determined that state law creates sufficient interests in the [taxpayer] to satisfy the requirements of [the statute], state law is inoperative,” and the tax consequences thenceforth are dictated by federal law. United States v. Bess, 357 U. S., at 56-57. See also Fidelity & Deposit Co. of Maryland v. New York City Housing Authority, 241 F. 2d 142, 144 (CA2 1957); Note, Property Subject to the Federal Tax Lien, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 1485, 1486-1487 (1964).
In the Bess case, the Court held that a delinquent taxpayer, who had purchased life insurance policies, did not have “property or rights to property” in the death proceeds of the policies, but that he did have such rights in their cash surrender value. 357 U. S., at 55-56. The latter conclusion, it was said, followed from the fact that the taxpayer insured had “the right under the policy contract to compel the insurer to pay him this sum.” Id., at 56. Thus, the insured’s interest in the cash surrender value was subject to the federal tax lien. The fact that “under State law the insured’s property right represented by the cash surrender value is not subject to creditors’ liens” was irrelevant. Id., at 56-57. State law defined the nature of the taxpayer’s interest in the property, but the state-law consequences of that definition are of no concern to the operation of the federal tax law.
As noted above, it is stipulated that Roy J. Reeves had the unqualified right to withdraw the full amounts on deposit in the joint accounts without notice to his codepositors. In any event, wholly apart from the stipulation, Roy’s right of withdrawal is secured by his contract with the bank, as well as by the relevant Arkansas statutory provisions. See Ark. Stat. Ann. §§ 67-521 and 67-552 (1980). On its part, the bank was obligated to honor any withdrawal requests Roy might make, even up to the full amounts of the accounts. The Court of Appeals thus correctly concluded that, under Arkansas law, “Roy could have withdrawn any amount he wished from the account and used it to pay his debts, including federal income taxes, and his co-owners would have had no lawful complaint against the bank.” 726 F. 2d, at 1295.
Roy, then, had the absolute right under state law and under his contract with the bank to compel the payment of the outstanding balances in the two accounts. This, it seems to us, should have been an end to the case, for we agree with the Government that such a state-law right constituted “property [or] rights to property... belonging to” Roy, within the meaning of § 6331(a). The bank, in its turn, was “obligated with respect to” Roy’s right to that property, § 6332(a), since state law required it to honor any withdrawal request he might make. The bank had no basis for refusing to honor the levy.
The overwhelming majority of courts that have considered the issue have held that a delinquent taxpayer’s unrestricted right to withdraw constitutes “property” or “rights to property” subject to provisional IRS levy, regardless of the facts that other claims to the funds may exist and that the question of ultimate ownership may be unresolved at the time. See, e. g., United States v. Sterling National Bank & Trust Co. of New York, 494 F. 2d, at 921-922; United States v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 538 F. 2d 1101, 1105-1107 (CA5 1976), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 945 (1977); Citizens & Peoples National Bank of Pensacola, Fla. v. United States, 570 F. 2d 1279, 1282-1284 (CA5 1978); Babb v. Schmidt, 496 F. 2d 957, 958-960 (CA9 1974); Bank of Nevada v. United States, 251 F. 2d, at 824-826; United States v. First National Bank of Arizona, 348 F. Supp. 388, 389 (Ariz. 1970), aff’d, 458 F. 2d 513 (CA9 1972); United States v. Equitable Trust Co., 49 AFTR2d ¶ 82-428 (Md. 1982); Sebel v. Lytton Savings & Loan Assn., 65-1 USTC ¶9343 (SD Cal. 1965); Tyson v. United States, 63-1 USTC ¶9300 (Mass. 1962); United States v. Third Nat. Bank & Trust Co., 111 F. Supp. 152, 155-156 (MD Pa. 1953). And the Eighth Circuit itself has observed that the “unqualified contractual right to receive property is itself a property right subject to seizure by levy.” St. Louis Union Trust Co. v. United States, 617 F. 2d 1293, 1302 (1980).
Common sense dictates that a right to withdraw qualifies as a right to property for purposes of §§ 6331 and 6332. In a levy proceeding, the IRS “‘steps into the taxpayer’s shoes,”’ United States v. Rodgers, 461 U. S., at 691, n. 16, quoting 4 Bittker, ¶ 111.5.4, at 111-102; M. Saltzman, IRS Practice and Procedure ¶ 14.08, p. 14-32 (1981); Brief for Respondent 8. The IRS acquires whatever rights the taxpayer himself possesses. And in such circumstances, where, under state law, a taxpayer has the unrestricted right to withdraw funds from the account, “it is inconceivable that Congress... intended to prohibit the Government from levying on that which is plainly accessible to the delinquent taxpayer-depositor.” United States v. First National Bank of Arizona, 348 F. Supp., at 389. Accord, United States v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 538 F. 2d, at 1107. The taxpayer’s right to withdraw is analogous in this sense to the IRS’s right to levy on the property and secure the funds. Both actions are similarly provisional and subject to a later claim by a codepositor that the money in fact belongs to him or her.
Ill
The Court of Appeals, however, applied state law beyond the point of that law’s specification of the nature of the property right, and bound the IRS to certain consequences of state property law. Because under Arkansas garnishment law, a creditor of a depositor is not subrogated to the depositor’s power to withdraw the account, the court reasoned that the IRS, too, could not stand in the depositor’s shoes. This gloss, it seems to us, is contrary to the analysis and holding in United States v. Bess, 357 U. S. 51 (1958). The Court of Appeals adduced three principal justifications for its result. The first was its belief that under Arkansas law Roy did not have a sufficient property interest in the funds to support the levy. The second was its concern that Ruby and Neva might possess competing claims to the funds on deposit, and that the bank might be subject to claims asserted by them. The third was its stated conclusion that “levy is not normally intended for use as against property... bearing on its face the names of third parties, and in which those third parties likely have a property interest.” 726 F. 2d, at 1300.
We are not persuaded by any of these asserted justifications.
The Court of Appeals’ conclusion that Roy did not possess “property [or] rights to property” on which the IRS could levy rested heavily on its understanding of the Arkansas law of creditors’ rights, particularly those in garnishment. Id., at 1295-1296. See Hayden v. Gardner, 238 Ark. 351, 381 S. W. 2d 752 (1964). As we have suggested, this misconceives the role properly played by state law in federal tax-collection matters. The question whether a state-law right constitutes “property” or “rights to property” is a matter of federal law. United States v. Bess, 357 U. S., at 56-57. Thus, the facts that under Arkansas law Roy’s creditors, unlike Roy himself, could not exercise his right of withdrawal in their favor and in a garnishment proceeding would have to join his codepositors are irrelevant. The federal statute relates to the taxpayer’s rights to property and not to his creditors’ rights. The Court of Appeals would remit the IRS to the rights only an ordinary creditor would have under state law. That result “compare[s] the government to a class of creditors to which it is superior.” Randall v. H. Nakashima & Co., 542 F. 2d 270, 274, n. 8 (CA5 1976).
The Court of Appeals also was concerned that Ruby and Neva might have rights that are affected if the levy were honored. 726 F. 2d, at 1297-1300. This reasoning, however, runs counter to the observation above that a bank served with a notice of levy has two, and only two, possible defenses for failure to comply with the demand: that it is not in possession of property of the taxpayer, or that the property is subject to a prior judicial attachment or execution. As we have stated, neither defense is applicable here. That another party or parties may have competing claims to the accounts is not a legitimate statutory defense.
In its understandable concern for Ruby’s and Neva’s property interests, the Court of Appeals has ignored the statutory scheme established by Congress to protect those rights. Crucially, the administrative levy, as has been noted, is only a provisional remedy. “The final judgment in [a levy] action settles no rights in the property subject to seizure.” United States v. New England Merchants National Bank, 465 F. Supp. 83, 87 (Mass. 1979). Other claimants, if they have rights, may assert them. Congress recognized this when the Code’s summary-collection procedures were enacted, S. Rep. No. 1708, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 29 (1966), and when it provided in § 7426 of the Code, 26 U. S. C. § 7426, that one claiming an interest in property seized for another’s taxes may bring a civil action against the United States to have the property or the proceeds of its sale returned. Congress also has provided, by § 6343(b), an effective and inexpensive administrative remedy for the return of the property. See Treas. Reg. § 301.6343-1(b)(2), 26 CFR §301.6343-1(b)(2) (1984).
Congress thus balanced the interest of the Government in the speedy collection of taxes against the interests of any claimants to the property, and reconciled those interests by permitting the IRS to levy on the assets at once, leaving ownership disputes to be resolved in a postseizure administrative or judicial proceeding. See United Sand & Gravel Contractors, Inc. v. United States, 624 F. 2d 733, 739 (CA5 1980); Valley Finance, Inc. v. United States, 203 U. S. App. D. C. 128, 136-137, 629 F. 2d 162, 170-171 (1980), cert. denied sub nom. Pacific Development, Inc. v. United States, 451 U. S. 1018 (1981). Its decision that certain property rights must yield provisionally to governmental need should not have been disregarded by the Court of Appeals. Nor would the bank be exposed to double liability were it to honor the IRS levy. The Code provides administrative and judicial remedies for codepositors against the Government, and any attempt to secure payment in this situation from the bank itself would be contrary to the federal enforcement scheme.
The Court of Appeals’ final justification for its holding was its belief that an IRS levy “is not normally intended for use as against property in which third parties have an interest” or “as against property bearing on its face the names of third parties, and in which those third parties likely have a property interest.” 726 F. 2d, at 1300. The court acknowledged the existence of § 7426 but felt that that statute was designed to protect only those third parties “whose property has been seized ‘inadvertently.’” 726 F. 2d, at 1300.
We disagree. The IRS’s understanding of the terms of the Code is entitled to considerable deference. Here, moreover, collection provisions plainly contemplate that a taxpayer’s interest in property may be less than full ownership. The tax lien attaches not only to “property” but also to “rights to property.” See S. Rep. No. 1708, at 29. Further, we see nothing in the language of §7426 that distinguishes among various species of third-party claimants. The language of the statute encompasses advertent seizures as well as inadvertent ones. There is nothing express or implied in United States v. Rodgers, 461 U. S. 677 (1983), to the contrary.
Rodgers held that § 7403 empowers a district court to order the sale of a family house in which a delinquent taxpayer has an interest, even though a nondelinquent spouse also has a homestead interest in the house under state law. 461 U. S., at 698-700. In so ruling, the Court contrasted the operation of §7403 with that of §6331. See 461 U. S., at 696. The Court noted that §6331, unlike §7403, does not “implicate the rights of third parties,” because an administrative levy, unlike a judicial lien-foreclosure action, does not determine the ownership rights to the property. Instead, third parties whose property is seized in an administrative levy “are entitled to claim that the property has been ‘wrongfully levied upon,’ and may apply for its return either through administrative channels... or through a civil action.” Ibid. The Court, in other words, recognized what we now make explicit: that §6331 is a provisional remedy, which does not determine the rights of third parties until after the levy is made, in postseizure administrative or judicial hearings.
The Court of Appeals’ result would force the IRS, if it wished to pursue a delinquent taxpayer’s interest in a joint bank account, to institute a lien-foreclosure suit under § 7403, joining all codepositors as defendants. The practical effect of this would be to eliminate the alternative procedure for administrative levy under §§6331 and 6332. We do not lightly discard this alternative relief that Congress so clearly has provided for the Government. If the IRS were required to bring a lien-foreclosure suit each time it wished to execute a tax lien on funds in a joint bank account, it would be uneconomical, as a practical matter, to do so on small sums of money such as those at issue here. And it would be easy for a delinquent taxpayer to evade, or at least defer, his obligations by placing his funds in joint bank accounts. While one might not be enthusiastic about paying taxes, it is still true that “taxes are the life-blood of government, and their prompt and certain availability an imperious need.” Bull v. United States, 295 U. S. 247, 259 (1935).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Section 6331(a) reads in pertinent part:
“If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay the same within 10 days after notice and demand, it shall be lawful for the Secretary to collect such tax... by levy upon all property and rights to property (except such property as is exempt under section 6334) belonging to such person....”
Section 7701(a)(ll)(B) of the Code reads:
“The term ‘Secretary’ means the Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate.”
Section 6332(a) reads:
“Except as otherwise provided in subsection (b), any person in possession of (or obligated with respect to) property or rights to property subject to levy upon which a levy has been made shall, upon demand of the Secretary, surrender such property or rights (or discharge such obligation) to the Secretary, except such part of the property or rights as is, at the time of such demand, subject to an attachment or execution under any judicial process.”
“The basic legal conception of a ‘joint account’ means that it be in two or more names.” Harbour v. Harbour, 207 Ark. 551, 555, 181 S. W. 2d 805, 807 (1944).
No point is made as to any distinction between the “Roy J. Reeves” against whom the assessment was made, and the “Roy Reeves” whose name was on the two accounts. We assume, accordingly, that Roy J. Reeves and Roy Reeves are one and the same person.
The record does not disclose any relationship that may exist among the three codepositors. The parties have indicated that Neva is Roy’s wife and that Ruby is his mother.
The complaint also asserted liability, under § 6332(c)(2), for a 50% penalty. See App. 7. The Government, however, subsequently waived the penalty claim, and the complaint was amended accordingly. Id., at 13-15.
See, e. g., United States v. Sterling National Bank & Trust Co. of New York, 494 F. 2d 919, 922 (CA2 1974); United States v. Citizens & Southern National Bank, 538 F. 2d 1101, 1105-1107 (CA5 1976), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 945 (1977); Babb v. Schmidt, 496 F. 2d 957, 958-960 (CA9 1974); Bank of Nevada v. United States, 251 F. 2d 820, 824-826 (CA9 1957), cert. denied, 356 U. S. 938 (1958). See also Rev. Rul. 79-38, 1979-1 Cum. Bull. 406, 407.
Effective March 25, 1983, after the issuance of the notice of levy here, § 67-552 was amended and § 67-521 was repealed. 1983 Ark. Gen. Acts, No. 843, §§ 1 and 2. The result was recodification without substantial change.
The dissent misunderstands the import of United States v. Bess, 357 U. S. 51, 55 (1958). See post, at 741-748. Because state law gives the delinquent the right to withdraw, but puts certain limits on the rights of creditors, and attaches certain consequences to that right as regards the delinquent himself, the dissent asserts that the Government is limited by these same state-law constraints. Thus it urges that the Government’s right here is no greater than the rights given under state law, the right to withdraw and nothing else. It therefore erroneously characterizes the Government’s authority here as limited to the right to levy on the right to withdraw, and nothing else. See post, at 741-745, and nn. 9 and 10. But under Bess, state law controls only in determining the nature of the legal interest which the taxpayer has in the property. See also Aquilino v. United States, 363
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.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings in light of the decision of the Court announced today in City of Mobile v. Bolden, ante, p. 55.
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: | 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.
We granted certiorari to decide two questions of law. As framed by petitioners, they are:
“1. Whether the National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to include in each environmental impact statement: (a) a fully developed plan to mitigate environmental harm; and (b) a ‘worst case’ analysis of potential environmental harm if relevant information concerning significant environmental effects is unavailable or too costly to obtain.
“2. Whether the Forest Service may issue a special use permit for recreational use of national forest land in the absence of a fully developed plan to mitigate environmental harm.” Pet. for Cert. i.
Concluding that the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit misapplied the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 83 Stat. 852, 42 U. S. C. §4321 et seq., and gave inadequate deference to the Forest Service’s interpretation of its own regulations, we reverse and remand for further proceedings.
I
The Forest Service is authorized by statute to manage the national forests for “outdoor recreation, range, timber, watershed, and wildlife and fish purposes.” 74 Stat. 215, 16 U. S. C. §528. See also 90 Stat. 2949, 16 U. S. C. § 1600 et seq. Pursuant to that authorization, the Forest Service has issued “special use” permits for the operation of approximately 170 Alpine and Nordic ski areas on federal lands. See H. R. Rep. No. 99-709, pt. 1, p. 2 (1986).
The Forest Service permit process involves three separate stages. The Forest Service first examines the general environmental and financial feasibility of a proposed project and decides whether to issue a special use permit. See 36 CFR § 251.54(f) (1988). Because that decision is a “major Federal action” within the meaning of NEPA, it must be preceded by the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). 42 U. S. C. § 4332. If the Service decides to issue a permit, it then proceeds to select a developer, formulate the basic terms of the arrangement with the selected party, and issue the permit. The special use permit does not, however, give the developer the right to begin construction. See 36 CFR § 251.56(c) (1988). In a final stage of review, the Service evaluates the permittee’s “master plan” for development, construction, and operation of the project. Construction may begin only after an additional environmental analysis (although it is not clear that a second EIS need always be prepared) and final approval of the developer’s master plan. This case arises out of the Forest Service’s decision to issue a special use permit authorizing the development of a major destination Alpine ski resort at Sandy Butte in the North Cascade Mountains.
Sandy Butte is a 6,000-foot mountain located in the Okanogan National Forest in Okanogan County, Washington. At present Sandy Butte, like the Methow Valley it overlooks, is an unspoiled, sparsely populated area that the District Court characterized as “pristine.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a. In 1968, Congress established the North Cascades National Park and directed the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture to agree on the designation of areas within, and adjacent to, the park for public uses, including ski areas. 82 Stat. 926, 930, 16 U. S. C. §§90, 90d-3. A 1970 study conducted by the Forest Service pursuant to this congressional directive identified Sandy Butte as having the highest potential of any site in the State of Washington for development as a major downhill ski resort. App. to Pet. for Cert. 23a.
In 1978, Methow Recreation, Inc. (MRI), applied for a special use permit to develop and operate its proposed “Early Winters Ski Resort” on Sandy Butte and an 1,165-acre parcel of land it had acquired adjacent to the National Forest. The proposed development would make use of approximately 3,900 acres of Sandy Butte; would entice visitors to travel long distances to stay at the resort for several days at a time; and would stimulate extensive commercial and residential growth in the vicinity to accommodate both vacationers and staff.
In response to MRI’s application, the Forest Service, in cooperation with state and county officials, prepared an EIS known as the Early Winters Alpine Winter Sports Study (Early Winters Study or Study). The stated purpose of the EIS was “to provide the information required to evaluate the potential for skiing at Early Winters” and “to assist in making a decision whether to issue a Special Use Permit for downhill skiing on all or a portion of approximately 3900 acres of National Forest System land.” Early Winters Study 1. A draft of the Study was completed and circulated in 1982, but release of the final EIS was delayed as Congress considered including Sandy Butte in a proposed wilderness area. App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a. When the Washington State Wilderness Act of 1984 was passed, however, Sandy Butte was excluded from the wilderness designation, and the EIS was released.
The Early Winters Study is a printed document containing almost 150 pages of text and 12 appendices. It evaluated five alternative levels of development of Sandy Butte that might be authorized, the lowest being a “no action” alternative and the highest being development of a. 16-lift ski area able to accommodate 10,500 skiers at one time. The Study considered the effect of each level of development on water resources, soil, wildlife, air quality, vegetation, and visual quality, as well as land use and transportation in the Methow Valley, probable demographic shifts, the economic market for skiing and other summer and winter recreational activities in the Valley, and the energy requirements for the ski area and related developments. The Study’s discussion of possible impacts was not limited to on-site effects, but also, as required by Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) regulations, see 40 CFR §1502.16(b) (1987), addressed “off-site impacts that each alternative might have on community facilities, socio-economic and other environmental conditions in the Upper Methow Valley.” Early Winters Study 1. As to off-site effects, the Study explained that “due to the uncertainty of where other public and private lands may become developed,” it is difficult to evaluate off-site impacts, id., at 76, and thus the document’s analysis is necessarily “not site-specific,” id., at 1. Finally, the Study outlined certain steps that might be taken to mitigate adverse effects, both on Sandy Butte and in the neighboring Methow Valley, but indicated that these proposed steps are merely conceptual and “will be made more specific as part of the design and implementation stages of the planning process.” Id., at 14.
The effects of the proposed development on air quality and wildlife received particular attention in the Study. In the chapter on “Environmental Consequences,” the first subject discussed is air quality. As is true of other subjects, the discussion included an analysis of cumulative impacts over several years resulting from actions on other lands as well as from the development of Sandy Butte itself. The Study concluded that although the construction, maintenance, and operation of the proposed ski area “will not have a measurable effect on existing or future air quality,” the off-site development of private land under all five alternatives — including the “no action” alternative — “will have a significant effect on air quality during severe meteorological inversion periods.” Id., at 65. The burning of wood for space heat, the Study explained, would constitute the primary cause of diminished air quality, and the damage would increase incrementally with each of the successive levels of proposed development. Ibid. The Study cautioned that without efforts to mitigate these effects, even under the “no action” alternative, the increase in automobile, fireplace, and wood stove use would reduce air quality below state standards, but added that “[t]he numerous mitigation measures discussed” in the Study “will greatly reduce the impacts presented by the model.” Id., at 67.
In its discussion of air-quality mitigation measures, the EIS identified actions that could be taken by the county government to mitigate the adverse effects of development, as well as those that the Forest Service itself could implement at the construction stage of the project. The Study suggested that Okanogan County develop an air quality management plan, requiring weatherization of new buildings, limiting the number of wood stoves and fireplaces, and adopting monitoring and enforcement measures. In addition, the Study suggested that the Forest Service require that the master plan include procedures to control dust and to comply with smoke management practices.
In its discussion of adverse effects on area wildlife, the EIS concluded that no endangered or threatened species would be affected by the proposed development and that the only impact on sensitive species was the probable loss of a pair of spotted owls and their progeny. Id., at 75. With regard to other wildlife, the Study considered the impact on 75 different indigenous species and predicted that within a decade after development vegetational change and increased human activity would lead to a decrease in population for 31 species, while causing an increase in population for another 24 species on Sandy Butte. Ibid. Two species, the pine marten and nesting goshawk, would be eliminated altogether from the area of development. Ibid.
In a comment in response to the draft EIS, the Washington Department of Game voiced a special concern about potential losses to the State’s largest migratory deer herd, which uses the Methow Valley as a critical winter range and as its migration route. Id., at Appendix D (letter of November 18, 1982). The state agency estimated that the total population of mule deer in the area most likely to be affected was “better than 30,000 animals” and that “the ultimate impact on the Methow deer herd could exceed a 50 percent reduction in numbers.” Ibid. The agency asserted that “Okanogan County residents place a great deal of importance on the area’s deer herd.” Ibid. In addition, it explained that hunters had “harvested” 3,247 deer in the Methow Valley area in 1981, and that, since in 1980 hunters on average spent $1,980 for each deer killed in Washington, they had contributed over $6 million to the State’s economy in 1981. Because the deer harvest is apparently proportional to the size of the herd, the state agency predicted that “Washington business can expect to lose over $3 million annually from reduced recreational opportunity.” Ibid. The Forest Service’s own analysis of the impact on the deer herd was more modest. It first concluded that the actual operation of the ski hill would have only a “minor” direct impact on the herd, but then recognized that the off-site effect of the development “would noticeably reduce numbers of deer in the Methow [Valley] with any alternative.” Id., at 76. Although its estimate indicated a possible 15 percent decrease in the size of the herd, it summarized the State’s contrary view in the text of the EIS, and stressed that off-site effects are difficult to estimate due to uncertainty concerning private development. Ibid.
As was true of its discussion of air quality, the EIS also described both on-site and off-site mitigation measures. Among possible on-site mitigation possibilities, the Study recommended locating runs, ski lifts, and roads so as to minimize interference with wildlife, restricting access to selected roads during fawning season, and further examination of the effect of the development on mule deer migration routes. Off-site options discussed in the Study included the use of zoning and tax incentives to limit development on deer winter range and migration routes, encouragement of conservation easements, and acquisition and management by local government of critical tracts of land. As with the measures suggested for mitigating the off-site effects on air quality, the proposed options were primarily directed to steps that might be taken by state and local government.
Ultimately, the Early Winters Study recommended the issuance of a permit for development at the second highest level considered — a 16-lift ski area able to accommodate 8,200 skiers at one time. On July 5, 1984, the Regional Forester decided to issue a special use permit as recommended by the Study. App. to Pet. for Cert. 63a. In his decision, the Regional Forester found that no major adverse effects would result directly from the federal action, but that secondary effects could include a degradation of existing air quality and a reduction of mule deer winter range. Id., at 67a. He therefore directed the supervisor of the Okanogan National Forest, both independently and in cooperation with local officials, to identify and implement certain mitigating measures. Id., at 67a-70a.
Four organizations (respondents) opposing the decision to issue a permit appealed the Regional Forester’s decision to the Chief of the Forest Service. See 36 CFR § 211.18 (1988). After a hearing, he affirmed the Regional Forester’s decision. Stressing that the decision, which simply approved the general concept of issuing a 30-year special use permit for development of Sandy Butte, did not authorize construction of a particular ski area and, in fact, did not even act on MRI’s specific permit application, he concluded that the EIS’ discussion of mitigation was “adequate for this stage in the review process.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 59a.
Thereafter, respondents brought this action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§701-706, to obtain judicial review of the Forest Service’s decision. Their principal claim was that the Early Winters Study did not satisfy the requirements of NEPA, 42 U. S. C. §4332. With the consent of the parties, the case was assigned to a United States Magistrate. See 28 U. S. C. § 636(c). After a trial, the Magistrate filed a comprehensive written opinion and concluded that the EIS was adequate. App. to Pet. for Cert. 20a. Specifically, he found that the EIS had adequately disclosed the adverse impacts on the mule deer herd and on air quality and that there was no duty to prepare a “worst case analysis” because the relevant information essential to a reasoned decision was available. Id., at 39a-44a. In concluding that the discussion of off-site, or secondary, impacts was adequate, the Magistrate stressed that courts apply a “rule of reason” in evaluating the adequacy of an EIS and “take the uncertainty and speculation involved with secondary impacts into account in passing on the adequacy of the discussion of secondary impacts.” Id,., at 38a. On the subject of mitigation, he explained that “[m]ere listing... is generally inadequate to satisfy the CEQ regulations,” but found that “in this EIS there is more — not much more — but more than a mere listing of mitigation measures.” Id., at 41a. Moreover, emphasizing the tiered nature of the Forest Service’s decisional process, the Magistrate noted that additional mitigation strategies would be included in the master plan, that the Forest Service continues to develop mitigation plans as further information becomes available, and that the Regional Forester’s decision conditioned issuance of the special use permit on execution of an agreement between the Forest Service, the State of Washington, and Okanogan County concerning mitigation. Id., at 41a-42a, 45a.
Concluding that the Early Winters Study was inadequate as a matter of law, the Court of Appeals reversed. Methow Valley Citizens Council v. Regional Forester, 833 F. 2d 810 (CA9 1987). The court held that the Forest Service could not rely on “ ‘the implementation of mitigation measures’ ” to support its conclusion that the impact on the mule deer would be minor, “since not only has the effectiveness of these mitigation measures not yet been assessed, but the mitigation measures themselves have yet to be developed.” Id., at 817. It then added that if the agency had difficulty obtaining adequate information to make a reasoned assessment of the environmental impact on the herd, it had a duty to make a so-called “worst case analysis.” Such an analysis is “‘formulated on the basis of available information, using reasonable projections of the worst possible consequences of a proposed action.’ Save our Ecosystems, 747 F. 2d, at 1244-45 (quoting 46 Fed. Reg. 18032 (1981)).” Ibid.
The court found a similar defect in the EIS’ treatment of air quality. Since the EIS made it clear that commercial development in the Methow Valley will result in violations of state air-quality standards unless effective mitigation measures are put in place by the local governments and the private developer, the Court of Appeals concluded that the Forest Service had an affirmative duty to “develop the necessary mitigation measures before the permit is granted.” Id., at 819 (emphasis in original) (footnote omitted). The court held that this duty was imposed by both the Forest Service’s own regulations and § 102 of NEPA. Ibid. It read the statute as imposing a substantive requirement that “ ‘action be taken to mitigate the adverse effects of major federal actions.’” Ibid. (quoting Stop H-3 Assn. v. Brinegar, 389 F. Supp. 1102, 1111 (Haw. 1974), rev’d on other grounds, 533 F. 2d 434 (CA9), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 999 (1976)). For this reason, it concluded that “an EIS must include a thorough discussion of measures to mitigate the adverse environmental impacts of a proposed action.” 833 F. 2d, at 819. The Court of Appeals concluded by quoting this paragraph from an opinion it had just announced:
“‘The importance of the mitigation plan cannot be overestimated. It is a determinative factor in evaluating the adequacy of an environmental impact statement. Without a complete mitigation plan, the decisionmaker is unable to make an informed judgment as to the environmental impact of the project — one of the main purposes of an environmental impact statement.’” Id., at 820 (quoting Oregon Natural Resources Council v. Marsh, 832 F. 2d 1489, 1493 (CA9 1987), rev’d, post, p. 360).
II
Section 101 of NEPA declares a broad national commitment to protecting and promoting environmental quality. 83 Stat. 852, 42 U. S. C. §4331. To ensure that this commitment is “infused into the ongoing programs and actions of the Federal Government, the act also establishes some important ‘action-forcing’ procedures.” 115 Cong. Rec. 40416 (remarks of Sen. Jackson). See also S. Rep. No. 91-296, p. 19 (1969); Andrus v. Sierra Club, 442 U. S. 347, 350 (1979); Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U. S. 390, 409, and n. 18 (1976). Section 102 thus, among other measures
“directs that, to the fullest extent possible... all agencies of the Federal Government shall—
“(C) include in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, a detailed statement by the responsible official on—
“(i) the environmental impact of the proposed action,
“(ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,
“(iii) alternatives to the proposed action,
“(iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man’s environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and
“(v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.” 83 Stat. 853, 42 U. S. C. §4332.
The statutory requirement that a federal agency contemplating a major action prepare such an environmental impact statement serves NEPA’s “action-forcing” purpose in two important respects. See Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 462 U. S. 87, 97 (1983); Weinberger v. Catholic Action of Hawaii/Peace Education Project, 454 U. S. 139, 143 (1981). It ensures that the agency, in reaching its decision, will have available, and will carefully consider, detailed information concerning significant environmental impacts; it also guarantees that the relevant information will be made available to the larger audience that may also play a role in both the decisionmaking process and the implementation of that decision.
Simply by focusing the agency’s attention on the environmental consequences of a proposed project, NEPA ensures that important effects will not be overlooked or underestimated only to be discovered after resources have been committed or the die otherwise cast. See ibid.; Kleppe, supra, at 409. Moreover, the strong precatory language of § 101 of the Act and the requirement that agencies prepare detailed impact statements inevitably bring pressure to bear on agencies “to respond to the needs of environmental quality.” 115 Cong. Rec. 40425 (1969) (remarks of Sen. Muskie).
Publication of an EIS, both in draft and final form, also serves a larger informational role. It gives the public the assurance that the agency “has indeed considered environmental concerns in its decisionmaking process,” Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., supra, at 97, and, perhaps more significantly, provides a springboard for public comment, see L. Caldwell, Science and the National Environmental Policy Act 72 (1982). Thus, in this case the final draft of the Early Winters Study reflects not only the work of the Forest Service itself, but also the critical views of the Washington State Department of Game, the Methow Valley Citizens Council, and Friends of the Earth, as well as many others, to whom copies of the draft Study were circulated. See Early Winters Study, Appendix D. Moreover, with respect to a development such as Sandy Butte, where the adverse effects on air quality and the mule deer herd are primarily attributable to predicted off-site development that will be subject to regulation by other governmental bodies, the EIS serves the function of offering those bodies adequate notice of the expected consequences and the opportunity to plan and implement corrective measures in a timely manner.
The sweeping policy goals announced in § 101 of NEPA are thus realized through a set of “action-forcing” procedures that require that agencies take a “‘hard look’ at environmental consequences,” Kleppe, 427 U. S., at 410, n. 21 (citation omitted), and that provide for broad dissemination of relevant environmental information. Although these procedures are almost certain to affect the agency’s substantive decision, it is now well settled that NEPA itself does not mandate particular results, but simply prescribes the necessary process. See Strycker’s Bay Neighborhood Council, Inc. v. Karlen, 444 U. S. 223, 227-228 (1980) (per curiam); Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Corp. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 435 U. S. 519, 558 (1978). If the adverse environmental effects of the proposed action are adequately identified and evaluated, the agency is not constrained by NEPA from deciding that other values outweigh the environmental costs. See ibid.; Strycker’s Bay Neighborhood Council, Inc., supra, at 227-228; Kleppe, supra, at 410, n. 21. In this case, for example, it would not have violated NEPA if the Forest Service, after complying with the Act’s procedural prerequisites, had decided that the benefits to be derived from downhill skiing at Sandy Butte justified the issuance of a special use permit, notwithstanding the loss of 15 percent, 50 percent, or even 100 percent of the mule deer herd. Other statutes may impose substantive environmental obligations on federal agencies, but NEPA merely prohibits uninformed — rather than unwise — agency action.
To be sure, one important ingredient of an EIS is the discussion of steps that can be taken to mitigate adverse environmental consequences. The requirement that an EIS contain a detailed discussion of possible mitigation measures flows both from the language of the Act and, more expressly, from CEQ’s implementing regulations. Implicit in NEPA’s demand that an agency prepare a detailed statement on “any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,” 42 U. S. C. § 4332(C)(ii), is an understanding that the EIS will discuss the extent to which adverse effects can be avoided. See D. Mandelker, NEPA Law and Litigation § 10:38 (1984). More generally, omission of a reasonably complete discussion of possible mitigation measures would undermine the “action-forcing” function of NEPA. Without such a discussion, neither the agency nor other interested groups and individuals can properly evaluate the severity of the adverse effects. An adverse effect that can be fully remedied by, for example, an inconsequential public expenditure is certainly not as serious as a similar effect that can only be modestly ameliorated through the commitment of vast public and private resources. Recognizing the importance of such a discussion in guaranteeing that the agency has taken a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of proposed federal action, CEQ regulations require that the agency discuss possible mitigation measures in defining the scope of the EIS, 40 CFR § 1508.25(b) (1987), in discussing alternatives to the proposed action, § 1502.14(f), and consequences of that action, § 1502.16(h), and in explaining its ultimate decision, § 1505.2(c).
There is a fundamental distinction, however, between a requirement that mitigation be discussed in sufficient detail to ensure that environmental consequences have been fairly evaluated, on the one hand, and a substantive requirement that a complete mitigation plan be actually formulated and adopted, on the other. In this case, the off-site effects on air quality and on the mule deer herd cannot be mitigated unless nonfederal government agencies take appropriate action. Since it is those state and local governmental bodies that have jurisdiction over the area in which the adverse effects need be addressed and since they have the authority to mitigate them, it would be incongruous to conclude that the Forest Service has no power to act until the local agencies have reached a final conclusion on what mitigating measures they consider necessary. Even more significantly, it would be inconsistent with NEPA’s reliance on procedural mechanisms — as opposed to substantive, result-based standards — to demand the presence of a fully developed plan that will mitigate environmental harm before an agency can act. Cf. Baltimore Gas & Electric Co., 462 U. S., at 100 (“NEPA does not require agencies to adopt any particular internal decisionmaking structure”).
We thus conclude that the Court of Appeals erred, first, in assuming that “NEPA requires that ‘action be taken to mitigate the adverse effects of major federal actions,”’ 833 F. 2d, at 819 (quoting Stop H-3 Assn. v. Brinegar, 389 F. Supp., at 1111), and, second, in finding that this substantive requirement entails the further duty to include in every EIS “a detailed explanation of specific measures which will be employed to mitigate the adverse impacts of a proposed action,” 833 F. 2d, at 819 (emphasis supplied).
Ill
The Court of Appeals also concluded that the Forest Service had an obligation to make a “worst case analysis” if it could not make a reasoned assessment of the impact of the Early Winters project on the mule deer herd. Such a “worst case analysis” was required at one time by CEQ regulations, but those regulations have since been amended. Moreover, although the prior regulations may well have expressed a permissible application of NEPA, the Act itself does not mandate that uncertainty in predicting environmental harms be addressed exclusively in this manner. Accordingly, we conclude that the Court of Appeals also erred in requiring the “worst case” study.
In 1977, President Carter directed that CEQ promulgate binding regulations implementing the procedural provisions of NEPA. Exec. Order No. 11991, 3 CFR 123 (1977 Comp.). Pursuant to this Presidential order, CEQ promulgated implementing regulations. Under § 1502.22 of these regulations — a provision which became known as the “worst case requirement” — CEQ provided that if certain information relevant to the agency’s evaluation of the proposed action is either unavailable or too costly to obtain, the agency must include in the EIS a “worst case analysis and an indication of the probability or improbability of its occurrence.” 40 CFR § 1502.22 (1985). In 1986, however, CEQ replaced the “worst case” requirement with a requirement that federal agencies, in the face of unavailable information concerning a reasonably foreseeable significant environmental consequence, prepare “a summary of existing credible scientific evidence which is relevant to evaluating the... adverse impacts” and prepare an “evaluation of such impacts based upon theoretical approaches or research methods generally accepted in the scientific community.” 40 CFR § 1502.22(b) (1987). The amended regulation thus “retains the duty to describe the consequences of a remote, but potentially severe impact, but grounds the duty in evaluation of scientific opinion rather than in the framework of a conjectural ‘worst case analysis.’” 50 Fed. Reg. 32237 (1985).
The Court of Appeals recognized that the “worst case analysis” regulation has been superseded, yet held that “[t]his rescission... does not nullify the requirement... since the regulation was merely a codification of prior NEPA case law.” 833 F. 2d, at 817, n. 11. This conclusion, however, is erroneous in a number of respects. Most notably, review of NEPA case law reveals that the regulation, in fact, was not a codification of prior judicial decisions. See Note, 86 Mich. L. Rev. 777, 798, 800-802, 813-814 (1988). The cases cited by the Court of Appeals ultimately rely on the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Sierra Club v. Sigler, 695 F. 2d 957 (1983). Sigler, however, simply recognized that the “worst case analysis” regulation codified the “judicially created principl[e]” that an EIS must “consider the probabilities of the occurrence of any environmental effects it discusses.” Id., at 970-971. As CEQ recognized at the time it superseded the regulation, case law prior to the adoption of the “worst case analysis” provision did require agencies to describe environmental impacts even in the face of substantial uncertainty, but did not require that this obligation necessarily be met through the mechanism of a “worst case analysis.” See 51 Fed. Reg. 15625 (1986). CEQ’s abandonment of the “worst case analysis” provision, therefore, is not inconsistent with any previously established judicial interpretation of the statute.
Nor are we convinced that the new CEQ regulation is not controlling simply because it was preceded by a rule that was in some respects more demanding. In Andrus v. Sierra Club, 442 U. S., at 358, we held that CEQ regulations are entitled to substantial deference. In that case we recognized that although less deference may be in order in some cases in which the “ ‘administrative guidelines’ ” conflict “ ‘with earlier pronouncements of the agency,”’ ibid, (quoting General Electric Co. v. Gilbert, 429 U. S. 125, 143 (1976)), substantial deference is nonetheless appropriate if there appears to have been good reason for the change, 442 U. S., at 358. Here, the amendment only came after the prior regulation had been subjected to considerable criticism. Moreover, the amendment was designed to better serve the twin functions of an EIS — requiring agencies to take a “hard look” at the consequences of the proposed action and providing important information to other groups and individuals. CEQ explained that by requiring that an EIS focus on reasonably foreseeable impacts, the new regulation “will generate information and discussion on those consequences of greatest concern to the public and of greatest relevance to the agency’s decision,” 50 Fed. Reg. 32237 (1985), rather than distorting the decisionmaking process by overemphasizing highly speculative harms, 51 Fed. Reg. 15624-15625 (1986); 50 Fed. Reg. 32236 (1985). In light of this well-considered basis for the change, the new regulation is entitled to substantial deference. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that the Early Winters Study is inadequate because it failed to include a “worst case analysis.”
IV
The Court of Appeals also held that the Forest Service’s failure to develop a complete mitigation plan violated the agency’s own regulations. 833 F. 2d, at 814, n. 3, 819, and n. 14. Those regulations require that an application for a special use permit include “measures and plans for the protection and rehabilitation of the environment during construction, operation, maintenance, and termination of the project,” 36 CFR § 251.54(e)(4) (1988), and that “[e]ach special use authorization... contain... [t]erms and conditions which will... minimize damage to scenic and esthetic values and fish and wildlife habitat and otherwise protect the environment,” § 251.56(a)(1)(h). Applying those regulations, the Court of Appeals concluded that “[sjince the mitigation ‘plan’ here at issue is so vague and undeveloped as to be wholly inadequate,... the Regional Forester’s decision to grant the special use permit could be none other than arbitrary, capricious and an abuse of discretion.” 833 F. 2d, at 814, n. 3. We disagree.
The Early Winters Study made clear that on-site effects of the development will be minimal and will be easily mitigated. For example, the Study reported that “[i]mpacts from construction, maintenance and operation of the proposed ‘hill’ development on National Forest land will not have a measurable effect on existing or future air quality,” Early Winters Study 65, and that “[t]he effect development and operation of the ski hill would have on deer migration should be minor,” id., at 76. Given the limited on-site effects of the proposed development, the recommended ameliorative steps — which, for example, called for “prompt re vegetation of all disturbed areas,” id., at 69, and suggested locating “new service roads away from water resources and fawning cover,” id., at 16— cannot be deemed overly vague or underdeveloped.
The Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the Early Winters Study’s treatment of possible mitigation measures is inadequate apparently turns on the court’s review of the proposed off-site measures. Although NEPA and CEQ regulations require detailed analysis of both on-site and off-site mitigation measures, see, e. g., 40 CFR § 1502.16(b) (1987), there is no basis for concluding that the Forest Service’s own regulations must also be read in all cases to condition issuance of a special use permit on consideration (and implementation) of off-site mitigation measures. The Forest Service regulations were promulgated pursuant to a broad grant of authority “to permit the use and occupancy of suitable areas of land within the national forests... for the purpose of constructing or maintaining hotels, resorts, and any other structures or facilities necessary or desirable for recreation, public convenience, or safety,” 16 U. S. C. §497, and were not based on the more direct congressional concern for environmental quality embodied in NEPA. See H. R. Rep. No. 99-709, pt. 1, p. 2 (1986). As is clear from the text of the permit issued to MRI, the Forest Service has decided to implement its mitigation regulations by imposing appropriate controls over MRI’s actual development and operation during the term of the permit
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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court, except as to Part II-A-2.
The principle that government may not enact laws that suppress religious belief or practice is so well understood that few violations are recorded in our opinions. Cf. McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S. 67 (1953). Concerned that this fundamental nonperseeution principle of the First Amendment was implicated here, however, we granted certiorari. 503 U. S. 935 (1992).
Our review confirms that the laws in question were enacted by officials who did not understand, failed to perceive, or chose to ignore the fact that their official actions violated the Nation’s essential commitment to religious freedom. The challenged laws had an impermissible object; and in all events the principle of general applicability was violated because the secular ends asserted in defense of the laws were pursued only with respect to conduct motivated by religious beliefs. We invalidate the challenged enactments and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
A
This case involves practices of the Santería religion, which originated in the 19th century. When hundreds of thousands of members of the Yoruba people were brought as slaves from western Africa to Cuba, their traditional African religion absorbed significant elements of Roman Catholicism. The resulting syncretion, or fusion, is Santería, “the way of the saints.” The Cuban Yoruba express their devotion to spirits, called orishas, through the iconography of Catholic saints, Catholic symbols are often present at Santería rites, and Santería devotees attend the Catholic sacraments. 723 F. Supp. 1467, 1469-1470 (SD Fla. 1989); 13 Encyclopedia of Religion 66 (M. Eliade ed. 1987); 1 Encyclopedia of the American Religious Experience 183 (C. Lippy & P. Williams eds. 1988).
The Santería faith teaches that every individual has a destiny from God, a destiny fulfilled with the aid and energy of the orishas. The basis of the Santería religion is the nurture of a personal relation with the orishas, and one of the principal forms of devotion is an animal sacrifice. 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, swpra, at 66. The sacrifice of animals as part of religious rituals has ancient roots. See generally 12 id., at 554-556. Animal sacrifice is mentioned throughout the Old Testament, see 14 Encyclopaedia Judaica 600, 600-605 (1971), and it played an important role in the practice of Judaism before destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem, see id., at 605-612. In modern Islam, there is an annual sacrifice commemorating Abraham’s sacrifice of a ram in the stead of his son. See C. Glassé, Concise Encyclopedia of Islam 178 (1989); 7 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 456.
According to Santería teaching, the orishas are powerful but not immortal. They depend for survival on the sacrifice. Sacrifices are performed at birth, marriage, and death rites, for the cure of the sick, for the initiation of new members and priests, and during an annual celebration. Animals sacrificed in Santería rituals include chickens, pigeons, doves, ducks, guinea pigs, goats, sheep, and turtles. The animals are killed by the cutting of the carotid arteries in the neck. The sacrificed animal is cooked and eaten, except after healing and death rituals. See 723 F. Supp., at 1471-1472; 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 66; M. González-Wippler, The Santería Experience 105 (1982).
Santería adherents faced widespread persecution in Cuba, so the religion and its rituals were practiced in secret. The open practice of Santería and its rites remains infrequent. See 723 F. Supp., at 1470; 13 Encyclopedia of Religion, supra, at 67; M. González-Wippler, Santería: The Religion 3-4 (1989). The religion was brought to this Nation most often by exiles from the Cuban revolution. The District Court estimated that there are at least 50,000 practitioners in South Florida today. See 723 F. Supp., at 1470.
B
Petitioner Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. (Church), is a not-for-profit corporation organized under Florida law in 1973. The Church and its congregants practice the Santería religion. The president of the Church is petitioner Ernesto Pichardo, who is also the Church’s priest and holds the religious title of Italero, the second highest in the Santería faith. In April 1987, the Church leased land in the city of Hialeah, Florida, and announced plans to establish a house of worship as well as a school, cultural center, and museum. Pichardo indicated that the Church’s goal was to bring the practice of the Santería faith, including its ritual of animal sacrifice, into the open. The Church began the process of obtaining utility service and receiving the necessary licensing, inspection, and zoning approvals. Although the Church’s efforts at obtaining the necessary licenses and permits were far from smooth, see 723 F. Supp., at 1477-1478, it appears that it received all needed approvals by early August 1987.
The prospect of a Santería church in their midst was distressing to many members of the Hialeah community, and the announcement of the plans to open a Santería church in Hialeah prompted the city council to hold an emergency public session on June 9, 1987. The resolutions and ordinances passed at that and later meetings are set forth in the Appendix following this opinion.
A summary suffices here, beginning with the enactments passed at the June 9 meeting. First, the city council adopted Resolution 87-66, which noted the “concern” expressed by residents of the city “that certain religions may propose to engage in practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety,” and declared that “[t]he City reiterates its commitment to a prohibition against any and all acts of any and all religious groups which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety.” Next, the council approved an emergency ordinance, Ordinance 87-40, which incorporated in full, except as to penalty, Florida’s animal cruelty laws. Fla. Stat. ch. 828 (1987). Among other things, the incorporated state law subjected to criminal punishment “[w]hoever... unnecessarily or cruelly... kills any animal.” §828.12.
The city council desired to undertake further legislative action, but Florida law prohibited a municipality from enacting legislation relating to animal cruelty that conflicted with state law. § 828.27(4). To obtain clarification, Hialeah’s city attorney requested an opinion from the attorney general of Florida as to whether §828.12 prohibited “a religious group from sacrificing an animal in a religious ritual or practice” and whether the city could enact ordinances “making religious animal sacrifice unlawful.” The attorney general responded in mid-July. He concluded that the “ritual sacrifice of animals for purposes other than food consumption” was not a “necessary” killing and so was prohibited by §828.12. Fla. Op. Atty. Gen. 87-56, Annual Report of the Atty. Gen. 146, 147, 149 (1988). The attorney general appeared to define “unnecessary” as “done without any useful motive, in a spirit of wanton cruelty or for the mere pleasure of destruction without being in any sense beneficial or useful to the person killing the animal.” Id., at 149, n. 11. He advised that religious animal sacrifice was against state law, so that a city ordinance prohibiting it would not be in conflict. Id., at 151.
The city council responded at first with a hortatory enactment, Resolution 87-90, that noted its residents’ “great concern regarding the possibility of public ritualistic animal sacrifices” and the state-law prohibition. The resolution declared the city policy “to oppose the ritual sacrifices of animals” within Hialeah and announced that any person or organization practicing animal sacrifice “will be prosecuted.”
In September 1987, the city council adopted three substantive ordinances addressing the issue of religious animal sacrifice. Ordinance 87-52 defined “sacrifice” as “to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption,” and prohibited owning or possessing an animal “intending to use such animal for food purposes.” It restricted application of this prohibition, however, to any individual or group that “kills, slaughters or sacrifices animals for any type of ritual, regardless of whether or not the flesh or blood of the animal is to be consumed.” The ordinance contained an exemption for slaughtering by “licensed establishment[s]” of animals “specifically raised for food purposes.” Declaring, moreover, that the city council “has determined that the sacrificing of animals within the city limits is contrary to the public health, safety, welfare and morals of the community,” the city council adopted Ordinance 87-71. That ordinance defined “sacrifice” as had Ordinance 87-52, and then provided that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any person, persons, corporations or associations to sacrifice any animal within the corporate limits of the City of Hialeah, Florida.” The final Ordinance, 87-72, defined “slaughter” as “the killing of animals for food” and prohibited slaughter outside of areas zoned for slaughterhouse use. The ordinance provided an exemption, however, for the slaughter or processing for sale of “small numbers of hogs and/or cattle per week in accordance with an exemption provided by state law.” All ordinances and resolutions passed the city council by unanimous vote. Violations of each of the four ordinances were punishable by fines not exceeding $500 or imprisonment not exceeding 60 days, or both.
Following enactment of these ordinances, the Chureh and Pichardo filed this action pursuant to 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Named as defendants were the city of Hialeah and its mayor and members of its city council in their individual capacities. Alleging violations of petitioners’ rights under, inter alia, the Free Exercise Clause, the complaint sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive and monetary relief. The District Court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants, finding that they had absolute immunity for their legislative acts and that the ordinances and resolutions adopted by the council did not constitute an official policy of harassment, as alleged by petitioners. 688 F. Supp. 1522 (SD Fla. 1988).
After a 9-day bench trial on the remaining claims, the District Court ruled for the city, finding no violation of petitioners’ rights under the Free Exercise Clause. 723 F. Supp. 1467 (SD Fla. 1989). (The court rejected as well petitioners’ other claims, which are not at issue here.) Although acknowledging that “the ordinances are not religiously neutral,” id., at 1476, and that the city’s concern about animal sacrifice was “prompted” by the establishment of the Church in the city, id., at 1479, the District Court concluded that the purpose of the ordinances was not to exclude the Church from the city but to end the practice of animal sacrifice, for whatever reason practiced, id., at 1479,1483. The court also found that the ordinances did not target religious conduct “on their face,” though it noted that in any event “specifically regulating [religious] conduct” does not violate the First Amendment “when [the conduct] is deemed inconsistent with public health and welfare.” Id., at 1483-1484. Thus, the court concluded that, at most, the ordinances’ effect on petitioners’ religious conduct was “incidental to [their] secular purpose and effect.” Id., at 1484.
The District Court proceeded to determine whether the governmental interests underlying the ordinances were compelling and, if so, to balance the “governmental and religious, interests.” The court noted that “[t]his ‘balance depends upon the cost to the government of altering its activity to allow the religious practice to continue unimpeded versus the cost to the religious interest imposed by the government activity.’ ” Ibid., quoting Grosz v. City of Miami Beach, 721 F. 2d 729, 734 (CA11 1983), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 827 (1984). The court found four compelling interests. First, the court found that animal sacrifices present a substantial health risk, both to participants and the general public. According to the court, animals that are to be sacrificed are often kept in unsanitary conditions and are uninspected, and animal remains are found in public places. 723 F. Supp., at 1474-1475, 1485. Second, the court found emotional injury to children who witness the sacrifice of animals. Id., at 1475-1476, 1485-1486. Third, the court found compelling the city’s interest in protecting animals from cruel and unnecessary killing. The court determined that the method of killing used in Santería sacrifice was “unreliable and not humane, and that the animals, before being sacrificed, are often kept in conditions that produce a great deal of fear and stress in the animal.” Id., at 1472-1473, 1486. Fourth, the District Court found compelling the city’s interest in restricting the slaughter or sacrifice of animals to areas zoned for slaughterhouse use. Id., at 1486. This legal determination was not accompanied by factual findings.
Balancing the competing governmental and religious interests, the District Court concluded the compelling governmental interests “fully justify the absolute prohibition on ritual sacrifice” accomplished by the ordinances. Id., at 1487. The court also concluded that an exception to the sacrifice prohibition for religious conduct would “‘unduly interfere with fulfillment of the governmental interest’ ” because any more narrow restrictions — e. g., regulation of disposal of animal carcasses — would be unenforceable as a result of the secret nature of the Santería religion. Id., at 1486-1487, and nn. 57-59. A religious exemption from the city’s ordinances, concluded the court, would defeat the city’s compelling interests in enforcing the prohibition. Id., at 1487.
The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed in a one-paragraph per curiam opinion. Judgt. order reported at 936 F. 2d 586 (1991). Choosing not to rely on the District Court’s recitation of a compelling interest in promoting the welfare of children, the Court of Appeals stated simply that it concluded the ordinances were consistent with the Constitution. App. to Pet. for Cert. A2. It declined to address the effect of Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), decided after the District Court’s opinion, because the District Court “employed an arguably stricter standard” than that applied in Smith. App. to Pet. for Cert. A2, n. 1.
>-H
The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which has been applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 303 (1940), provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof____” (Emphasis added.) The city does not argue that Santería is not a “religion” within the meaning of the First Amendment. Nor could it. Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, “religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection.” Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707, 714 (1981). Given the historical association between animal sacrifice and religious worship, see supra, at 524-525, petitioners’ assertion that animal sacrifice is an integral part of their religion “cannot be deemed bizarre or incredible.” Frazee v. Illinois Dept. of Employment Security, 489 U. S. 829, 834, n. 2 (1989). Neither the city nor the courts below, moreover, have questioned the sincerity of petitioners’ professed desire to conduct animal sacrifices for religious reasons. We must consider petitioners’ First Amendment claim.
In addressing the constitutional protection for free exercise of religion, our eases establish the general proposition that a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice. Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, supra. Neutrality and general applicability are interrelated, and, as becomes apparent in this ease, failure to satisfy one requirement is a likely indication that the other has not been satisfied. A law failing to satisfy these requirements must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to advance that interest. These ordinances fail to satisfy the Smith requirements. We begin by discussing neutrality.
A
In our Establishment Clause cases we have often stated the principle that the First Amendment forbids an official purpose to disapprove of a particular religion or of religion in general. See, e. g., Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 248 (1990) (plurality opinion); School Dist. of Grand Rapids v. Ball, 473 U. S. 373, 389 (1985); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 56 (1985); Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U. S. 97, 106-107 (1968); School Dist. of Abington v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203, 225 (1963); Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1947). These cases, however, for the most part have addressed governmental efforts to benefit religion or particular religions, and so have dealt with a question different, at least in its formulation and emphasis, from the issue here. Petitioners allege an attempt to disfavor their religion because of the religious ceremonies it commands, and the Free Exercise Clause is dispositive in our analysis.
At a minimum, the protections of the Free Exercise Clause pertain if the law at issue discriminates against some or all religious beliefs or regulates or prohibits conduct because it is undertaken for religious reasons. See, e. g., Braunfeld v. Brown, 366 U. S. 599, 607 (1961) (plurality opinion); Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U. S., at 69-70. Indeed, it was “historical instances of religious persecution and intolerance that gave concern to those who drafted the Free Exercise Clause.” Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 703 (1986) (opinion of Burger, C. J.). See J. Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States §§ 991-992 (abridged ed. 1833) (reprint 1987); T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 467 (1868) (reprint 1972); McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 464, and n. 2 (1961) (opinion of Frankfurter, J.); Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U. S. 157, 179 (1943) (Jackson, J., concurring in re-suit); Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333, 342 (1890). These principles, though not often at issue in our Free Exercise Clause eases, have played a role in some. In McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618 (1978), for example, we invalidated a state law that disqualified members of the clergy from holding certain public offices, because it “impose[d] special disabilities on the basis of... religious status,” Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 877. On the same principle, in Fowler v. Rhode Island, supra, we found that a municipal ordinance was applied in an unconstitutional manner when interpreted to prohibit preaching in a public park by a Jehovah’s Witness but to permit preaching during the course of a Catholic mass or Protestant church service. See also Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268, 272-273 (1951). Cf. Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 (1982) (state statute that treated some religious denominations more favorably than others violated the Establishment Clause).
1
Although a law targeting religious beliefs as such is never permissible, McDaniel v. Paty, supra, at 626 (plurality opinion); Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 303-304, if the object of a law is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of their religious motivation, the law is not neutral, see Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, supra, at 878-879; and it is invalid unless it is justified by a compelling interest and is narrowly tailored to advance that interest. There are, of course, many ways of demonstrating that the object or purpose of a law is the suppression of religion or religious conduct. To determine the object of a law, we must begin with its text, for the minimum requirement of neutrality is that a law not discriminate on its face. A law lacks facial neutrality if it refers to a religious practice without a secular meaning discernible from the language or context. Petitioners contend that three of the ordinances fail this test of facial neutrality because they use the words “sacrifice” and “ritual,” words with strong religious connotations. Brief for Petitioners 16-17. We agree that these words are consistent with the claim of facial discrimination, but the argument is not conclusive. The words “sacrifice” and “ritual” have a religious origin, but current use admits also of secular meanings. See Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1961, 1996 (1971). See also 12 Encyclopedia of Religion, at 556 (“[T]he word sacrifice ultimately became very much a secular term in common usage”). The ordinances, furthermore, define “sacrifice” in secular terms, without referring to religious practices.
We reject the contention advanced by the city, see Brief for Respondent 15, that our inquiry must end with the text of the laws at issue. Facial neutrality is not determinative. The Free Exercise Clause, like the Establishment Clause, extends beyond facial discrimination. The Clause “forbids subtle departures from neutrality,” Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437, 452 (1971), and “covert suppression of particular religious beliefs,” Bowen v. Roy, supra, at 703 (opinion of Burger, C. J.). Official action that targets religious conduct for distinctive treatment cannot be shielded by mere compliance with the requirement of facial neutrality. The Free Exercise Clause protects against governmental hostility which is masked as well as overt. “The Court must survey meticulously the circumstances of governmental categories to eliminate, as it were, religious gerrymanders.” Walz v. Tax Comn'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 696 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring).
The record in this case compels the conclusion that suppression of the central element of the Santería worship service was the object of the ordinances. First, though use of the words “sacrifice” and “ritual” does not compel a finding of improper targeting of the Santería religion, the choice of these words is support for our conclusion. There are further respects in which the text of the city council’s enactments discloses the improper attempt to target Santería. Resolution 87-66, adopted June 9, 1987, recited that “residents and eitizens of the City of Hialeah have expressed their concern that certain religions may propose to engage in practices which are inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety,” and “reiterate[d]” the city’s commitment to prohibit “any and all [such] acts of any and all religious groups.” No one suggests, and on this record it cannot be maintained, that city officials had in mind a religion other than Santería.
It becomes evident that these ordinances target Santería sacrifice when the ordinances’ operation is considered. Apart from the text, the effect of a law in its real operation is strong evidence of its object. To be sure, adverse impact will not always lead to a finding of impermissible targeting. For example, a social harm may have been a legitimate concern of government for reasons quite apart from discrimination. McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S., at 442. See, e. g., Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145 (1879); Davis v. Beason, 133 U. S. 333 (1890). See also Ely, Legislative and Administrative Motivation in Constitutional Law, 79 Yale L. J. 1205, 1319 (1970). The subject at hand does implicate, of course, multiple concerns unrelated to religious animosity, for example, the suffering or mistreatment visited upon the sacrificed animals and health hazards from improper disposal. But the ordinances when considered together disclose an object remote from these legitimate concerns. The design of these laws accomplishes instead a “religious gerrymander,” Walz v. Tax Comm'n of New York City, supra, at 696 (Harlan, J., concurring), an impermissible attempt to target petitioners and their religious practices.
It is a necessary conclusion that almost the only conduct subject to Ordinances 87-40,87-52, and 87-71 is the religious exercise of Santería church members. The texts show that they were drafted in tandem to achieve this result. We begin with Ordinance 87-71. It prohibits the sacrifice of animals, but defines sacrifice as “to unnecessarily kill... an animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption.” The definition excludes almost all killings of animals except for religious sacrifice, and the primary purpose requirement narrows the proscribed category even further, in particular by exempting kosher slaughter, see 723 F. Supp., at 1480. We need not discuss whether this differential treatment of two religions is itself an independent constitutional violation. Cf. Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S., at 244-246. It suffices to recite this feature of the law as support for our conclusion that Santería alone was the exclusive legislative concern. The net result of the gerrymander is that few if any killings of animals are prohibited other than Santería sacrifice, which is proscribed because it occurs during a ritual or ceremony and its primary purpose is to make an offering to the oriskas, not food consumption. Indeed, careful drafting ensured that, although Santería sacrifice is prohibited, killings that are no more necessary or humane in almost all other circumstances are unpunished.
Operating in similar fashion is Ordinance 87-52, which prohibits the “possession], sacrifice, or slaughter” of an animal with the “inten[t] to use such animal for food purposes.” This prohibition, extending to the keeping of an animal as well as the killing itself, applies if the animal is killed in “any type of ritual” and there is an intent to use the animal for food, whether or not it is in fact consumed for food. The ordinance exempts, however, “any licensed [food] establishment” with regard to “any animals which are specifically raised for food purposes,” if the activity is permitted by zoning and other laws. This exception, too, seems intended to cover kosher slaughter. Again, the burden of the ordinance, in practical terms, falls on Santería adherents but almost no others: If the killing is — unlike most Santería sacrifices — unaccompanied by the intent to use the animal for food, then it is not prohibited by Ordinance 87-52; if the killing is specifically for food but does not occur during the course of “any type of ritual,” it again falls outside the prohibition; and if the killing is for food and occurs during the course of a ritual, it is still exempted if it occurs in a properly zoned and licensed establishment and involves animals “specifically raised for food purposes.” A pattern of exemptions parallels the pattern of narrow prohibitions. Each contributes to the gerrymander.
Ordinance 87-40 incorporates the Florida animal cruelty statute, Fla. Stat. §828.12 (1987). Its prohibition is broad on its face, punishing “[w]hoever... unnecessarily... kills any animal.” The city claims that this ordinance is the epitome of a neutral prohibition. Brief for Respondent 13-14. The problem, however, is the interpretation given to the ordinance by respondent and the Florida attorney general. Killings for religious reasons are deemed unnecessary, whereas most other killings fall outside the prohibition. The city, on what seems to be a per se basis, deems hunting, slaughter of animals for food, eradication of insects and pests, and euthanasia as necessary. See id., at 22. There is no indication in the record that respondent has concluded that hunting or fishing for sport is unnecessary. Indeed, one of the few reported Florida cases decided under § 828.12 concludes that the use of live rabbits to train greyhounds is not unnecessary. See Kiper v. State, 310 So. 2d 42 (Fla. App.), cert. denied, 328 So. 2d 845 (Fla. 1975). Further, because it requires an evaluation of the particular justification for the killing, this ordinance represents a system of “individualized governmental assessment of the reasons for the relevant conduct,” Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S., at 884. As we noted in Smith, in circumstances in which individualized exemptions from a general requirement are available, the government “may not refuse to extend that system to cases of ‘religious hardship’ without compelling reason.” Ibid., quoting Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S., at 708 (opinion of Burger, C. J.). Respondent’s application of the ordinance’s test of necessity devalues religious reasons for killing by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons. Thus, religious practice is being singled out for discriminatory treatment. Id., at 722, and n. 17 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and concurring in result); id., at 708 (opinion of Burger, C. J.); United States v. Lee, 455 U. S. 252, 264, n. 3 (1982) (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment).
We also find significant evidence of the ordinances’ improper targeting of Santería sacrifice in the fact that they proscribe more religious conduct than is necessary to achieve their stated ends. It is not unreasonable to infer, at least when there are no persuasive indications to the contrary, that a law which visits “gratuitous restrictions” on religious conduct, McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S., at 520 (opinion of Frankfurter, J.), seeks not to effectuate the stated governmental interests, but to suppress the conduct because of its religious motivation.
The legitimate governmental interests in protecting the public health and preventing cruelty to animals could be addressed by restrictions stopping far short of a fiat prohibition of all Santería sacrificial practice. If improper disposal, not the sacrifice itself, is the harm to be prevented, the city could have imposed a general regulation on the disposal of organic garbage. It did not do so. Indeed, counsel for the city conceded at oral argument that, under the ordinances, Santería sacrifices would be illegal even if they occurred in licensed, inspected, and zoned slaughterhouses. Tr. of Oral Arg. 45. See also id., at 42,48. Thus, these broad ordinances prohibit Santería sacrifice even when it does not threaten the city’s interest in the public health. The District Court accepted the argument that narrower regulation would be unenforceable because of the secrecy in the Santería rituals and the lack of any central religious authority to require compliance with secular disposal regulations. See 723 F. Supp., at 1486-1487, and nn. 58-59. It is difficult to understand, however, how a prohibition of the sacrifices themselves, which occur in private, is enforceable if a ban on improper disposal, which occurs in public, is not. The neutrality of a law is suspect if First Amendment freedoms are curtailed to prevent isolated collateral harms not themselves prohibited by direct regulation. See, e. g., Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 162 (1939).
Under similar analysis, narrower regulation would achieve the city’s interest in preventing cruelty to animals. With regard to the city’s interest in ensuring the adequate care of animals, regulation of conditions and treatment, regardless of why an animal is kept, is the logical response to the city’s concern, not a prohibition on possession for the purpose of sacrifice. The same is true for the city’s interest in prohibiting cruel methods of killing. Under federal and Florida law and Ordinance 87-40, which incorporates Florida law in this regard, killing an animal by the “simultaneous and instantaneous severance of the carotid arteries with a sharp instrument” — the method used in kosher slaughter — is approved as humane. See 7 U. S. C. § 1902(b); Fla. Stat. § 828.23(7)(b) (1991); Ordinance 87-40, § 1. The District Court found that, though Santería sacrifice also results in severance of the carotid arteries, the method used during sacrifice is less reliable and therefore not humane. See 723 F. Supp., at 1472-1473. If the city has a real concern that other methods are less humane, however, the subject of the regulation should be the method of slaughter itself, not a religious classification that is said to bear some general relation to it.
Ordinance 87-72 — unlike the three other ordinances— does appear to apply to substantial nonreligious conduct and not to be overbroad. For our purposes here, however, the four substantive ordinances may be treated as a group for neutrality purposes. Ordinance 87-72 was passed the same day as Ordinance 87-71 and was enacted, as were the three others, in direct response to the opening of the Church. It would be implausible to suggest that the three other ordinances, but not Ordinance 87-72, had as their object the suppression of religion. We need not decide whether Ordinance 87-72 could survive constitutional scrutiny if it existed separately; it must be invalidated because it functions, with the rest of the enactments in question, to suppress Santería religious worship.
2
In determining if the object of a law is a neutral one under the Free Exercise Clause, we can also find guidance in our equal protection cases. As Justice Harlan noted in the related context of the Establishment Clause, “[njeutrality in its application requires an equal protection mode of analysis.” Walz v. Tax Comm’n of New York City, 397 U. S., at 696 (concurring opinion). Here, as in equal protection cases, we
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 Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners were indicted in Bronx County, New York, on February 11, 1947, for the crime of murder in the first degree. The District Attorney moved the court for an order that the trial be by a special jury, pursuant to New York law, which motion was granted over opposition on behalf of defendants by assigned counsel. One hundred and fifty names were drawn from the special jury panel, under supervision of a Justice of the State Supreme Court, in the presence of defendants’ counsel and without objection.
When the case was called for trial defendants, as permitted by the state practice, served a written challenge to the panel of jurors upon the following grounds:
1. That § 749-aa of the Judiciary Law of the State of New York is in violation of § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
2. That qualified Negro jurors were improperly excluded from the list of special jurors, from which said jury panel was drawn.
3. That qualified women jurors were improperly excluded from the list of special jurors, from which said jury panel was drawn.
After full hearing, the challenge was disallowed and petitioners were tried and convicted. On appeal to the Court of Appeals, the third ground of challenge to the jury panel was abandoned and the convictions were affirmed. 297 N. Y. 734, 77 N. E. 2d 25. We granted certiorari on a petition raising the remaining grounds. 332 U.S. 843.
The constitutionality of the New York special jury statutes has but recently been sustained by this Court, Fay v. New York, 332 U. S. 261, against a better supported challenge than is here presented, and the issue warrants little discussion at this time.
Some effort is made by statistics to differentiate this case from the precedent one as to the ratio of convictions before special juries contrasted with that before ordinary juries. The defendants present to us a study from July 1, 1937, to June 30, 1946, which indicates that special juries in Bronx County returned 15 convictions and 4 acquittals during the period and concludes that the special jury convicted in 79% of the cases while the general juries convicted in 57%. The District Attorney responds that in 5 of these 19 cases, the special jury returned conviction in a lesser degree than that charged and, hence in 9 out of 19 cases withheld all or part of what the State asked. Moreover, it is said that all but two were capital cases, another was for manslaughter and one for criminally receiving stolen property. It should be observed that the number of cases involved in these statements is too small to afford a secure basis for generalizing as to the convicting propensities of the two jury panels, even if the cases were comparable. But it appears that in Bronx County a system of special and intensive investigation is applied to capital cases from the moment they are reported, more careful preparation is given them and they are tried by the most experienced prosecutors. This makes this class of cases not fairly comparable with the run-of-the-mill cases, felony and misdemeanor, that are included in the ordinary jury statistics. Moreover, none of these facts were laid before the trial court, which was in the best position to analyze, supplement or interpret them. We think on this part of the challenge no question is presented that was not disposed of in Fay v. New York, supra. Indeed, on opening the hearing on defendants’ challenge the trial court said, “I understand the inquiry now is to be directed to the intentional elimination or disqualification of women and Negroes on the special jury panel.” Counsel for both defendants assented to this definition of the issues and no evidence on other subjects was offered.
Petitioners’ remaining point is that “the trial of the petitioners, Negroes, by a jury selected from a panel from which Negroes were systematically, intentionally and deliberately excluded, denied petitioners the equal protection of law and due process of law guaranteed them by the Constitution of the United States.” If the evidence supported the assumption of fact included in this statement, the point would be of compelling merit. The law on this subject is now so settled that we no longer find it necessary to write out expositions of the Constitution in this regard. See Brunson v. North Carolina, 333 U. S. 851, decided March 15, 1948.
It is admitted that on this panel of one hundred and fifty there were no Negroes. But not only is the record wanting in proof of intentional and systematic exclusion— the only witnesses sworn testified that there was no such practice or intent. Nothing in the background facts discredits this testimony. The census figures give a proportion of Negro-to-white population in that county of .7% in 1920, 1.0% in 1930, and 1.7% in 1940. It is admitted that since the last census the Negro population has considerably increased. According to one estimate, the number of colored inhabitants, which in 1940 was 24,892, has increased to 192,066 in 1948. The same estimator later revised the figures to between 65,000 and 70,000. Neither estimate was before the trial court, and no evidence or finding gives us judicially approved data. Of course, new wartime arrivals take some time to qualify as active members of the community and its machinery of justice cannot be expected instantaneously to reflect their presence. The official who compiled the jury lists testified as to Negro jurors that “from 1946 on I must have examined at least 500 myself.” The number accepted for service could not be ascertained from the records, which make no notation of color, but he testified that there were “maybe two dozen; maybe three dozen.” For the special panel, he testified that he had examined an estimated one hundred Negroes and had accepted “maybe a dozen.” The testimony is undenied.
The record is utterly devoid of proof of systematic, intentional and deliberate exclusion of Negroes from jury duty.
The judgment 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: | 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 SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent brutally raped, slashed with a box cutter, and drowned a 16-year-old high-school student. After pleading guilty to murder, rape, and kidnaping, he was sentenced to death. The Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, and we denied certiorari. Ten years later, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted respondent's petition for a writ of habeas corpus on his Fifth Amendment claim. In so doing, it disregarded the limitations of 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)-a provision of law that some federal judges find too confining, but that all federal judges must obey. We reverse.
I
On the evening of January 25, 1997, Sarah Hansen drove to a convenience store to rent a movie. When she failed to return home several hours later, her family called the police. Officers eventually found the vehicle Hansen had been driving a short distance from the convenience store. They followed a 400-to 500-foot trail of blood from the van to a nearby lake, where Hansen's unclothed, dead body was found floating in the water. Hansen's "throat had been slashed twice with each cut approximately 3.5 to 4 inches long," and "[h]er windpipe was totally severed." Woodall v. Commonwealth, 63 S.W.3d 104, 114 (Ky.2002).
Authorities questioned respondent when they learned that he had been in the convenience store on the night of the murder. Respondent gave conflicting statements regarding his whereabouts that evening. Further investigation revealed that respondent's "fingerprints were on the van the victim was driving," "[b]lood was found on [respondent's] front door," "[b]lood on his clothing and sweatshirt was consistent with the blood of the victim," and "DNA on... vaginal swabs" taken from the victim "was consistent with" respondent's. Ibid.
Faced with overwhelming evidence of his guilt, respondent pleaded guilty to capital murder. He also pleaded guilty to capital kidnaping and first-degree rape, the statutory aggravating circumstance for the murder. See App. 78; Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 532.025(2)(a) (West Supp.2012). At the ensuing penalty-phase trial, respondent called character witnesses but declined to testify himself. Defense counsel asked the trial judge to instruct the jury that "[a] defendant is not compelled to testify and the fact that the defendant did not testify should not prejudice him in any way." App. 31. The trial judge denied the request, and the Kentucky Supreme Court affirmed that denial. Woodall v. Commonwealth,supra, at 115. While recognizing that the Fifth Amendment requires a no-adverse-inference instruction to protect a nontestifying defendant at the guilt phase, see Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241 (1981), the court held that Carter and our subsequent cases did not require such an instruction here. Woodall v. Commonwealth, supra, at 115. We denied respondent's petition for a writ of certiorari from that direct appeal. Woodall v. Kentucky, 537 U.S. 835, 123 S.Ct. 145, 154 L.Ed.2d 54 (2002).
In 2006, respondent filed this petition for habeas corpus in Federal District Court. The District Court granted relief, holding, as relevant here, that the trial court's refusal to issue a no-adverse-inference instruction at the penalty phase violated respondent's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Woodall v. Simpson, No. 5:06CV-P216-R (W.D.Ky., Feb. 24, 2009), App. to Pet. for Cert. 58a-61a, 2009 WL 464939, *12. The Court of Appeals affirmed and ordered Kentucky to either resentence respondent within 180 days or release him. Woodall v. Simpson, 685 F.3d 574, 581 (C.A.6 2012)
1Judge Cook dissented.
We granted certiorari. 570 U.S. ----, 134 S.Ct. 373, 187 L.Ed.2d 14 (2013).
II
A
Section 2254(d) of Title 28 provides that "[a]n application for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court shall not be granted with respect to any claim that was adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings unless the adjudication of the claim... resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States." "This standard," we recently reminded the Sixth Circuit, "is 'difficult to meet.' " Metrish v. Lancaster, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1781, 1786, 185 L.Ed.2d 988 (2013). " '[C]learly established Federal law' " for purposes of § 2254(d)(1) includes only " 'the holdings, as opposed to the dicta, of this Court's decisions.' " Howes v. Fields, 565 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1181, 1187, 182 L.Ed.2d 17 (2012) (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 412, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000)). And an "unreasonable application of" those holdings must be " 'objectively unreasonable,' " not merely wrong; even "clear error" will not suffice. Lockyer v. Andrade, 538 U.S. 63, 75-76, 123 S.Ct. 1166, 155 L.Ed.2d 144 (2003). Rather, "[a]s a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court's ruling on the claim being presented in federal court was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 770, 786-787, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011).
Both the Kentucky Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals identified as the relevant precedents in this area our decisions in Carter,Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981), and Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 143 L.Ed.2d 424 (1999). Carter held that a no-adverse-inference instruction is required at the guilt phase. 450 U.S., at 294-295, 300, 101 S.Ct. 1112.Estelle concerned the introduction at the penalty phase of the results of an involuntary, un-Mirandized pretrial psychiatric examination. 451 U.S., at 456-457, and n. 1, 101 S.Ct. 1866;id., at 461, 101 S.Ct. 1866. And Mitchell disapproved a trial judge's drawing of an adverse inference from the defendant's silence at sentencing "with regard to factual determinations respecting the circumstances and details of the crime." 526 U.S., at 327-330, 119 S.Ct. 1307.
It is clear that the Kentucky Supreme Court's conclusion is not "contrary to" the actual holding of any of these cases. 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). The Court of Appeals held, however, that the "Kentucky Supreme Court's denial of this constitutional claim was an unreasonable application of" those cases. 685 F.3d, at 579. In its view, "reading Carter,Estelle, and Mitchell together, the only reasonable conclusion is that" a no-adverse-inference instruction was required at the penalty phase. Ibid.. 2
We need not decide here, and express no view on, whether the conclusion that a no-adverse-inference instruction was required would be correct in a case not reviewed through the lens of § 2254(d)(1). For we are satisfied that the issue was, at a minimum, not "beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement." Harrington, supra, at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 787.
We have, it is true, held that the privilege against self-incrimination applies to the penalty phase. See Estelle, supra, at 463, 101 S.Ct. 1866;Mitchell, supra, at 328-329, 119 S.Ct. 1307. But it is not uncommon for a constitutional rule to apply somewhat differently at the penalty phase than it does at the guilt phase. See, e.g.,Bobby v. Mitts, 563 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1762, 1764-1765, 179 L.Ed.2d 819 (2011) ( per curiam ). We have "never directly held that Carter applies at a sentencing phase where the Fifth Amendment interests of the defendant are different." United States v. Whitten, 623 F.3d 125, 131-132, n. 4 (C.A.2 2010) (Livingston, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).
Indeed, Mitchell itself leaves open the possibility that some inferences might permissibly be drawn from a defendant's penalty-phase silence. In that case, the District Judge had actually drawn from the defendant's silence an adverse inference about the drug quantity attributable to the defendant. See 526 U.S., at 317-319, 119 S.Ct. 1307. We held that this ran afoul of the defendant's "right to remain silent at sentencing." Id., at 325, 327-328, 119 S.Ct. 1307 (citing Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 614, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965)). But we framed our holding narrowly, in terms implying that it was limited to inferences pertaining to the facts of the crime: "We decline to adopt an exception for the sentencing phase of a criminal case with regard to factual determinations respecting the circumstances and details of the crime." Mitchell, 526 U.S., at 328, 119 S.Ct. 1307 (emphasis added). "The Government retains," we said, " the burden of proving facts relevant to the crime... and cannot enlist the defendant in this process at the expense of the self-incrimination privilege." Id., at 330, 119 S.Ct. 1307 (emphasis added). And Mitchell included an express reservation of direct relevance here: "Whether silence bears upon the determination of a lack of remorse, or upon acceptance of responsibility for purposes of the downward adjustment provided in § 3E1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (1998), is a separate question. It is not before us, and we express no view on it." Ibid.3
Mitchell's reservation is relevant here for two reasons. First, if Mitchell suggests that some actual inferences might be permissible at the penalty phase, it certainly cannot be read to require a blanket no-adverse-inference instruction at every penalty-phase trial. And it was a blanket instruction that was requested and denied in this case; respondent's requested instruction would have informed the jury that "[a] defendant is not compelled to testify and the fact that the defendant did not testify should not prejudice him in any way." App. 31 (emphasis added). Counsel for respondent conceded at oral argument that remorse was at issue during the penalty-phase trial, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 39; see also Brief for Respondent 18, yet the proposed instruction would have precluded the jury from considering respondent's silence as indicative of his lack of remorse. Indeed, the trial judge declined to give the no-adverse-inference instruction precisely because he was "aware of no case law that precludes the jury from considering the defendant's lack of expression of remorse... in sentencing." App. 36. This alone suffices to establish that the Kentucky Supreme Court's conclusion was not "objectively unreasonable." Andrade, 538 U.S., at 76, 123 S.Ct. 1166.
Second, regardless of the scope of respondent's proposed instruction, any inferences that could have been drawn from respondent's silence would arguably fall within the class of inferences as to which Mitchell leaves the door open. Respondent pleaded guilty to all of the charges he faced, including the applicable aggravating circumstances. Thus, Kentucky could not have shifted to respondent its "burden of proving facts relevant to the crime," 526 U.S., at 330, 119 S.Ct. 1307: Respondent's own admissions had already established every relevant fact on which Kentucky bore the burden of proof. There are reasonable arguments that the logic of Mitchell does not apply to such cases. See, e.g.,United States v. Ronquillo, 508 F.3d 744, 749 (C.A.5 2007) (" Mitchell is inapplicable to the sentencing decision in this case because 'the facts of the offense' were based entirely on Ronquillo's admissions, not on any adverse inference.... Ronquillo, unlike the defendant in Mitchell, admitted all the predicate facts of his offenses").
The dissent insists that Mitchell is irrelevant because it merely declined to create an exception to the "normal rule," supposedly established by Estelle, "that a defendant is entitled to a requested no-adverse-inference instruction" at sentencing. Post, at 1707 (opinion of BREYER, J.). That argument disregards perfectly reasonable interpretations of Estelle and Mitchell and hence contravenes § 2254(d)'s deferential standard of review. Estelle did not involve an adverse inference based on the defendant's silence or a corresponding jury instruction. See 451 U.S., at 461-469, 101 S.Ct. 1866. Thus, whatever Estelle said about the Fifth Amendment, its holding 4-the only aspect of the decision relevant here-does not "requir[e]" the categorical rule the dissent ascribes to it. Carey v. Musladin, 549 U.S. 70, 76, 127 S.Ct. 649, 166 L.Ed.2d 482 (2006). Likewise, fairminded jurists could conclude that Mitchell's reservation regarding remorse and acceptance of responsibility would have served no meaningful purpose if Estelle had created an across-the-board rule against adverse inferences; we are, after all, hardly in the habit of reserving "separate question[s]," Mitchell, supra, at 330, 119 S.Ct. 1307, that have already been definitively answered. In these circumstances, where the " 'precise contours' " of the right remain " 'unclear,' " state courts enjoy "broad discretion" in their adjudication of a prisoner's claims. Lockyer, 538 U.S., at 76, 123 S.Ct. 1166 (quoting Harmelin v. Michigan, 501 U.S. 957, 998, 111 S.Ct. 2680, 115 L.Ed.2d 836 (1991) (KENNEDY, J., concurring in part and in judgment)).
B
In arguing for a contrary result, respondent leans heavily on the notion that a state-court " 'determination may be set aside... if, under clearly established federal law, the state court was unreasonable in refusing to extend the governing legal principle to a context in which the principle should have controlled.' " Brief for Respondent 21 (quoting Ramdass v. Angelone, 530 U.S. 156, 166, 120 S.Ct. 2113, 147 L.Ed.2d 125 (2000) (plurality opinion)). The Court of Appeals and District Court relied on the same proposition in sustaining respondent's Fifth Amendment claim. See 685 F.3d, at 579;App. to Pet. for Cert. 37a-39a, 2009 WL 464939, *4.
The unreasonable-refusal-to-extend concept originated in a Fourth Circuit opinion we discussed at length in Williams, our first in-depth analysis of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). See 529 U.S., at 407-409, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (citing Green v. French, 143 F.3d 865, 869-870 (C.A.4 1998)). We described the Fourth Circuit's interpretation of § 2254(d)(1)'s "unreasonable application" clause as "generally correct," 529 U.S., at 407, 120 S.Ct. 1495, and approved its conclusion that "a state-court decision involves an unreasonable application of this Court's precedent if the state court identifies the correct governing legal rule... but unreasonably applies it to the facts of the particular state prisoner's case," id., at 407-408, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (citing Green, supra, at 869-870). But we took no position on the Fourth Circuit's further conclusion that a state court commits AEDPA error if it "unreasonably refuse[s] to extend a legal principle to a new context where it should apply." 529 U.S., at 408-409, 120 S.Ct. 1495 (citing Green, supra, at 869-870). We chose not "to decide how such 'extension of legal principle' cases should be treated under § 2254(d)(1)" because the Fourth Circuit's proposed rule for resolving them presented several "problems of precision." 529 U.S., at 408-409, 120 S.Ct. 1495.
Two months later, a plurality paraphrased and applied the unreasonable-refusal-to-extend concept in Ramdass. See 530 U.S., at 166-170, 120 S.Ct. 2113. It did not, however, grant the habeas petitioner relief on that basis, finding that there was no unreasonable refusal to extend. Moreover, Justice O'Connor, whose vote was necessary to form a majority, cited Williams and made no mention of the unreasonable-refusal-to-extend concept in her separate opinion concurring in the judgment. See 530 U.S., at 178-181, 120 S.Ct. 2113.Ramdass therefore did not alter the interpretation of § 2254(d)(1) set forth in Williams. Aside from one opinion criticizing the unreasonable-refusal-to-extend doctrine, see Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 666, 124 S.Ct. 2140, 158 L.Ed.2d 938 (2004), we have not revisited the issue since Williams and Ramdass. During that same 14-year stretch, however, we have repeatedly restated our "hold[ing]" in Williams, supra, at 409, 120 S.Ct. 1495, that a state-court decision is an unreasonable application of our clearly established precedent if it correctly identifies the governing legal rule but applies that rule unreasonably to the facts of a particular prisoner's case, see, e.g., Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1388, 1399, 179 L.Ed.2d 557 (2011);Rompilla v. Beard, 545 U.S. 374, 380, 125 S.Ct. 2456, 162 L.Ed.2d 360 (2005); Yarborough,supra, at 663, 124 S.Ct. 2140;Penry v. Johnson, 532 U.S. 782, 792, 121 S.Ct. 1910, 150 L.Ed.2d 9 (2001).
Thus, this Court has never adopted the unreasonable-refusal-to-extend rule on which respondent relies. It has not been so much as endorsed in a majority opinion, let alone relied on as a basis for granting habeas relief. To the extent the unreasonable-refusal-to-extend rule differs from the one embraced in Williams and reiterated many times since, we reject it. Section 2254(d)(1) provides a remedy for instances in which a state court unreasonably applies this Court's precedent; it does not require state courts to extend that precedent or license federal courts to treat the failure to do so as error. See Scheidegger, Habeas Corpus, Relitigation, and the Legislative Power, 98 Colum. L.Rev. 888, 949 (1998). Thus, "if a habeas court must extend a rationale before it can apply to the facts at hand," then by definition the rationale was not "clearly established at the time of the state-court decision." Yarborough, 541 U.S., at 666, 124 S.Ct. 2140. AEDPA's carefully constructed framework "would be undermined if habeas courts introduced rules not clearly established under the guise of extensions to existing law." Ibid.
This is not to say that § 2254(d)(1) requires an " 'identical factual pattern before a legal rule must be applied.' " Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U.S. 930, 953, 127 S.Ct. 2842, 168 L.Ed.2d 662 (2007). To the contrary, state courts must reasonably apply the rules "squarely established" by this Court's holdings to the facts of each case. Knowles v. Mirzayance, 556 U.S. 111, 122, 129 S.Ct. 1411, 173 L.Ed.2d 251 (2009). "[T]he difference between applying a rule and extending it is not always clear," but "[c]ertain principles are fundamental enough that when new factual permutations arise, the necessity to apply the earlier rule will be beyond doubt." Yarborough, supra, at 666, 124 S.Ct. 2140. The critical point is that relief is available under § 2254(d)(1)'s unreasonable-application clause if, and only if, it is so obvious that a clearly established rule applies to a given set of facts that there could be no "fairminded disagreement" on the question, Harrington, 562 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 787.
Perhaps the logical next step from Carter,Estelle, and Mitchell would be to hold that the Fifth Amendment requires a penalty-phase no-adverse-inference instruction in a case like this one; perhaps not. Either way, we have not yet taken that step, and there are reasonable arguments on both sides-which is all Kentucky needs to prevail in this AEDPA case. The appropriate time to consider the question as a matter of first impression would be on direct review, not in a habeas case governed by § 2254(d)(1).
* * *
Because the Kentucky Supreme Court's rejection of respondent's Fifth Amendment claim was not objectively unreasonable, the Sixth Circuit erred in granting the writ. We therefore need not reach its further holding that the trial court's putative error was not harmless. 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 BREYER, with whom Justice GINSBURG and Justice SOTOMAYOR join, dissenting.
During the penalty phase of his capital murder trial, respondent Robert Woodall asked the court to instruct the jury not to draw any adverse inferences from his failure to testify. The court refused, and the Kentucky Supreme Court agreed that no instruction was warranted. The question before us is whether the Kentucky courts unreasonably applied clearly established Supreme Court law in concluding that the Fifth Amendment did not entitle Woodall to a no-adverse-inference instruction. See 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). In my view, the answer is yes.
I
This Court's decisions in Carter v. Kentucky, 450 U.S. 288, 101 S.Ct. 1112, 67 L.Ed.2d 241 (1981), and Estelle v. Smith, 451 U.S. 454, 101 S.Ct. 1866, 68 L.Ed.2d 359 (1981), clearly establish that a criminal defendant is entitled to a requested no-adverse-inference instruction in the penalty phase of a capital trial. First consider Carter. The Court held that a trial judge "has the constitutional obligation, upon proper request," to give a requested no-adverse-inference instruction in order "to minimize the danger that the jury will give evidentiary weight to a defendant's failure to testify." 450 U.S., at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112. This is because when "the jury is left to roam at large with only its untutored instincts to guide it," it may "draw from the defendant's silence broad inferences of guilt." Id., at 301, 101 S.Ct. 1112. A trial court's refusal to give a requested no-adverse-inference instruction thus "exacts an impermissible toll on the full and free exercise of the [Fifth Amendment] privilege." Id., at 305, 101 S.Ct. 1112.
Now consider Estelle. The Court held that "so far as the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege is concerned," it could "discern no basis to distinguish between the guilt and penalty phases" of a defendant's "capital murder trial." 451 U.S., at 462-463, 101 S.Ct. 1866. The State had introduced at the penalty phase the defendant's compelled statements to a psychiatrist, in order to show the defendant's future dangerousness. Defending the admission of those statements, the State argued that the defendant "was not entitled to the protection of the Fifth Amendment because [his statements were] used only to determine punishment after conviction, not to establish guilt." Id., at 462, 101 S.Ct. 1866. This Court rejected the State's argument on the ground that the Fifth Amendment applies equally to the penalty phase and the guilt phase of a capital trial. Id., at 462-463, 101 S.Ct. 1866.
What is unclear about the resulting law? If the Court holds in Case A that the First Amendment prohibits Congress from discriminating based on viewpoint, and then holds in Case B that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporates the First Amendment as to the States, then it is clear that the First Amendment prohibits the States from discriminating based on viewpoint. By the same logic, because the Court held in Carter that the Fifth Amendment requires a trial judge to give a requested no-adverse-inference instruction during the guilt phase of a trial, and held in Estelle that there is no basis for distinguishing between the guilt and punishment phases of a capital trial for purposes of the Fifth Amendment, it is clear that the Fifth Amendment requires a judge to provide a requested no-adverse-inference instruction during the penalty phase of a capital trial.
II
The Court avoids this logic by reading Estelle too narrowly. First, it contends that Estelle's holding that the Fifth Amendment applies equally to the guilt and penalty phases was mere dictum. Ante, at 1704 - 1705, and n. 4. But this rule was essential to the resolution of the case, so it is binding precedent, not dictum.
Second, apparently in the alternative, the majority acknowledges that Estelle "held that the privilege against self-incrimination applies to the penalty phase," but it concludes that Estelle said nothing about the content of the privilege in the penalty phase. Ante, at 1703 (emphasis added). This interpretation of Estelle ignores its rationale. The reason that Estelle concluded that the Fifth Amendment applies to the penalty phase of a capital trial is that the Court saw "no basis to distinguish between the guilt and penalty phases of [a defendant's] capital murder trial so far as the protection of the Fifth Amendment privilege is concerned." 451 U.S., at 462-463, 101 S.Ct. 1866. And as there is no basis to distinguish between the two contexts for Fifth Amendment purposes, there is no basis for varying either the application or the content of the Fifth Amendment privilege in the two contexts.
The majority also reads our decision in Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 119 S.Ct. 1307, 143 L.Ed.2d 424 (1999), to change the legal landscape where it expressly declined to do so. In Mitchell, the Court considered whether to create an exception to the "normal rule in a criminal case... that no negative inference from the defendant's failure to testify is permitted." Id., at 328, 119 S.Ct. 1307. We refused: "We decline to adopt an exception for the sentencing phase of a criminal case with regard to factual determinations respecting the circumstances and details of the crime." Ibid. Mitchell thus reiterated what Carter and Estelle had already established. The "normal rule" is that Fifth Amendment protections apply during trial and sentencing. Because the Court refused "to adopt an exception " to this default rule, ibid. (emphasis added), the law before and after Mitchell remained the same.
The majority seizes upon the limited nature of Mitchell's holding, concluding that by refusing to adopt an exception to the normal rule for certain "factual determinations," Mitchell suggested that inferences about other matters might be permissible at the penalty phase. Ante, at 1703 - 1704. The majority seems to believe that Mitchell somehow casts doubt upon whether Estelle's Fifth Amendment rule applies to matters unrelated to the "circumstances and details of the crime,"
such as remorse, or as to which the State does not bear the burden of proof.
As an initial matter, Mitchell would have had to overrule-or at least substantially limit-Estelle to create an exception for matters unrelated to the circumstances and details of the crime or for matters on which the defendant bears the burden of proof. Sentencing proceedings, particularly capital sentencing proceedings, often focus on factual matters that do not directly concern facts of the crime. Was the defendant subject to flagrant abuse in his growing-up years? Is he suffering from a severe physical or mental impairment? Was he supportive of his family? Is he remorseful? Estelle itself involved compelled statements introduced to establish the defendant's future dangerousness-another fact often unrelated to the circumstances or details of a defendant's crime. 451 U.S., at 456, 101 S.Ct. 1866. In addition, States typically place the burden to prove mitigating factors at the penalty phase on the defendant. A reasonable jurist would not believe that Mitchell, by refusing to create an exception to Estelle, intended to undermine the very case it reaffirmed.
Mitchell held, simply and only, that the normal rule of Estelle applied in the circumstances of the particular case before the Court. That holding does not destabilize settled law beyond its reach. We frequently resist reaching beyond the facts of a case before us, and we often say so. That does not mean that we throw cases involving all other factual circumstances into a shadow-land of legal doubt.
The majority also places undue weight on dictum in Mitchell reserving judgment as to whether to create additional exceptions to the normal rule of Estelle and Carter. We noted: "Whether silence bears upon the determination of a lack of remorse, or upon acceptance of responsibility for purposes of the downward adjustment provided in § 3E1.1 of the United States Sentencing Guidelines (1998), is a separate question. It is not before us, and we express no view on it." 526 U.S., at 330, 119 S.Ct. 1307. This dictum, says the majority, suggests that some inferences, including about remorse (which was at issue in Woodall's case), may be permissible. Ante, at 1703 - 1704.
When the Court merely reserves a question that is "not before us" for a future case, we do not cast doubt on legal principles that are already clearly established. The Court often identifies questions that it is not answering in order to clarify the question it is answering. In so doing-that is, in "express[ing] no view" on questions that are not squarely before us-we do not create a state of uncertainty as to those questions. And in respect to Mitchell, where the Court reserved the question whether to create an exception to the normal rule, this is doubly true. The normal rule that a defendant is entitled to a requested no-adverse-inference instruction at the penalty phase as well as the guilt phase remained clearly established after Mitchell.
III
In holding that the Kentucky courts did not unreasonably apply clearly established law, the majority declares that if a court must "extend" the rationale of a case in order to apply it, the rationale is not clearly established. Ante, at 1705 - 1707. I read this to mean simply that if there may be "fairminded disagreement" about whether a rationale applies to a certain set of facts, a state court will not unreasonably apply the law by failing to apply that rationale, and I agree. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 770, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). I do not understand the majority to suggest that reading two legal principles together would necessarily "extend" the law, which would be a proposition entirely inconsistent with our case law. As long as fairminded jurists would conclude that two (or more) legal rules considered together would dictate a particular outcome, a state court unreasonably applies the law when it holds otherwise. Ibid.
That is the error the Kentucky Supreme Court committed here. Failing to consider together the legal principles established by Carter and Estelle, the state court confined those cases to their facts. It held that Carter did not apply because Woodall had already pleaded guilty-that is, because Woodall requested a no-adverse-inference instruction at the penalty phase rather than the guilt phase of his trial. Woodall v. Commonwealth, 63 S.W.3d 104, 115 (Ky.2001). And it concluded that Estelle did not apply because Estelle was not a "jury instruction case." 63 S.W.3d, at 115. The Kentucky Supreme Court unreasonably failed to recognize that together Carter and Estelle compel a requested no-adverse-inference instruction at the penalty phase of a capital trial. And reading Mitchell to rein in the law in contemplation of never-before-recognized exceptions to this normal rule would be an unreasonable retraction of clearly established law, not a proper failure to "extend" it. Because the Sixth Circuit correctly applied clearly established law in granting Woodall's habeas petition, I would affirm.
With respect I dissent from the Court's contrary conclusion.
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.
The Court of Appeals did not reach the alternative ground for the District Court's decision: respondent's claim based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986). See 685 F.3d, at 577-578. That claim is not before us here.
The Court of Appeals also based its conclusion that respondent "was
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
On March 1, 1978, Walter Camenisch, a deaf graduate student at the University of Texas, filed a complaint alleging that the University had violated § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 87 Stat. 394, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 794 (1976 ed., Supp. Ill), which provides that “Mo otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the United States . . . shall, solely by reason of his handicap, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” The complaint alleged that the University received federal funds and that the University had discriminatorily refused to pay for a sign-language interpreter for Camenisch. The complaint asked the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas to grant declaratory relief and to “ [preliminarily and permanently order defendants to appoint an interpreter for the plaintiff while he is a student in good standing at the defendant University.”
The District Court applied the “Fifth Circuit standard for temporary relief to see if the injunction sought is appropriate.” That standard, which was enunciated in Canal Authority of Florida v. Callaway, 489 F. 2d 567 (1974), requires that a federal district court consider four factors when deciding whether to grant a preliminary injunction: whether the plaintiff will be irreparably harmed if the injunction does not issue; whether the defendant will be harmed if the injunction does issue; whether the public interest will be served by the injunction; and whether the plaintiff is likely to prevail on the merits. Finding a possibility that Camenisch would be irreparably harmed in the absence of an injunction, and finding a substantial likelihood that Camenisch would prevail on the merits, the District Court granted a preliminarv injunction requiring that the University pay for Camenisch’s interpreter, but the court did so on the condition that Camenisch “post a security bond in the amount of $8,000.00 pending the outcome of this litigation pursuant to Rule 65 (c), F. R. C. P.” The District Court also ordered that the action be stayed “pending a final administrative determination on the merits, and that as a condition of preliminary injunctive relief, Plaintiff be required to initiate a complaint with HEW requesting the relief sought herein.”
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit likewise applied the Canal Authority test, and found that the balance of hardships weighed in favor of granting an injunction and that Camenisch’s claim would be successful on the merits. The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed the grant of the preliminary injunction. 616 F. 2d 127. The appellate court ruled, however, that Camenisch was not obligated to pursue any administrative remedy that the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare might provide, and it therefore vacated that part of the District Court’s order staying the litigation pending administrative action.
By the time the Court of Appeals had acted, the University had obeyed the injunction by paying for Camenisch’s interpreter, and Camenisch had been graduated. The Court of Appeals, however, rejected a suggestion that the case was therefore moot. The court said: “[A] justiciable issue remains: whose responsibility is it to pay for this interpreter?” Id., at 130-131. We granted certiorari, 449 U. S. 950, and Camenisch has now raised the mootness issue before this Court.
The Court of Appeals correctly held that the case as a whole is not moot, since, as that court noted, it remains to be decided who should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter. However, the issue before the Court of Appeals was not who should pay for the interpreter, but rather whether the District Court had abused its discretion in issuing a preliminary injunction requiring the University to pay for him. Brown v. Chote, 411 U. S. 452, 457; Alabama v. United States, 279 U. S. 229. The two issues are significantly different, since whether the preliminary injunction should have issued depended on the balance of factors listed in Canal Authority, while whether the University should ultimately bear the cost of the interpreter depends on a final resolution of the merits of Camenisch’s case.
This, then, is simply another instance in which one issue in a case has become moot, but the case as a whole remains alive because other issues have not become moot. See, e. g., Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486. In Ammond v. McGahn, 532 F. 2d 325 (CA3 1976), for instance, the issue of preliminary injunctive relief became moot, but an issue of damages remained. The court said: “Though the entire case is not moot, the question remains whether the issue of the appropriateness of injunctive relief is moot. If the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the determination whether the preliminary injunction was properly granted, the sole question before us on this appeal, then we must vacate the district court’s order and remand the case for consideration of the remaining issues.” Id., at 328. Because the only issue presently before us — the correctness of the decision to grant a preliminary injunction — is moot, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be vacated and the case must be remanded to the District Court for trial on the merits. See Brown v. Chote, supra.
Since Camenisch’s likelihood of success on. the merits was one of the factors the District Court and the Court of Appeals considered in granting Camenisch a preliminary injunction, it might be suggested that their decisions were tantamount to decisions on the underlying merits and thus that the preliminary-injunction issue is not truly moot. It may be that this was the reasoning of the Court of Appeals when it described its conclusion that the case was not moot as “simply another way of stating the traditional rule that issues raised by an expired injunction are not moot if one party was required to post an injunction bond.” 616 F. 2d, at 131. This reasoning fails, however, because it improperly equates “likelihood of success” with “success,” and what is more important, because it ignores the significant procedural differences between preliminary and permanent injunctions.
The purpose of a preliminary injunction is merely to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits can be held. Given this limited purpose, and given the haste that is often necessary if those positions are to be preserved, a preliminary injunction is customarily granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits. A party thus is not required to prove his case in full at a preliminary-injunction hearing, Progress Development Corp. v. Mitchell, 286 F. 2d 222 (CA7 1961), and the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by a court granting a preliminary injunction are not binding at trial on the merits, Industrial Bank of Washington v. Tobriner, 132 U. S. App. D. C. 51, 54, 405 F. 2d 1321, 1324 (1968); Hamilton Watch Co. v. Benrus Watch Co., 206 F. 2d 738, 742 (CA2 1953). In light of these considerations, it is generally inappropriate for a federal court at the preliminary-injunction stage to give a final judgment on the merits. E. g., Brown v. Chote, supra; Gellman v. Maryland, 538 F. 2d 603 (CA4 1976); Santiago v. Corporacion de Renovacion Urbana y Vivienda de Puerto Rico, 453 F. 2d 794 (CA1 1972).
Should an expedited decision on the merits be appropriate, Rule 65 (a) (2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides a means of securing one. That Rule permits a court to “order the trial of the action on the merits to be advanced and consolidated with the hearing of the application.” Before such an order may issue, however, the courts have commonly required that “the parties should -hbrmally receive clear and unambiguous notice [of the court’s intent to consolidate the trial and the hearing] either before the hearing commences or at a time which will still afford the parties a full opportunity to present their respective cases.” Pughsley v. 8750 Lake Shore Drive Cooperative Bldg., 463 F. 2d 1055, 1057 (CA7 1972); Nationwide Amusements, Inc. v. Nattin, 452 F. 2d 651 (CA4 1971). This procedure was not followed here.
In short, where a federal district court has granted a preliminary injunction, the parties generally will have had the benefit neither of a full opportunity to present their cases nor of a final judicial decision based on the actual merits of the controversy. Thus when the injunctive aspects of a case become moot on appeal of a preliminary injunction, any issue preserved by an injunction bond can generally not be resolved on appeal, but must be resolved in a trial on the merits. Where, by contrast, a federal district court has granted a permanent injunction, the parties will already have had their trial on the merits, and, even if the case would otherwise be moot, a determination can be had on appeal of the correctness of the trial court’s decision on the merits, since the case has been saved from mootness by the injunction bond.
The principle underlying this basic distinction, although sometimes honored in the breach, is reflected in the relevant precedents. Tor instance, in this Court’s decision in Liner v. Jafco, Inc., 375 U. S. 301, a decision often cited for the proposition that an injunction bond prevents a case from becoming moot, the injunction was permanent, not preliminary. The District Court there had thus reached a final decision on the merits.
American Bible Society v. Blount, 446 F. 2d 588 (CA3 1971), illuminates the distinction from a different angle. In that case, the plaintiffs had secured a preliminary injunction and had posted an injunction bond. When the issue of in-junctive relief became moot, the Court of Appeals held that the case as a whole was not moot, since the defendant would “in all likelihood institute suit against the sureties at some future time and, in any such action, the court [would] be faced with deciding the same issues that are in contention here.” Id., at 594. The appellate court ruled that liability on the injunction bond could not arise until there was a final judgment in favor of the defendant: “This rule is consistent with the policy considerations behind the injunction bond. The requirement of security is rooted in the belief that a defendant deserves protection against a court order granted without the full deliberation a trial offers.” Id., at 595, n. 12. The court therefore remanded the case to the trial court, where such “full deliberation” could take place.
In Klein v. Califano, 586 F. 2d 250 (CA3 1978), the same United States Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, was confronted with a different situation involving a moot injunction which was survived by a possible claim for recoupment on a bond. The court “recognize [d] that part of the rationale of American Bible Society was the policy of the Rule 65 security bond to protect defendants from the consequences of temporary restraining orders granted without opportunity for full deliberation of the merits of a dispute.” Id., at 256. Because the District Court in Klein had “had such an opportunity to assess the merits of the complaint and [had] granted summary judgment and a permanent injunction,” ibid., the Court of Appeals reached the merits of the case.
The present case is replete with circumstances indicating the necessity for a full trial on the merits in the nisi prius court, where a preliminary injunction has become moot and an injunction bond has been issued. The proceedings here bear the marks of the haste characteristic of a request for a preliminary injunction: the parties have relied on a short stipulation of facts, and even the legal theories on which the University has relied have seemed to change from one level of the proceeding to another. The District Court and the Court of Appeals both properly based their decisions not on the ultimate merits of Camenisch’s case but rather on the balance of the Canal Authority factors. While it is true that some of the Court of Appeals’ language suggests a conclusion that Camenisch would win on the merits, the court certainly did not hold that the standards for a summary judgment had been met.
In sum, the question whether a preliminary injunction should have been issued here is moot, because the terms of the injunction, as modified by the Court of Appeals, have been fully and irrevocably carried out. The question whether the University must pay for the interpreter remains for trial on the merits. Until such a trial has taken place, it would be inappropriate for this Court to intimate any view on the merits of the lawsuit.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore vacated, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
See, e. g., Bright v. Nunn, 448 F. 2d 245, 247, n. 1 (CA6 1971); but see 11 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2950, pp. 492-493 (1973).
The Court of Appeals in the present case mistakenly believed that Kinnett Dairies v. Farrow, 580 F. 2d 1260 (CA5 1978), stands for a contrary principle. In that case, the question of mootness arose because the defendant’s solicitation of bids — which had been the subject of the District Court’s preliminary injunction — had run its course. The Court of Appeals said: “[T]he history of this controversy reveals the reasonable expectation — indeed, the near certainty — that the act complained of will be repeated. This case is a paradigm of the situation 'capable of repetition yet evading review.’ ” Id., at 1266 (footnote omitted). The court determined that the plaintiff could not win on the merits, and that the issuance of a preliminary injunction had, therefore, been erroneous. But the court did not say what it would have done had it not concluded that the case was capable of repetition yet avoiding review.
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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits successive prosecution or multiple punishment for “the same offence.” This case, which involves application of the United States Sentencing Guidelines, asks us to consider whether a court violates that proscription by convicting and sentencing a defendant for a crime when the conduct underlying that offense has been considered in determining the defendant’s sentence for a previous conviction.
I
In June 1990, petitioner Steven Kurt Witte and several co-conspirators, including Dennis Mason and Tom Pokorny, arranged with Roger Norman, an undercover agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to import large amounts of marijuana from Mexico and cocaine from Guatemala. Norman had the task of flying the contraband into the United States, with Witte providing the ground transportation for the drugs once they had been brought into the country. The following month, the Mexican marijuana source advised the conspiracy participants that cocaine might be added to the first shipment if there was room on the plane or if an insufficient quantity of marijuana was available. Norman was informed in August 1990 that the source was prepared to deliver 4,400 pounds of marijuana. Once Norman learned the location of the airstrip from which the narcotics would be transported, federal agents arranged to have the participants in the scheme apprehended in Mexico. Local authorities arrested Mason and four others on August 12 and seized 591 kilograms of cocaine at the landing field. While still undercover, Norman met Witte the following day to explain that the pilots had been unable to land in Mexico because police had raided the airstrip. Witte was not taken into custody at that time, and the activities of the conspiracy lapsed for several months.
Agent Norman next spoke with Witte in January 1991 and asked if Witte would be interested in purchasing 1,000 pounds of marijuana. Witte agreed, promised to obtain a $50,000 down payment, and indicated that he would transport the marijuana in a horse trailer he had purchased for the original 1990 transaction and in a motor home owned by an acquaintance, Sam Kelly. On February 7, Witte, Norman, and Kelly met in Houston, Texas. Norman agreed to give the drugs to Witte in exchange for the $25,000 in cash Witte had been able to secure at that time and for a promise to pay the balance of the down payment in three days. Undercover agents took the motor home and trailer away to load the marijuana, and Witte escorted Norman to Witte’s hotel room to view the money. The agents returned the vehicles the next morning loaded with approximately 375 pounds of marijuana, and they arrested Witte and Kelly when the two men took possession of the contraband.
In March 1991, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas indicted Witte and Kelly for conspiring and attempting to possess marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§ 841(a) and 846. The indictment was limited on its face to conduct occurring on or about January 25 through February 8,1991, thus covering only the later marijuana transaction. On February 21, 1992, Witte pleaded guilty to the attempted possession count and agreed to cooperate “with the Government by providing truthful and complete information concerning this and all other offenses about which [he] might be questioned by agents of law enforcement,” and by testifying if requested to do so. App. 14. In exchange, the Government agreed to dismiss the conspiracy count and, if Witte’s cooperation amounted to “substantial assistance,” to file a motion for a downward departure under the Sentencing Guidelines. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §5K1.1 (Nov. 1994) (USSG).
In calculating Witte’s base offense level under the Sentencing Guidelines, the presentenee report prepared by the United States Probation Office considered the total quantity of drugs involved in all of the transactions contemplated by the conspirators, including the planned 1990 shipments of both marijuana and cocaine. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, the sentencing range for a particular offense is determined on the basis of all “relevant conduct” in which the defendant was engaged and not just with regard to the conduct underlying the offense of conviction. USSG §1B1.3. The Sentencing Commission has noted that, “[w]ith respect to offenses involving contraband (including controlled substances), the defendant is accountable for all quantities of contraband with which he was directly involved and, in the case of a jointly undertaken criminal activity, all reasonably foreseeable quantities of contraband that were within the scope of the criminal activity that he jointly undertook.” USSG §1B1.3, comment., n. 2; see also USSG §2D1.1, comment., nn. 6, 12. The presentence report therefore suggested that Witte was accountable for the 1,000 pounds of marijuana involved in the attempted possession offense to which he pleaded guilty, 15 tons of marijuana that Witte, Mason, and Pokorny had planned to import from Mexico in 1990, 500 kilograms of cocaine that the conspirators originally proposed to import from Guatemala, and the 591 kilograms of cocaine seized at the Mexican airstrip in August 1990.
At the sentencing hearing, both petitioner and the Government urged the court to hold that the 1990 activities concerning importation of cocaine and marijuana were not part of the same course of conduct as the 1991 marijuana offense to which Witte had pleaded guilty, and therefore should not be considered in sentencing for the 1991 offense. The District Court concluded, however, that because the 1990 importation offenses were part of the same continuing conspiracy, they were “relevant conduct” under § IB 1.3 of the Guidelines and should be taken into account. The court therefore accepted the presentence report’s aggregation of the quantities of drugs involved in the 1990 and 1991 episodes, resulting in a base offense level of 40, with a Guideline range of 292 to 365 months’ imprisonment. App. 80-81; see also USSG §2D1.1. From that base offense level, Witte received a two-level increase for his aggravating role in the offense, see USSG §3B1.1, and an offsetting two-level decrease for acceptance of responsibility, see USSG §3E1.1. Finally, the court granted the Government’s §5K1.1 motion for downward departure based on Witte’s substantial assistance. By virtue of that departure, the court sentenced Witte to 144 months in prison, see App. 76, which was 148 months below the minimum sentence of 292 months under the predeparture Guideline range. Witte appealed, but the Court of Appeals dismissed the case when Witte failed to file a brief.
In September 1992, another grand jury in the same district returned a two-count indictment against Witte and Pokorny for conspiring and attempting to import cocaine, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§ 952(a) and 963. The indictment alleged that, between August 1989 and August 1990, Witte tried to import about 1,091 kilograms of cocaine from Central America. Witte moved to dismiss, arguing that he had already been punished for the cocaine offenses because the cocaine involved in the 1990 transactions had been considered as “relevant conduct” at sentencing for the 1991 marijuana offense. The District Court dismissed the indictment in February 1993 on grounds that punishment for the indicted offenses would violate the prohibition against multiple punishments contained in the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment. App. 130-136.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. 25 F. 3d 250 (1994). Relying on our decision in Williams v. Oklahoma, 358 U. S. 576 (1959), the court held that “the use of relevant conduct to increase the punishment of a charged offense does not punish the offender for the relevant conduct.” 25 F. 3d, at 258. Thus, although the sentencing court took the quantity of cocaine involved in the 1990 importation scheme into account when determining the sentence for Witte’s 1991 marijuana possession offense, the Court of Appeals concluded that Witte had not been punished for the cocaine offenses in the first prosecution — and that the Double Jeopardy Clause therefore did not bar the later action. In reaching this result, the court expressly disagreed with contrary holdings in United States v. Koonce, 945 F. 2d 1145 (CA10 1991), cert, denied, 503 U. S. 994 (1992), and United States v. McCormick, 992 F. 2d 437 (CA2 1993), that when a defendant’s actions are included in relevant conduct in determining the punishment under the Sentencing Guidelines for one offense, those actions may not form the basis for a later indictment without violating double jeopardy. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Circuits, 513 U. S. 1072 (1995), and now affirm.
II
The Double Jeopardy Clause provides: “[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” U. S. Const., Amdt. 5. We have explained that “the Clause serves the function of preventing both successive punishment and successive prosecution,” United States v. Dixon, 509 U. S. 688, 704 (1993) (citing North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711 (1969)), and that “the Constitution was designed as much to prevent the criminal from being twice punished for the same offence as from being twice tried for it,” Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 173 (1874). See also Schiro v. Farley, 510 U. S. 222, 229-230 (1994); United States v. Halper, 490 U. S. 435, 440, 451, n. 10 (1989). Significantly, the language of the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against more than the actual imposition of two punishments for the same offense; by its terms, it protects a criminal defendant from being twice put in jeopardy for such punishment. See Price v. Georgia, 398 U. S. 323, 326 (1970). That is, the Double Jeopardy Clause “prohibits merely punishing twice, or attempting a second time to punish criminally, for the same offense.” Helvering v. Mitchell, 303 U. S. 391, 399 (1938) (emphasis added).
Petitioner clearly was neither prosecuted for nor convicted of the cocaine offenses during the first criminal proceeding. The offense to which petitioner pleaded guilty and for which he was sentenced in 1992 was attempted possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it, whereas the crimes charged in the instant indictment are conspiracy to import cocaine and attempted importation of the same. Under Blockburger v. United States, 284 U. S. 299, 304 (1932), “where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not.” See also Dixon, supra, at 696 (emphasizing that the same inquiry generally applies “[i]n both the multiple punishment and multiple prosecution contexts”). Under the Blockburger test, the indictment in this case did not charge the same offense to which petitioner formerly had pleaded guilty.
Petitioner nevertheless argues that, because the conduct giving rise to the cocaine charges was taken into account during sentencing for the marijuana conviction, he effectively was “punished” for that conduct during the first proceeding. As a result, he contends, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars the instant prosecution. This claim is ripe at this stage of the prosecution — although petitioner has not yet been convicted of the cocaine offenses — because, as we have said, “courts may not impose more than one punishment for the same offense and prosecutors ordinarily may not attempt to secure that punishment in more than one trial.” Brown v. Ohio, 432 U. S. 161, 165 (1977). See also Ball v. United States, 470 U. S. 856, 861, 864-865 (1985) (explaining that, for purposes of the double jeopardy inquiry, punishment “must be the equivalent of a criminal conviction and not simply the imposition of sentence”); Ex parte Lange, supra, at 173. Thus, if petitioner is correct that the present case constitutes a second attempt to punish him criminally for the same cocaine offenses, see Helvering, supra, at 399, then the prosecution may not proceed. We agree with the Court of Appeals, however, that petitioner’s double jeopardy theory— that consideration of uncharged conduct in arriving at a sentence within the statutorily authorized punishment range constitutes “punishment” for that conduct — is not supported by our precedents, which make clear that a defendant in that situation is punished, for double jeopardy purposes, only for the offense of which the defendant is convicted.
Traditionally, “[sentencing courts have not only taken into consideration a defendant’s prior convictions, but have also considered a defendant’s past criminal behavior, even if no conviction resulted from that behavior.” Nichols v. United States, 511 U. S. 738, 747 (1994). We explained in Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241, 246 (1949), that “both before and since the American colonies became a nation, courts in this country and in England practiced a policy under which a sentencing judge could exercise a wide discretion in the sources and types of evidence used to assist him in determining the kind and extent of punishment to be imposed within limits fixed by law.” That history, combined with a recognition of the need for individualized sentencing, led us to conclude that the Due Process Clause did not require “that courts throughout the Nation abandon their age-old practice of seeking information from out-of-court sources to guide their judgment toward a more enlightened and just sentence.” Id., at 250-251. Thus, “[a]s a general proposition, a sentencing judge ‘may appropriately conduct an inquiry broad in scope, largely unlimited either as to the kind of information he may consider, or the source from which it may come.’” Nichols, supra, at 747 (quoting United States v. Tucker, 404 U. S. 443, 446 (1972)). See also Wisconsin v. Mitchell, 508 U. S. 476, 485 (1993).
Against this background of sentencing history, we specifically have rejected the claim that double jeopardy principles bar a later prosecution or punishment for criminal activity where that activity has been considered at sentencing for a separate crime. Williams v. Oklahoma, 358 U. S., at 576, arose out of a kidnaping and murder committed by the petitioner while attempting to escape from police after a robbery. Following his arrest, Williams pleaded guilty to murder and was given a life sentence. He was later convicted of kidnaping, which was then a capital offense in Oklahoma, and the sentencing court took into account, in assessing the death penalty, the fact that the kidnaping victim had been murdered. We rejected Williams’ contention that this use of the conduct that had given rise to the prior conviction violated double jeopardy. Emphasizing that “the exercise of a sound discretion in such a case required consideration of all the circumstances of the crime,” we made clear that “one of the aggravating circumstances involved in this kidnaping crime was the fact that petitioner shot and killed the victim in the course of its commission,” and rejected the claim “that the sentencing judge was not entitled to consider that circumstance, along with all the other circumstances involved, in determining the proper sentence to be imposed for the kidnaping crime.” Id., at 585-586. We then disposed of the petitioner’s double jeopardy claim as follows: “[I]n view of the obvious fact that, under the law of Oklahoma, kidnaping is a separate crime, entirely distinct from the crime of murder, the court’s consideration of the murder as a circumstance involved in the kidnaping crime cannot be said to have resulted in punishing petitioner a second time for the same, offense ... .” Id., at 586. We thus made clear that use of evidence of related criminal conduct to enhance a defendant’s sentence for a separate crime within the authorized statutory limits does not constitute punishment for that conduct within the meaning of the Double Jeopardy Clause.
We find this case to be governed by Williams; it makes no difference in this context whether the enhancement occurred in the first or second sentencing proceeding. Here, petitioner pleaded guilty to attempted possession of marijuana with intent to distribute it, in violation of 21U. S. C. §§ 841(a) and 846. The statute provides that the sentence for such a crime involving 100 kilograms or more of marijuana must be between 5 and 40 years in prison. § 841(b)(1)(B). By including the cocaine from the earlier transaction — and not just the marijuana involved in the offense of conviction — in the drug quantity calculation, the District Court ended up with a higher offense level (40), and a higher sentence range (292 to 365 months), than it would have otherwise under the applicable Guideline, which specifies different base offense levels depending on the quantity of drugs involved. USSG § 2D 1.1. This higher Guideline range, however, still falls within the scope of the legislatively authorized penalty (5 to 40 years). As in Williams, the uncharged criminal conduct was used to enhance petitioner’s sentence within the range authorized by statute. If use of the murder to justify the death sentence for the kidnaping conviction was not “punishment” for the murder in Williams, it is impossible to con-elude that taking account of petitioner’s plans to import cocaine in fixing the sentence for the marijuana conviction constituted “punishment” for the cocaine offenses.
Williams, like this case, concerned the double jeopardy-implications of taking the circumstances surrounding a particular course of criminal activity into account in sentencing for a conviction arising therefrom. Similarly, we have made clear in other cases, which involved a defendant’s background more generally and not conduct arising out of the same criminal transaction as the offense of which the defendant was convicted, that “[enhancement statutes, whether in the nature of criminal history provisions such as those contained in the Sentencing Guidelines, or recidivist statutes which are common place in state criminal laws, do not change the penalty imposed for the earlier conviction.” Nichols, 511 U. S., at 747 (approving consideration of a defendant’s previous uncounseled misdemeanor conviction in sentencing him for a subsequent offense). In repeatedly upholding such recidivism statutes, we have rejected double jeopardy challenges because the enhanced punishment imposed for the later offense “is not to be viewed as either a new jeopardy or additional penalty for the earlier crimes,” but instead as “a stiffened penalty for the latest crime, which is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one.” Gryger v. Burke, 334 U. S. 728, 732 (1948). See also Spencer v. Texas, 385 U. S. 554, 560 (1967); Oyler v. Boles, 368 U. S. 448, 451 (1962); Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673, 677 (1895) (under a recidivist statute, “the accused is not again punished for the first offence” because “ ‘the punishment is for the last offence committed, and it is rendered more severe in consequence of the situation into which the party had previously brought himself’ ”).
In addition, by authorizing the consideration of offender-specific information at sentencing without the procedural protections attendant at a criminal trial, our cases necessarily imply that such consideration does not result in “punishment” for such conduct. In McMillan v. Pennsylvania, 477 U. S. 79 (1986), we upheld against a due process challenge Pennsylvania’s Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act, which imposed a 5-year minimum sentence for certain enumerated felonies if the sentencing judge found, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the defendant “visibly possessed a firearm” during the commission of the offense. Significantly, we emphasized that the statute at issue “neither alters the maximum penalty for the crime committed nor creates a separate offense calling for a separate penalty; it operates solely to limit the sentencing court’s discretion in selecting a penalty within the range already available to it without the special finding of visible possession of a firearm.” Id., at 87-88. That is, the statute “simply took one factor that has always been considered by sentencing courts to bear on punishment — the instrumentality used in committing a violent felony — and dictated the precise weight to be given that factor if the instrumentality is a firearm.” Id., at 89-90. For this reason, we approved the lesser standard of proof provided for in the statute, thereby “rejecting] the claim that whenever a State links the ‘severity of punishment’ to ‘the presence or absence of an identified fact’ the State must prove that fact beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 84 (quoting Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 214 (1977)). These decisions reinforce our conclusion that consideration of information about the defendant’s character and conduct at sentencing does not result in “punishment” for any offense other than the one of which the defendant was convicted.
We are not persuaded by petitioner’s suggestion that the Sentencing Guidelines somehow change the constitutional analysis. A defendant has not been “punished” any more for double jeopardy purposes when relevant conduct is included in the calculation of his offense level under the Guidelines than when a pre-Guidelines court, in its discretion, took similar uncharged conduct into account. Cf. McMillan, supra, at 92 (perceiving no difference in the due process cal-cuius depending upon whether consideration of the sentencing factor was discretionary or mandatory). As the Government argues, “[tjhe fact that the sentencing process has become more transparent under the Guidelines ... does not mean that the defendant is now being ‘punished’ for uncharged relevant conduct as though it were a distinct criminal ‘offense.’” Brief for United States 23. The relevant conduct provisions are designed to channel the sentencing discretion of the district courts and to make mandatory the consideration of factors that previously would have been optional. United States v. Wright, 873 F. 2d 437, 441 (CA1 1989) (Breyer, J.) (explaining that, “very roughly speaking, [relevant conduct] corresponds to those actions and circumstances that courts typically took into account when sentencing prior to the Guidelines’ enactment”). See also Burns v. United States, 501 U. S. 129, 133 (1991); Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 363-367 (1989). Regardless of whether particular conduct is taken into account by rule or as an act of discretion, the defendant is still being punished only for the offense of conviction.
Justice Stevens disagrees with our conclusion because, he contends, “[u]nder the Guidelines, ... an offense that is included as ‘relevant conduct’ does not relate to the character of the offender (which is reflected instead by criminal history), but rather measures only the character of the offense.” Post, at 411. The criminal history section of the Guidelines, however, does not seem to create this bright line distinction; indeed, the difference between “criminal history” and “relevant conduct” is more temporal than qualitative, with the former referring simply to a defendant’s past criminal conduct (as evidenced by convictions and prison terms), see USSG §4A1.1, and the latter covering activity arising out of the same course of criminal conduct as the instant offense, see USSG § 1B1.3.
To the extent that the Guidelines aggravate punishment for related conduct outside the elements of the crime on the theory that such conduct bears on the “character of the offense,” the offender is still punished only for the fact that the present offense was carried out in a manner that warrants increased punishment, not for a different offense (which that related conduct may or may not constitute). But, while relevant conduct thus may relate to the severity of the particular crime, the commission of multiple offenses in the same course of conduct also necessarily provides important evidence that the character of the offender requires special punishment. Similarly, as we have said in the recidivism cases, a crime committed by an offender with a prior conviction “is considered to be an aggravated offense because a repetitive one.” Gryger, 334 U. S., at 732. Nothing about the labels given to these categories controls the use to which such information is put at sentencing. Under the Guidelines, therefore, as under the traditional sentencing regimes Justice Stevens approves, “it is difficult if not impossible to determine whether a given offense has affected the judge’s assessment of the character of the offender, the character of the offense, or both.” Post, at 411 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Even under Justice Stevens’ framework, the structure of the Guidelines should not affect the outcome of this case.
The relevant conduct provisions of the Sentencing Guidelines, like their criminal history counterparts and the recidivism statutes discussed above, are sentencing enhancement regimes evincing the judgment that a particular offense should receive a more serious sentence within the authorized range if it was either accompanied by or preceded by additional criminal activity. Petitioner does not argue that the range fixed by Congress is so broad, and the enhancing role played by the relevant conduct so significant, that consideration of that conduct in sentencing has become “a tail which wags the dog of the substantive offense.” McMillan, 477 U. S., at 88; cf. Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 700 (1975). We hold that, where the legislature has authorized such a particular punishment range for a given crime, the resulting sentence within that range constitutes punishment only for the offense of conviction for purposes of the double jeopardy inquiry. Accordingly, the instant prosecution for the cocaine offenses is not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause as a second attempt to punish petitioner for the same crime.
III
At its core, much of petitioner’s argument addresses not a claim that the instant cocaine prosecution violates principles of double jeopardy, but the more modest contention that he should not receive a second sentence under the Guidelines for the cocaine activities that were considered as relevant conduct for the marijuana sentence. As an examination of the pertinent sections should make clear, however, the Guidelines take into account the potential unfairness with which petitioner is concerned.
Petitioner argues that the Sentencing Guidelines require that drug offenders be sentenced in a single proceeding for all related offenses, whether charged or uncharged. See Brief for Petitioner 20-23. Yet while the Guidelines certainly envision that sentences for multiple offenses arising out of the same criminal activity ordinarily will be imposed together, they also explicitly contemplate the possibility of separate prosecutions involving the same or overlapping “relevant conduct.” See USSG §5G1.3, comment., n. 2 (addressing cases in which “a defendant is prosecuted in ... two or more federal jurisdictions, for the same criminal conduct or for different criminal transactions that were part of the same course of conduct”). There are often valid reasons why related crimes committed by the same defendant are not prosecuted in the same proceeding, and §5G1.3 of the Guidelines attempts to achieve some coordination of sentences imposed in such situations with an eye toward having such punishments approximate the total penalty that would have been imposed had the sentences for the different offenses been imposed at the same time (i. e., had all of the offenses been prosecuted in a single proceeding). See USSG § 5G1.3, comment., n. 3.
Because the concept of relevant conduct under the Guidelines is reciprocal, § 5G1.3 operates to mitigate the possibility that the fortuity of two separate prosecutions will grossly increase a defendant’s sentence. If a defendant is serving an undischarged term of imprisonment “resulting] from offense(s) that have been fully taken into account [as relevant conduct] in the determination of the offense level for the instant offense,” § 5G1.3(b) provides that “the sentence for the instant offense shall be imposed to run concurrently to the undischarged term of imprisonment.” And where § 5G1.3(b) does not apply, an accompanying policy statement provides, “the sentence for the instant offense shall be imposed to run consecutively to the prior undischarged term of imprisonment to the extent necessary to achieve a reasonable incremental punishment for the instant offense.” USSG §5G1.3(c) (policy statement). Significant safeguards built into the Sentencing Guidelines therefore protect petitioner against having the length of his sentence multiplied by dupli-cative consideration of the same criminal conduct; he would be able to vindicate his interests through appropriate appeals should the Guidelines be misapplied in any future sentencing proceeding.
Even if the Sentencing Commission had not formalized sentencing for multiple convictions in this way, district courts under the Guidelines retain enough flexibility in appropriate cases to take into account the fact that conduct underlying the offense at issue has previously been taken into account in sentencing for another offense. As the Commission has explained, “fu]nder 18 U. S. C. § 3553(b) the sentencing court may impose a sentence outside the range established by the applicable guideline, if the court finds ‘that there exists an aggravating or mitigating circumstance of a kind, or to a degree, not adequately taken into consideration by the Sentencing Commission in formulating the guidelines that should result in a sentence different from that described.’” USSG §5K2.0 (policy statement). This departure power is also available to protect against petitioner’s second major practical concern: that a second sentence for the same relevant conduct may deprive him of the effect of the downward departure under §5K1.1 of the Guidelines for substantial assistance to the Government, which reduced his first sentence significantly. Should petitioner be convicted of the cocaine charges, he will be free to put his argument concerning the unusual facts of this case to the sentencing judge as a basis for discretionary downward departure.
>
Because consideration of relevant conduct in determining a defendant’s sentence within the legislatively authorized punishment range does not constitute punishment for that conduct, the instant prosecution does not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause’s prohibition against the imposition of multiple punishments for the same offense. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The Chief Justice and Justice Kennedy join all but Part III of this opinion, and Justice Stevens joins only Part III.
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.
We granted certiorari sub nom. Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Pauley, 577 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 891, 193 L.Ed.2d 784 (2016), and now reverse.
II
The First Amendment provides, in part, that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The parties agree that the Establishment Clause of that Amendment does not prevent Missouri from including Trinity Lutheran in the Scrap Tire Program. That does not, however, answer the question under the Free Exercise Clause, because we have recognized that there is "play in the joints" between what the Establishment Clause permits and the Free Exercise Clause compels. Locke, 540 U.S., at 718, 124 S.Ct. 1307 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The Free Exercise Clause "protect[s] religious observers against unequal treatment" and subjects to the strictest scrutiny laws that target the religious for "special disabilities" based on their "religious status." Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 533, 542, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993) (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying that basic principle, this Court has repeatedly confirmed that denying a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that can be justified only by a state interest "of the highest order." McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U.S. 618, 628, 98 S.Ct. 1322, 55 L.Ed.2d 593 (1978) (plurality opinion) (quoting Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205, 215, 92 S.Ct. 1526, 32 L.Ed.2d 15 (1972) ).
In Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), for example, we upheld against an Establishment Clause challenge a New Jersey law enabling a local school district to reimburse parents for the public transportation costs of sending their children to public and private schools, including parochial schools. In the course of ruling that the Establishment Clause allowed New Jersey to extend that public benefit to all its citizens regardless of their religious belief, we explained that a State "cannot hamper its citizens in the free exercise of their own religion. Consequently, it cannot exclude individual Catholics, Lutherans, Mohammedans, Baptists, Jews, Methodists, Non-believers, Presbyterians, or the members of any other faith, because of their faith, or lack of it, from receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation." Id., at 16, 67 S.Ct. 504.
Three decades later, in McDaniel v. Paty, the Court struck down under the Free Exercise Clause a Tennessee statute disqualifying ministers from serving as delegates to the State's constitutional convention. Writing for the plurality, Chief Justice Burger acknowledged that Tennessee had disqualified ministers from serving as legislators since the adoption of its first Constitution in 1796, and that a number of early States had also disqualified ministers from legislative office. This historical tradition, however, did not change the fact that the statute discriminated against McDaniel by denying him a benefit solely because of his "status as a'minister.' " 435 U.S., at 627, 98 S.Ct. 1322. McDaniel could not seek to participate in the convention while also maintaining his role as a minister; to pursue the one, he would have to give up the other. In this way, said Chief Justice Burger, the Tennessee law "effectively penalizes the free exercise of [McDaniel's] constitutional liberties." Id., at 626, 98 S.Ct. 1322 (quoting Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398, 406, 83 S.Ct. 1790, 10 L.Ed.2d 965 (1963) ; internal quotation marks omitted). Joined by Justice Marshall in concurrence, Justice Brennan added that "because the challenged provision requires [McDaniel] to purchase his right to engage in the ministry by sacrificing his candidacy it impairs the free exercise of his religion." McDaniel, 435 U.S., at 634, 98 S.Ct. 1322.
In recent years, when this Court has rejected free exercise challenges, the laws in question have been neutral and generally applicable without regard to religion. We have been careful to distinguish such laws from those that single out the religious for disfavored treatment.
For example, in Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Association, 485 U.S. 439, 108 S.Ct. 1319, 99 L.Ed.2d 534 (1988), we held that the Free Exercise Clause did not prohibit the Government from timber harvesting or road construction on a particular tract of federal land, even though the Government's action would obstruct the religious practice of several Native American Tribes that held certain sites on the tract to be sacred. Accepting that "[t]he building of a road or the harvesting of timber... would interfere significantly with private persons' ability to pursue spiritual fulfillment according to their own religious beliefs," we nonetheless found no free exercise violation, because the affected individuals were not being "coerced by the Government's action into violating their religious beliefs." Id., at 449, 108 S.Ct. 1319. The Court specifically noted, however, that the Government action did not "penalize religious activity by denying any person an equal share of the rights, benefits, and privileges enjoyed by other citizens." Ibid.
In Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990), we rejected a free exercise claim brought by two members of a Native American church denied unemployment benefits because they had violated Oregon's drug laws by ingesting peyote for sacramental purposes. Along the same lines as our decision in Lyng, we held that the Free Exercise Clause did not entitle the church members to a special dispensation from the general criminal laws on account of their religion. At the same time, we again made clear that the Free Exercise Clause did guard against the government's imposition of "special disabilities on the basis of religious views or religious status." 494 U.S., at 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595 (citing McDaniel, 435 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 1322, 55 L.Ed.2d 593 ).
Finally, in Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, we struck down three facially neutral city ordinances that outlawed certain forms of animal slaughter. Members of the Santeria religion challenged the ordinances under the Free Exercise Clause, alleging that despite their facial neutrality, the ordinances had a discriminatory purpose easy to ferret out: prohibiting sacrificial rituals integral to Santeria but distasteful to local residents. We agreed. Before explaining why the challenged ordinances were not, in fact, neutral or generally applicable, the Court recounted the fundamentals of our free exercise jurisprudence. A law, we said, may not discriminate against "some or all religious beliefs." 508 U.S., at 532, 113 S.Ct. 2217. Nor may a law regulate or outlaw conduct because it is religiously motivated. And, citing McDaniel and Smith, we restated the now-familiar refrain: The Free Exercise Clause protects against laws that " 'impose[ ] special disabilities on the basis of... religious status.' " 508 U.S., at 533, 113 S.Ct. 2217 (quoting Smith, 494 U.S., at 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595 ); see also Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793, 828, 120 S.Ct. 2530, 147 L.Ed.2d 660 (2000) (plurality opinion) (noting "our decisions that have prohibited governments from discriminating in the distribution of public benefits based upon religious status or sincerity" (citing Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995) ; Lamb's Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. 384, 113 S.Ct. 2141, 124 L.Ed.2d 352 (1993) ; Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 102 S.Ct. 269, 70 L.Ed.2d 440 (1981) )).
III
A
The Department's policy expressly discriminates against otherwise eligible recipients by disqualifying them from a public benefit solely because of their religious character. If the cases just described make one thing clear, it is that such a policy imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that triggers the most exacting scrutiny. Lukumi, 508 U.S., at 546, 113 S.Ct. 2217. This conclusion is unremarkable in light of our prior decisions.
Like the disqualification statute in McDaniel, the Department's policy puts Trinity Lutheran to a choice: It may participate in an otherwise available benefit program or remain a religious institution. Of course, Trinity Lutheran is free to continue operating as a church, just as McDaniel was free to continue being a minister. But that freedom comes at the cost of automatic and absolute exclusion from the benefits of a public program for which the Center is otherwise fully qualified. And when the State conditions a benefit in this way, McDaniel says plainly that the State has punished the free exercise of religion: "To condition the availability of benefits... upon [a recipient's] willingness to... surrender[ ] his religiously impelled [status] effectively penalizes the free exercise of his constitutional liberties." 435 U.S., at 626, 98 S.Ct. 1322 (plurality opinion) (alterations omitted).
The Department contends that merely declining to extend funds to Trinity Lutheran does not prohibit the Church from engaging in any religious conduct or otherwise exercising its religious rights. In this sense, says the Department, its policy is unlike the ordinances struck down in Lukumi, which outlawed rituals central to Santeria. Here the Department has simply declined to allocate to Trinity Lutheran a subsidy the State had no obligation to provide in the first place. That decision does not meaningfully burden the Church's free exercise rights. And absent any such burden, the argument continues, the Department is free to heed the State's antiestablishment objection to providing funds directly to a church. Brief for Respondent 7-12, 14-16.
It is true the Department has not criminalized the way Trinity Lutheran worships or told the Church that it cannot subscribe to a certain view of the Gospel. But, as the Department itself acknowledges, the Free Exercise Clause protects against "indirect coercion or penalties on the free exercise of religion, not just outright prohibitions." Lyng, 485 U.S., at 450, 108 S.Ct. 1319. As the Court put it more than 50 years ago, "[i]t is too late in the day to doubt that the liberties of religion and expression may be infringed by the denial of or placing of conditions upon a benefit or privilege." Sherbert, 374 U.S., at 404, 83 S.Ct. 1790 ; see also McDaniel, 435 U.S., at 633, 98 S.Ct. 1322 (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment) (The "proposition-that the law does not interfere with free exercise because it does not directly prohibit religious activity, but merely conditions eligibility for office on its abandonment-is... squarely rejected by precedent").
Trinity Lutheran is not claiming any entitlement to a subsidy. It instead asserts a right to participate in a government benefit program without having to disavow its religious character. The "imposition of such a condition upon even a gratuitous benefit inevitably deter[s] or discourage[s] the exercise of First Amendment rights." Sherbert, 374 U.S., at 405, 83 S.Ct. 1790. The express discrimination against religious exercise here is not the denial of a grant, but rather the refusal to allow the Church-solely because it is a church-to compete with secular organizations for a grant. Cf. Northeastern Fla. Chapter, Associated Gen. Contractors of America v. Jacksonville, 508 U.S. 656, 666, 113 S.Ct. 2297, 124 L.Ed.2d 586 (1993) ( "[T]he 'injury in fact' is the inability to compete on an equal footing in the bidding process, not the loss of a contract"). Trinity Lutheran is a member of the community too, and the State's decision to exclude it for purposes of this public program must withstand the strictest scrutiny.
B
The Department attempts to get out from under the weight of our precedents by arguing that the free exercise question in this case is instead controlled by our decision in Locke v. Davey. It is not. In Locke, the State of Washington created a scholarship program to assist high-achieving students with the costs of postsecondary education. The scholarships were paid out of the State's general fund, and eligibility was based on criteria such as an applicant's score on college admission tests and family income. While scholarship recipients were free to use the money at accredited religious and non-religious schools alike, they were not permitted to use the funds to pursue a devotional theology degree-one "devotional in nature or designed to induce religious faith." 540 U.S., at 716, 124 S.Ct. 1307 (internal quotation marks omitted). Davey was selected for a scholarship but was denied the funds when he refused to certify that he would not use them toward a devotional degree. He sued, arguing that the State's refusal to allow its scholarship money to go toward such degrees violated his free exercise rights.
This Court disagreed. It began by explaining what was not at issue. Washington's selective funding program was not comparable to the free exercise violations found in the "Lukumi line of cases," including those striking down laws requiring individuals to "choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit." Id., at 720-721, 124 S.Ct. 1307. At the outset, then, the Court made clear that Locke was not like the case now before us.
Washington's restriction on the use of its scholarship funds was different. According to the Court, the State had "merely chosen not to fund a distinct category of instruction." Id., at 721, 124 S.Ct. 1307. Davey was not denied a scholarship because of who he was ; he was denied a scholarship because of what he proposed to do -use the funds to prepare for the ministry. Here there is no question that Trinity Lutheran was denied a grant simply because of what it is-a church.
The Court in Locke also stated that Washington's choice was in keeping with the State's antiestablishment interest in not using taxpayer funds to pay for the training of clergy; in fact, the Court could "think of few areas in which a State's antiestablishment interests come more into play." Id., at 722, 124 S.Ct. 1307. The claimant in Locke sought funding for an "essentially religious endeavor... akin to a religious calling as well as an academic pursuit," and opposition to such funding "to support church leaders" lay at the historic core of the Religion Clauses. Id., at 721-722, 124 S.Ct. 1307. Here nothing of the sort can be said about a program to use recycled tires to resurface playgrounds.
Relying on Locke, the Department nonetheless emphasizes Missouri's similar constitutional tradition of not furnishing taxpayer money directly to churches. Brief for Respondent 15-16. But Locke took account of Washington's antiestablishment interest only after determining, as noted, that the scholarship program did not "require students to choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit." 540 U.S., at 720-721, 124 S.Ct. 1307 (citing McDaniel, 435 U.S. 618, 98 S.Ct. 1322, 55 L.Ed.2d 593 ). As the Court put it, Washington's scholarship program went "a long way toward including religion in its benefits." Locke, 540 U.S., at 724, 124 S.Ct. 1307. Students in the program were free to use their scholarships at "pervasively religious schools." Ibid. Davey could use his scholarship to pursue a secular degree at one institution while studying devotional theology at another. Id., at 721, n. 4, 124 S.Ct. 1307. He could also use his scholarship money to attend a religious college and take devotional theology courses there.
Id., at 725, 124 S.Ct. 1307. The only thing he could not do was use the scholarship to pursue a degree in that subject.
In this case, there is no dispute that Trinity Lutheran is put to the choice between being a church and receiving a government benefit. The rule is simple: No churches need apply.
C
The State in this case expressly requires Trinity Lutheran to renounce its religious character in order to participate in an otherwise generally available public benefit program, for which it is fully qualified. Our cases make clear that such a condition imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that must be subjected to the "most rigorous" scrutiny. Lukumi, 508 U.S., at 546, 113 S.Ct. 2217.
Under that stringent standard, only a state interest "of the highest order" can justify the Department's discriminatory policy. McDaniel, 435 U.S., at 628, 98 S.Ct. 1322 (internal quotation marks omitted). Yet the Department offers nothing more than Missouri's policy preference for skating as far as possible from religious establishment concerns. Brief for Respondent 15-16. In the face of the clear infringement on free exercise before us, that interest cannot qualify as compelling. As we said when considering Missouri's same policy preference on a prior occasion, "the state interest asserted here-in achieving greater separation of church and State than is already ensured under the Establishment Clause of the Federal Constitution-is limited by the Free Exercise Clause." Widmar, 454 U.S., at 276, 102 S.Ct. 269.
The State has pursued its preferred policy to the point of expressly denying a qualified religious entity a public benefit solely because of its religious character. Under our precedents, that goes too far. The Department's policy violates the Free Exercise Clause.
Nearly 200 years ago, a legislator urged the Maryland Assembly to adopt a bill that would end the State's disqualification of Jews from public office:
"If, on account of my religious faith, I am subjected to disqualifications, from which others are free,... I cannot but consider myself a persecuted man.... An odious exclusion from any of the benefits common to the rest of my fellow-citizens, is a persecution, differing only in degree, but of a nature equally unjustifiable with that, whose instruments are chains and torture." Speech by H.M. Brackenridge, Dec. Sess. 1818, in H. Brackenridge, W. Worthington, & J. Tyson, Speeches in the House of Delegates of Maryland, 64 (1829).
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources has not subjected anyone to chains or torture on account of religion. And the result of the State's policy is nothing so dramatic as the denial of political office. The consequence is, in all likelihood, a few extra scraped knees. But the exclusion of Trinity Lutheran from a public benefit for which it is otherwise qualified, solely because it is a church, is odious to our Constitution all the same, and cannot stand.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice THOMAS, with whom Justice GORSUCH joins, concurring in part.
The Court today reaffirms that "denying a generally available benefit solely on account of religious identity imposes a penalty on the free exercise of religion that can be justified," if at all, "only by a state interest 'of the highest order.' " Ante, at 2019. The Free Exercise Clause, which generally prohibits laws that facially discriminate against religion, compels this conclusion. See Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712, 726-727, 124 S.Ct. 1307, 158 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004) (Scalia, J., dissenting).
Despite this prohibition, the Court in Locke permitted a State to "disfavor... religion" by imposing what it deemed a "relatively minor" burden on religious exercise to advance the State's antiestablishment "interest in not funding the religious training of clergy." Id., at 720, 722, n. 5, 725, 124 S.Ct. 1307. The Court justified this law based on its view that there is " 'play in the joints' " between the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause-that is, that "there are some state actions permitted by the Establishment Clause but not required by the Free Exercise Clause." Id., at 719, 124 S.Ct. 1307. Accordingly, Locke did not subject the law at issue to any form of heightened scrutiny. But it also did not suggest that discrimination against religion outside the limited context of support for ministerial training would be similarly exempt from exacting review.
This Court's endorsement in Locke of even a "mil[d] kind," id., at 720, 124 S.Ct. 1307 of discrimination against religion remains troubling. See generally id., at 726-734, 124 S.Ct. 1307 (Scalia, J., dissenting). But because the Court today appropriately construes Locke narrowly, see Part III-B, ante, and because no party has asked us to reconsider it, I join nearly all of the Court's opinion. I do not, however, join footnote 3, for the reasons expressed by Justice GORSUCH, post, p. 2025 (opinion concurring in part).
Justice GORSUCH, with whom Justice THOMAS joins, concurring in part.
Missouri's law bars Trinity Lutheran from participating in a public benefits program only because it is a church. I agree this violates the First Amendment and I am pleased to join nearly all of the Court's opinion. I offer only two modest qualifications.
First, the Court leaves open the possibility a useful distinction might be drawn between laws that discriminate on the basis of religious status and religious use. Seeante, at 2022 - 2023. Respectfully, I harbor doubts about the stability of such a line. Does a religious man say grace before dinner? Or does a man begin his meal in a religious manner? Is it a religious group that built the playground? Or did a group build the playground so it might be used to advance a religious mission? The distinction blurs in much the same way the line between acts and omissions can blur when stared at too long, leaving us to ask (for example) whether the man who drowns by awaiting the incoming tide does so by act (coming upon the sea) or omission (allowing the sea to come upon him). See Cruzan v. Director, Mo. Dept. of Health, 497 U.S. 261, 296, 110 S.Ct. 2841, 111 L.Ed.2d 224 (1990) (Scalia, J., dissenting). Often enough the same facts can be described both ways.
Neither do I see why the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause should care. After all, that Clause guarantees the free exercise of religion, not just the right to inward belief (or status). Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 877, 110 S.Ct. 1595, 108 L.Ed.2d 876 (1990). And this Court has long explained that government may not "devise mechanisms, overt or disguised, designed to persecute or oppress a religion or its practices." Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 547, 113 S.Ct. 2217, 124 L.Ed.2d 472 (1993). Generally the government may not force people to choose between participation in a public program and their right to free exercise of religion. See Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U.S. 707, 716, 101 S.Ct. 1425, 67 L.Ed.2d 624 (1981) ; Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947). I don't see why it should matter whether we describe that benefit, say, as closed to Lutherans (status) or closed to people who do Lutheran things (use). It is free exercise either way.
For these reasons, reliance on the status-use distinction does not suffice for me to distinguish Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712, 124 S.Ct. 1307, 158 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004). See ante, at 2022 - 2023. In that case, this Court upheld a funding restriction barring a student from using a scholarship to pursue a degree in devotional theology. But can it really matter whether the restriction in Locke was phrased in terms of use instead of status (for was it a student who wanted a vocational degree in religion? or was it a religious student who wanted the necessary education for his chosen vocation?). If that case can be correct and distinguished, it seems it might be only because of the opinion's claim of a long tradition against the use of public funds for training of the clergy, a tradition the Court correctly explains has no analogue here. Ante, at 2023 - 2024.
Second and for similar reasons, I am unable to join the footnoted observation, ante, at 2024, n. 3, that "[t]his case involves express discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing." Of course the footnote is entirely correct, but I worry that some might mistakenly read it to suggest that only "playground resurfacing" cases, or only those with some association with children's safety or health, or perhaps some other social good we find sufficiently worthy, are governed by the legal rules recounted in and faithfully applied by the Court's opinion. Such a reading would be unreasonable for our cases are "governed by general principles, rather than ad hoc improvisations." Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 25, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004) (Rehnquist, C. J., concurring in judgment). And the general principles here do not permit discrimination against religious exercise-whether on the playground or anywhere else.
Justice BREYER, concurring in the judgment.
I agree with much of what the Court says and with its result. But I find relevant, and would emphasize, the particular nature of the "public benefit" here at issue. Cf. ante, at 2022 ("Trinity Lutheran... asserts a right to participate in a government benefit program"); ante, at 2023 (referring to precedent "striking down laws requiring individuals to choose between their religious beliefs and receiving a government benefit" (internal quotation marks omitted)); ante, at 2022 (referring to Trinity Lutheran's "automatic and absolute exclusion from the benefits of a public program"); ante, at 2021 (the State's policy disqualifies "otherwise eligible recipients... from a public benefit solely because of their religious character"); ante, at 2020 (quoting the statement in Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947), that the State "cannot exclude" individuals "because of their faith " from "receiving the benefits of public welfare legislation").
The Court stated in Everson that "cutting off church schools from" such "general government services as ordinary police and fire protection... is obviously not the purpose of the First Amendment." 330 U.S., at 17-18, 67 S.Ct. 504. Here, the State would cut Trinity Lutheran off from participation in a general program designed to secure or to improve the health and safety of children. I see no significant difference. The fact that the program at issue ultimately funds only a limited number of projects cannot itself justify a religious distinction. Nor is there any administrative or other reason to treat church schools differently. The sole reason advanced that explains the difference is faith. And it is that last-mentioned fact that calls the Free Exercise Clause into play. We need not go further. Public benefits come in many shapes and sizes. I would leave the application of the Free Exercise Clause to other kinds of public benefits for another day.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG joins, dissenting.
To hear the Court tell it, this is a simple case about recycling tires to resurface a playground. The stakes are higher. This case is about nothing less than the relationship between religious institutions and the civil government-that is, between church and state. The Court today profoundly changes that relationship by holding, for the first time, that the Constitution requires the government to provide public funds directly to a church. Its decision slights both our precedents and our history, and its reasoning weakens this country's longstanding commitment to a separation of church and state beneficial to both.
I
Founded in 1922, Trinity Lutheran Church (Church) "operates... for the express purpose of carrying out the commission of... Jesus Christ as directed to His church on earth." Our Story, http://www.trinity-lcms.org/story (all internet materials as last visited June 22, 2017). The Church uses "preaching, teaching, worship, witness, service, and fellowship according to the Word of God" to carry out its mission "to'make disciples.' " Mission, http://www.trinity-lcms.org/mission (quoting Matthew 28:18-20). The Church's religious beliefs include its desire to "associat[e] with the [Trinity Church Child] Learning Center." App. to Pet. for Cert. 101a. Located on Church property, the Learning Center provides daycare and preschool for about "90 children ages two to kindergarten." Id., at 100a.
The Learning Center serves as "a ministry of the Church and incorporates daily religion and developmentally appropriate activities into... [its] program." Id., at 101a. In this way, "[t]hrough the Learning Center, the Church teaches a Christian world view to children of members of the Church, as well as children of non-member residents" of the area. Ibid. These activities represent the Church's "sincere religious belief... to use [the Learning Center] to teach the Gospel to children of its members, as well to bring the Gospel message to non-members." Ibid.
The Learning Center's facilities include a playground, the unlikely source of this dispute. The Church provides the playground and other "safe, clean, and attractive" facilities "in conjunction with an education program structured to allow a child to grow spiritually, physically, socially, and cognitively." Ibid. This case began in 2012 when the Church applied for funding to upgrade the playground's pea gravel and grass surface through Missouri's Scrap Tire Program, which provides grants for the purchase and installation of recycled tire material to resurface playgrounds. The Church sought $20,000 for a $30,580 project to modernize the playground, part of its effort to gain state accreditation for the Learning Center as an early childhood education program. Missouri denied the Church funding based on Article I, § 7, of its State Constitution, which prohibits the use of public funds "in aid of any church, sect, or denomination of religion."
II
Properly understood then, this is a case about whether Missouri can decline to fund improvements to the facilities the Church uses to practice and spread its religious views. This Court has repeatedly warned that funding of exactly this kind-payments from the government to a house of worship-would cross the line drawn by the Establishment Clause. See, e.g., Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 675, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970) ; Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 844, 115 S.Ct. 2510, 132 L.Ed.2d 700 (1995) ; Mitchell v. Helms, 530 U.S. 793, 843-844, 120 S.Ct. 2530, 147 L.Ed.2d 660 (2000) (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment). So it is surprising that the Court mentions the Establishment Clause only to note the parties' agreement that it "does not prevent Missouri from including Trinity Lutheran in the Scrap Tire Program." Ante, at 2019. Constitutional questions are decided by this Court, not the parties' concessions. The Establishment Clause does not allow Missouri to grant the Church's funding request because the Church uses the Learning Center, including its playground, in conjunction with its religious mission. The Court's silence on this front signals either its misunderstanding of the facts of this case or a startling departure from our precedents.
A
The government may not directly fund religious exercise. See Everson v. Board of Ed. of Ewing, 330 U.S. 1, 16, 67 S.Ct. 504, 91 L.Ed. 711 (1947) ; Mitchell, 530 U.S., at 840, 120 S.Ct. 2530 (O'Connor, J., concurring in judgment) ("[O]ur decisions provide no precedent for the use of public funds to finance religious activities" (internal quotation marks omitted)). Put in doctrinal terms, such funding violates the Establishment Clause because it impermissibly "advanc[es]... religion." Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 222-223, 117 S.Ct. 1997, 138 L.Ed.2d 391 (1997).
Nowhere is this rule more clearly implicated than when funds flow directly from the public treasury to a house of worship. A house of worship exists to foster and further religious exercise. There, a group of people, bound by common religious beliefs, comes together "to shape its own faith and mission." Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171, 188, 132 S.Ct. 694, 181 L.Ed.2d 650 (2012). Within its walls, worshippers gather to practice and reaffirm their faith. And from its base, the faithful reach out to those not yet convinced of the group's beliefs. When a government funds a house of worship, it underwrites this religious exercise.
Tilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672, 91 S.Ct. 2091, 29 L.Ed.2d 790 (1971), held as much. The federal program at issue provided construction grants to colleges and universities but prohibited grantees from using the funds to construct facilities " 'used for sectarian instruction or as a place for religious worship' " or " 'used primarily in connection with any part of the program of a school or department
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Federal statutes have long authorized the Postmaster General to forbid delivery of mail and payment of money orders to “any person or company” found, “upon evidence satisfactory” to him, to be “conducting any . . . scheme or device for obtaining money . . . through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises . ...” Following a hearing the Postmaster General issued such an order restricting respondent’s use of the mails.
The representations on which the order is based relate to respondent’s anti-fat treatment, nationally advertised under the name of “Dr. Phillips’ Kelp-I-Dine Reducing Plan.” “Kelp-I-Dine” is a name used by respondent for granulated kelp, a natural seaweed product containing iodine. The Reducing Plan is twofold: It requires users to take one-half teaspoonful of “Kelp-I-Dine” per day, and suggests following a recommended daily diet which accompanies the vials of kelp.
Respondent’s advertisements made expansive claims for its plan. They represented that persons suffering from obesity could “eat plenty” and yet reduce 3 to 5 pounds in a week surely and easily, without “tortuous diet” and without feeling hungry. Unhappy people eager to reduce but also eager to eat plenty were repeatedly reassured with alluring but subtly qualified representations such as these: “Remember with the Kelpidine Plan, you don’t cut out ice 'cream, cake, candy, or any other things you like to eat. You just cut down on them.” The alleged safety of the remedy and extraordinary efficacy of kelp were emphasized in advertisements stating that it “makes no difference if you are 16 or 60, or if you have diabetes, rheumatism or any other ailment. Kelpidine is always safe and doctors approve the Kelpidine plan. You simply take a half teaspoon of Kelpidine once each day and eat three regular sensible meals. Kelpidine decreases your appetite.”
Two doctors with wide general knowledge in the field of dietetics and treatment for obesity were called by the Government in the fraud hearing. They testified that iodine, to which respondent chiefly attributed the fat-reducing powers of kelp, is valueless as an anti-fat; that kelp would not reduce hunger; that the suggested diet was too drastic to be safe for use without medical supervision, particularly where users suffered from chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart trouble. The one physician called by respondent testified that iodine was used by physicians as a weight reducer, and expressed his judgment that it did have value for such use. Even he, however, conceded that the daily dosage of iodine to reduce weight would be fifty to sixty times more than the iodine in respondent’s daily dosage of kelp. The respondent’s witness also admitted that the recommended diet was “rigid,” and might prove harmful to persons suffering from tuberculosis, anemia, or heart disease.
The findings of the Postmaster General were that kelp is valueless as a weight reducer and that whatever efficacy there was in the remedy lay in the diet recommendations. He also found that the diet was neither uniformly safe nor harmless and might be particularly dangerous for persons afflicted with heart and kidney troubles; that the diet could not, as represented, be pursued in ease and comfort, without hunger, while eating the things respondent had led people to believe they could. On these findings the fraud order was entered.
The District Court granted an injunction against enforcement of the fraud order on the ground that the order was unsupported by factual evidence. Asserting that there was “no exact standard of absolute truth” against which respondent’s advertisements could be measured, the court held that the testimony of the two doctors on which the Government’s case rested was reduced by the conflicting testimony of respondent’s witness to the status of mere opinion. As such, the evidence was held insufficient. under the rule laid down by this Court in American School of Healing v. McAnnulty, 187 U. S. 94. The Court of Appeals affirmed on substantially the same ground. Both courts distinguished Leach v. Carlile, 258 U. S. 138, where we held that a difference of opinion as to whether a product had any value at all did not bar a fraud order based on claims of far greater curative powers than the product could actually have. Important questions concerning the scope of the McAnnulty case and the sufficiency of evidence to support postoffice fraud orders prompted us to grant certiorari.
First. It is contended here, as both courts below held, that the findings of the Postmaster General must be set aside under the rule of the McAnnulty case. There the Postmaster General had forbidden use of the mails upon finding as a fact that petitioner was guilty of falsehood and fraud in obtaining money by representations based on claims that the “mind of the human race is largely responsible for its ills, . . . and that the human race does possess the innate power, through proper exercise of the faculty of the brain and mind, to largely control and remedy the ills that humanity is heir to . . . .” This Court set aside the fraud order, pointing out that there were two widely held schools of opinion as to whether the mind could affect bodily diseases, and that scientific knowledge had not advanced to the point where an actual intent to deceive could be attributed to one who asserted either opinion. Thus there was “no exact standard of absolute truth by which to prove the assertion false and a fraud.” At best, testimony either way was held to be no more than “opinion” in a field where imperfect knowledge made proof “as of an ordinary fact” impossible.
Respondent appears to argue that the McAnnulty case bars a finding of fraud whenever there is the least conflict of opinion as to curative effects of a remedy. The contention seems to be that even the testimony of the most experienced medical experts can never rise above a mere “opinion” unless the expert has made actual tests of the drug to determine its effects in relation to the particular representations alleged to be false. The Me Annuity holding did not go so far. We do not understand or accept it as prescribing an inexorable rule that automatically bars reliance of the fact-finding tribunal upon informed medical judgment every time medical witnesses can be produced who blindly adhere to a curative technique thoroughly discredited by reliable scientific experiences. But we do accept the McAnnulty decision as a wholesome limitation upon findings of fraud under the mail statutes when the charges concern medical practices in fields where knowledge has not yet been crystallized in the crucible of experience. For in the science of medicine, as in other sciences, experimentation is the spur of progress. It would amount to condemnation of new ideas without a trial to give the Postmaster General power to condemn new ideas as fraudulent solely because some cling to traditional opinions with unquestioning tenacity.
In this case there is conflict, though slight, as to whether kelp or iodine is valueless as a weight reducer. But even if we assume that medical opinion is yet in a state of flux on this question, we think that there was sufficient evidence to support the findings that the efficacy of the “Reducing Plan” as a whole was misrepresented in respondent’s advertising. And we think those misrepresentations went beyond permissible “puffing” of a seller’s wares; they were material representations on which credulous persons, eager to reduce, were entitled to rely. Despite subtle qualifying phrases it is difficult to read these advertisements as a whole without receiving the impression that, contrary to facts justifiably found by the Postmaster General, kelp is a sure and drastic weight reducer; that a user can reduce without uncomfortably restricting his usual ample diet of fattening foods; that the treatment is absolutely safe and harmless to people of all ages, to the ill and the well. See Donaldson v. Read Magazine, 333 U. S. 178, 188-189. These representations, if made with intent to deceive, fall squarely within the type which in Leach v. Carlile, 258 U. S. 138, were held to justify findings of fraud.
Second. Nevertheless we are constrained to hold that the present fraud order should not be enforced. It has been pointed out that the doctors’ expert evidence rested on their general professional knowledge. To some extent this knowledge was acquired from medical text books and publications, on which these experts placed reliance. In cross-examination respondent sought to question these witnesses concerning statements in other medical books, some of which at least were shown to be respectable authorities. The questions were not permitted. We think this was an undue restriction on the right to cross-examine. It certainly is illogical, if not actually unfair, to permit witnesses to give expert opinions based on book knowledge, and then deprive the party challenging such evidence of all opportunity to interrogate them about divergent opinions expressed in other reputable books.
Petitioner seeks to justify exclusion of cross-examination based on some of these books by pointing out that they were merely medical dictionaries. Government experts testified they would not consult the dictionaries to ascertain the efficacy of a remedy, although they kept and used them for other purposes. But the books did assert the use of kelp as a fat reducer, and to some extent this tended to refute testimony by government experts that no reputable physicians would accept kelp or iodine as a weight reducer.
It is also contended that the error in restricting cross-examination was harmless here because the memorandum of the fact-finding official indicated that he had read the excluded materials and would have made the same adverse findings had the materials been held admissible. But the object of using the books on cross-examination was to test the expert’s testimony by having him refer to and comment upon their contents. Respondent was deprived of this opportunity. The error of this deprivation could not be cured by having the fact-finder subsequently examine the material.
Moreover, the issues in postoffice fraud cases make such cross-examination peculiarly appropriate. Proof of fraudulent purposes is essential — an “actual intent to deceive.” See Seven Cases v. United States, 239 U. S. 510, 517. Consequently fraud under the mail statutes is not established merely by proving that an incorrect statement was made. An intent to deceive might be inferred from the universality of scientific belief that advertising representations are wholly unsupportable; conversely, the likelihood of such an inference might be lessened should cross-examination cause a witness to admit that the scientific belief was less universal than he had first testified.
The power to refuse enforcement of orders for error in regard to evidence should be sparingly exercised. A large amount of discretion in the conduct of a hearing is necessarily reposed in an administrative agency. And what we have said is not to be taken as removing this discretion or as a compulsory opening of the gates for floods of medical volumes, even where shown to be authoritative. But in this kind of case as in others, one against whom serious charges of fraud are made must be given a reasonable opportunity to cross-examine witnesses on the vital issue of his purpose to deceive. And in this case any holding of harmless error is precluded by the fact that the assistant solicitor presiding at the hearings adopted the prosecutor’s view that respondent was to be barred from using the mails “regardless of the question of good faith, even if the respondent believed in all of his representations ... if they were false as a matter of fact.”
It is not amiss to point out that the Federal Trade Commission does have authority to issue cease-and-desist orders in cases like this without findings of fraud. 15 U. S. C. § 45 (a), (b); Federal Trade Comm’n v. Algoma Co., 291 U. S. 67, 81. But that remedy does not approach the severity of a mail fraud order. In Federal Trade Comm’n v. Raladam Co., 316 U. S. 149, for instance, a business advertising its anti-fat product with extravagant statements similar in many respects to those of respondent here was ordered to cease and desist from making such statements. Except for this, the business was left free to sell its product as before. Unlike the Postmaster General, the Federal Trade Commission cannot bar an offender from using the mails, an order which could wholly destroy a business. See Brandeis, J., dissenting in Milwaukee Pub. Co. v. Burleson, 255 U. S. 407, 417 et seq. The strikingly different consequences of the orders issued by the two agencies on the basis of analogous misrepresentations emphasize the importance of limiting Postoffice Department orders to instances where actual fraud is clearly proved.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, without prejudice to a reopening of the proceedings against respondent to permit additional hearings should the Postmaster General choose to do so.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Douglas took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
R. S. 3929, as amended, 39 U. S. C. § 259; R. S. 4041, as amended, 39 U. S. C. § 732.
The order did not forbid delivery of mail to respondent Pinkus individually. It did forbid delivery to trade names used by respondent Pinkus, “American Health Aids Company and Energy Food Center, and their officers and agents as such . . . .”
71 F. Supp. 993. See also 61 F. Supp. 610.
170 F. 2d 786.
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion the Court.
This is a controversy between the Mountain-Pacific railroads and certain Midwestern railroads, involving the proper division between them of joint rates from through freight service in which they both participate. Dissatisfied with their share of existing divisions, the Midwestern carriers called upon the Interstate Commerce Commission’s statutory authority to determine that joint rate divisions “are or will be unjust, unreasonable, inequitable, or unduly preferential,” and to prescribe “just, reasonable, and equitable divisions” in their place. The Commission found that the existing divisions were unlawful, and established new divisions which, on the average, gave the Midwestern carriers a greater share of the joint rates. The District Court set aside the Commission’s order on the ground that certain of its findings were deficient. We noted probable jurisdiction, 383 U. S. 964, to consider important questions regarding the Commission’s powers and procedures raised by the District Court’s decision.
I.
There were originally three groups of railroads involved in the proceedings before the Commission: the Eastern, Midwestern, and Mountain-Pacific carriers. The Eastern railroads operate in the northeastern area of the United States extending south to the Ohio River and parts of Virginia and west to central Illinois. Midwestern Territory lies between Eastern Territory and the Rocky Mountains, and the rest of the United States to the west constitutes Mountain-Pacific Territory. The latter is subdivided into Transcontinental Territory — comprising the States bordering the Pacific, Nevada, Arizona, and parts of Idaho, Utah, and New Mexico — and Inter-mountain Territory. The railroads operating in Southern Territory, which includes the southeastern United. States, were not involved in the proceedings before the Commission.
Railroads customarily establish joint through rates for interterritorial freight service, and the divisions of these rates, fixed by the Commission or by agreement, determine what share of the joint tariffs each of the several participating carriers receives. See St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. United States, 245 U. S. 136, 139-140, n. 2. In 1954 the Eastern carriers filed a complaint with the Commission seeking a greater share of the joint tariff on freight traffic east and west between Eastern Territory and Transcontinental Territory. Shortly thereafter, the Midwestern carriers also filed a complaint, requesting higher divisions on (1) their intermediate service on Eastern-Transcontinental traffic, (2) their service on freight traffic east and west between Midwestern Territory and Transcontinental Territory. Some of the Midwestern lines had long believed that the Mountain-Pacific carriers enjoyed an unduly high share of the joint tariffs for these categories of traffic. When joint rates for traffic to the western United States were first established in the 1870’s, rates were divided on the basis of the miles of carriage rendered by the participating railroads, but the Mountain-Pacific carriers enjoyed a 50% inflation in their mileage factor. In 1925, after the Commission had begun, but not yet completed, an investigation of the existing divisions, the Mountain-Pacific carriers agreed to modest increases in the Midwestern railroads' share of joint rates. The divisions between Mountain-Pacific and Midwestern carriers have remained unchanged since that time.
In the proceedings before the Commission, which consolidated the Eastern and the Midwestern complaints, the Mountain-Pacific railroads not only defended the existing divisions, but sought a 10% increase in their share. Regulatory commissions of States in Mountain-Pacific Territory also intervened. The consolidated proceedings involved rate divisions affecting about 300 railroads, which voluntarily aligned themselves into three groups— Eastern, Midwestern, and Mountain-Pacific — and submitted evidence and tried the case on this group basis. A great deal of time was consumed in compiling and introducing massive amounts of evidence — more than 800 exhibits and over 11,200 pages of testimony. The Hearing Examiners made a recommended report in 1960. After considering written briefs and oral arguments from the various groups of parties, the Commission issued its original report in March of 1963. The Commission found the existing divisions to be unlawful, and prescribed increased divisions for the Midwestern and Eastern carriers, effective July 1, 1963.
When exercising its statutory authority to establish “just and reasonable” divisions under § 15 (6) of the Interstate Commerce Act, the Commission is required to:
“[G]ive due consideration, among other things, to the efficiency with which the carriers concerned are operated, the amount of revenue required to pay their respective operating expenses, taxes, and a fair return on their railway property held for and used in the service of transportation, and the importance to the public of the transportation services of such carriers; and also whether any particular participating carrier is an originating, intermediate, or delivering line, and any other fact or circumstance which would ordinarily, without regard to the mileage haul, entitle one carrier to a greater or less proportion than another carrier of the joint rate, fare or charge.”
After reviewing the nature of the traffic involved and considering the special claims of the various groups, the Commission found that “none of the contending groups is more or less efficiently operated than another,” and that “there are no differences in the importance to the public attributable to the three contending groups of carriers.” Its decision thus turned on more direct financial considerations, to which the Commission devoted a substantial part of its lengthy report. Under Commission practice, these financial considerations are divided into “cost of service” and “revenue needs.” The former consists of the out-of-pocket expenses directly associated with a particular service, including operating costs, taxes, and a four percent return on the property involved. “Revenue needs” refers to broader requirements for funds in excess of out-of-pocket expenses, including funds for new investment.
In determining cost of service, the Commission relied upon a cost study prepared by the Mountain-Pacific railroads, but introduced certain modifications that produced different results. The Commission found that existing divisions on Eastern-Transcontinental traffic gave the Mountain-Pacific carriers revenues that exceeded their costs by 57%, while the Midwestern and Eastern railroads received only 43% and 22% more, respectively, than their costs for the service they contributed. On Midwestern-Transcontinental traffic, the Commission found that the divisions gave the Mountain-Pacific carriers revenues 71% above cost, while the Midwestern lines received only 39% above cost; on this traffic the Midwestern railroads bore 31.5% of the total cost but received only 27.1% of the total revenue.
In assessing comparative revenue needs, the Commission found, that the average rate of return for 1946-1958, based on net railway operating income from all services as a percentage of the value of invested property, was 3.40% for the Eastern roads, 3.49% for the Midwestern group, and 4.64% for the Mountain-Pacific carriers. The Commission also found that the Mountain-Pacific railroads had the most favorable record and trend in both freight volume and freight revenues, and the Eastern railroads the least favorable, with the Midwestern roads occupying an intermediate position. In response to the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ complaint that their net operating income from all services had not increased as fast as net investment in recent years, the Commission noted that this was primarily due to disproportionate passenger deficits that offset favorable income from freight services. The Commission also discounted the contention that the Mountain-Pacific carriers were entitled to greater revenues to provide funds for new investment, finding that the needs of the various carrier groups for such funds were not appreciably different. The claim of the Midwestern carriers that they had the most pressing need for revenues was also rejected by the Commission.
From all this evidence, the Commission concluded “that there should be increases in [the Eastern carriers’] divisions reflecting revenue need as well as cost.” While the very poor financial position and high revenue needs of the Eastern carriers were thus important elements in prescribing increases in their divisions, the Commission went on to find cost considerations the controlling factor with regard to the Midwestern divisions: “As between the [Mountain-Pacific railroads] and the [Midwestern] railroads the differences in earning power are less marked, but our consideration of the evidence bearing on cost of service previously discussed convinces us that the primary midwestern divisions as a whole are too low.”
In establishing higher divisions for the Eastern carriers, the Commission relied upon the existing percentages governing divisions of the various rates between well-defined subareas in Eastern Territory and points in Transcontinental Territory. The Commission simply increased the percentages that the Eastern carriers formerly received on this traffic. However, the Commission concluded that it could not follow this procedure with respect to Midwestern divisions on Eastern-Transcontinental and Midwestern-Transcontinental traffic. It found that Midwestern-Transcontinental subgroupings were not well-defined and were in some cases not properly related to distance. Thus it was not feasible to assemble rates from various Midwestern points to Transcontinental points into common groups and apply fixed percentage divisions to each group in order to determine the respective shares of the Midwestern and Mountain-Pacific carriers. Instead, the Commission resorted to a weighted mileage basis of apportionment, determined through the use of divisional scales. The Commission has frequently used such scales in the past, and their use in this case was suggested by both the Midwestern and Mountain-Pacific carriers. Under the system adopted, the mileage contributed by each carrier to the joint service is broken down into 50-mile blocks. The scale chosen assigns each block a number. A large number is assigned the first block, and a smaller number to successive 50-mile increments; this is designed to reflect terminal and standby costs incurred regardless of the length of carriage contributed. Each carrier then receives a share of the joint revenue in proportion to the sum of scale numbers corresponding to its mileage contribution. To determine the divisions between the Midwest-ern and Mountain-Pacific carriers, the Commission used a 29886 scale — so named because it was developed in another interterritorial divisions case bearing that docket number. This scale assigns a factor of 65 to the first 50-mile block of carriage and a factor of 12 to each successive 50-mile increment. The Commission decided that the Midwestern carriers’ shares would be determined by an unadjusted 29886 scale, but that the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ shares should be based on the same scale with the mileage factors inflated by 10% to reflect certain greater costs of carriage in the mountainous West. Thus, for their carriage, the Mountain-Pacific carriers would enjoy a factor of 72 for the first 50-mile block, and a factor of 13 for successive 50-mile increments. For any joint carriage, the Midwestern and Mountain-Pacific carriers would translate their mileage contributions into scale numbers, and divide the proceeds in proportion to the numbers so obtained. The divisions thus essentially reflect a mileage basis, with disproportionate weight assigned the first 50 miles of carriage and an overall inflation factor favoring the Mountain-Pacific carriers. The Commission found that the net effect of its revised scale would be to “produce moderate increases in some of the most important midwestern divisions.”
After entertaining petitions for reconsideration, the Commission adopted a supplemental report in late 1963. For the first time, a few carriers abandoned the three-group basis on which all the prior proceedings had been conducted. Requests for special treatment were made on behalf of one Mountain-Pacific road, the Denver & Rio Grande, and two Midwestern carriers, the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) and the St. Louis-San Francisco (Frisco), on the ground that the divisions prescribed by the Commission had an unduly harsh effect on them. The Commission considered and largely rejected these and other criticisms of its original decision, and issued a supplemental order substantially reaffirming its original order after making minor technical modifications.
Eleven of the Mountain-Pacific carriers brought an action in the District Court to enjoin and set aside the Commission’s orders and succeeded in obtaining preliminary injunctions. Other Mountain-Pacific carriers, the western state regulatory commissions, and the Katy and the Frisco intervened as plaintiffs, while the Eastern carriers and a group of Midwestern railroads intervened on the side of the Government and the Commission as defendants. In January 1965 the District Court handed down the decision setting aside the Commission’s orders. The court held that the findings made by the Commission with regard to the revenue need, cost of service, public importance, etc., of the Eastern, Midwestern, and Mountain-Pacific carriers were insufficient because they were made on a group basis. In the view of the District Court, the Interstate Commerce Act required the Commission to make such findings with respect to each of the 300 railroads involved, on an individual basis. The District Court further held that in a divisions case the Commission is obliged to determine, in precise dollar amount, the revenue needs of each individual railroad, and also the revenue effect on each individual railroad, again in precise dollar amount, of the new divisions that the Commission establishes. The District Court in conclusion stated:
"[T]hat to comply with... the Interstate Commerce and the Administrative Procedure Acts... the Commission is required to make affirmative findings which disclose that the requirements of Section 15 (6) have been met and the factors therein required have been determined and considered, not only as to the groups of roads involved but with respect to each carrier affected in said groups; that findings must be made as to the amount of revenue, in terms of dollars, required by the respective carriers affected in any new divisions prescribed, the financial effect of the Commission’s orders in terms of dollars as to the carriers and the extent to which the new divisions prescribed will produce the revenue found to be required...."
The Eastern carriers, the Midwestern defendants, and the Government and the Commission all appealed the decision of the District Court. Thereafter, all of the Eastern and some of the Midwestern carriers reached settlement agreements with the Mountain-Pacific carriers covering the rate divisions affecting them. We accordingly vacated the judgment of the District Court with respect to the divisions of the Eastern and the settling Midwestern railroads, and remanded the relevant portions of the appeals to the District Court with instructions to dismiss as moot. 383 U. S. 832, 384 U. S. 888. Thus, the principal dispute remaining concerns the divisions between the Mountain-Pacific carriers and the eight principal Midwestern roads that are appellants in No. 8.
II.
None of the appellees now defends the position, espoused by the District Court, that the Commission was required to make separate individual findings for each of the 300 railroads involved in the proceedings before it.
But the error in that position, which rejects over 40 years of consistent administrative practice, requires comment.
In its first decision involving rate divisions under § 15 (6), the New England Divisions Case, 261 U. S. 184, the Court upheld the authority of the Commission to take evidence and make findings on a group basis. Speaking for a unanimous Court, Mr. Justice Brandéis noted that the “actual necessities of procedure and administration” required procedures on a group basis in ratemaking cases, and that a similar practice was appropriate in divisions cases. The complexity of the subject matter and the multiplicity of carriers typically involved in divisions cases were such that a wooden requirement of individual findings would make effective regulation all but impossible. The Court held that the Interstate Commerce Act permits the Commission to proceed on a group basis and to rely on “evidence which the Commission assumed was typical in character, and ample in quantity” to justify its findings, reasoning that:
“Obviously, Congress intended that a method should be pursued by which the task, which it imposed upon the Commission, could be performed.... To require specific evidence, and separate adjudication, in respect to each division of each rate of each carrier, would be tantamount to denying the possibility of granting relief. We must assume that Congress knew this....” 261 U. S., at 196-197.
Both the Court and the Commission have consistently adhered to this construction of the Act’s requirements, and its rejection by the District Court in this case was error.
The pragmatic justifications for the Commission’s group procedures are obvious. Even on a group basis, the Commission proceedings in this case required a voluminous record and were not completed until nearly 10 years after the complaints were filed. To demand individual evidence and findings for each of the 300 carriers in the Commission proceedings would so inflate the record and prolong administrative adjudication that the Commission’s regulatory authority would be paralyzed.
Nor do considerations of fairness require disregard of administrative necessities. The premise of group proceedings, as the New England Divisions Case explicitly recognized, is that evidence pertaining to a group is typical of its individual members. 261 U. S., at 196-199. See also Beaumont, S. L. & W. R. Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 74, 82-83. It has always been accepted that an individual carrier may challenge this premise and, on proper showing, receive independent consideration if its individual situation is so atypical that its inclusion in group consideration would be inappropriate. It is the Commission’s practice to accord independent treatment to an individual carrier when a proper request for special consideration is made. But no such requests were made during the hearings and presentation of evidence in this case. Instead, the individual carriers voluntarily aligned themselves into groups, presented evidence and tried the case on a group basis, and asked the Commission to prescribe new divisions on a group basis. In this situation, the Commission was not obliged on its own motion to demand evidence and make findings on an individual basis. Departure from the practicalities of group procedure is justified only when there is a real need for separate treatment of a given carrier; the individual carriers themselves, which have the closest understanding of their own situation and interests, are normally the appropriate parties to show that such need exists.
The Denver & Rio Grande, the Katy, and the Frisco did request independent consideration in petitions for reconsideration of the Commission’s original decision. Their claims will be discussed below in Part VI of this opinion, but it should be noted that at no point during the administrative hearings or the presentation of evidence did they raise any claim for separate treatment. Moreover, their contention basically is not that the group evidence or findings were unrepresentative, but rather that the divisions prescribed by the Commission have an unduly harsh impact on them. Even if it were assumed that the Commission’s- disposition of this contention was erroneous, that would be no ground for requiring the Commission to make individual findings for the rest of the 300 carriers involved.
III.
Among the errors that the District Court found in the Commission’s decision was its failure to state the revenue needs of each individual carrier in terms of precise dollar amount. While not defending the requirement of individual findings, the appellees do contend that the Commission was required to determine the revenue needs of the various carrier groups in precise dollar amount, and they also urge other errors in the Commission’s treatment of revenue needs. We believe, however, that in the case’s present posture these criticisms are largely misdirected.
In increasing the shares of the Eastern railroads the Commission did rely on revenue needs as well as costs, but it found costs alone the controlling factor in raising the divisions of the Midwestern carriers. In the conclusions in its original report, the Commission stated that there should be increases in the Eastern divisions “reflecting revenue need as well as cost,” but in the very next sentence it went on to say that as between the Midwestern and Mountain-Pacific roads, “differences in earning power are less marked, but our consideration of the evidence bearing on cost of service previously discussed convinces us that the primary midwestern divisions as a whole are too low.” Its reliance on costs alone in increasing the Midwestern shares is confirmed by the Commission’s supplemental report, in which it again rejected a request of the Midwestern carriers for even higher divisions based on their claim of pressing revenue needs: “It was our stated view that [increases in the Midwestern divisions] were supported by the evidence concerning cost of service, but that the proposal of the midwestern lines gave undue weight to their claimed revenue need.” Since revenue needs were important factors only with regard to the Eastern divisions, and those divisions are no longer in issue because the Eastern roads have settled with the Mountain-Pacific carriers, any errors committed by the Commission in its treatment of revenue needs are no longer relevant. But even assuming that the Commission did attach some limited significance to revenue needs in raising the Midwestern divisions, we cannot conclude that its treatment of revenue needs was legally inadequate. The Commission devoted over 25 pages of its reports to revenue needs. It discussed at length the proper basis for computing rates of return and found the rates of return for the various carrier groups; it also examined the record and trends in net railway operating income from all services, and from freight and passenger services considered separately.
The Commission placed considerable emphasis on rates of return in its discussion of comparative revenue needs. Following its established practice, it found that a value basis, rather than book cost, as urged by the Mountain-Pacific roads, was the proper method for calculating the investment base. The evidence disclosed that the Mountain-Pacific fines had enjoyed a 4.64% return, as opposed to 3.40% for the Eastern fines, and 3.49% for the Midwestern fines. The suggestion that these findings in terms of rate of return were insufficient because they did not express revenue needs in terms of absolute dollar amount is totally novel and unreasonable. This suggestion seems to stem from a misconception of the Commission’s function in divisions cases. Its task is not to transfer lump sums of cash from one carrier to another, but to “make divisions that colloquially may be said to be fair.” B. & O. R. Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 349, 357. The relative financial strength of the carriers involved is a key factor in this task, see the New England Divisions Case, 261 U. S. 184, 189 — 192, and the use of comparative rates of return is an obviously appropriate basis for the exercise of administrative judgment. Rates of return are a familiar tool of analysis in the financial community. The Commission has long relied on this form of analysis in divisions cases, and in passing on the Commission’s performance in such cases, this Court has never suggested that ultimate findings of revenue need in terms of absolute dollar amount were required. Appellees are unable to suggest any clear regulatory purpose that would be served by such findings. We decline now to impose upon the Commission a rigid mechanical requirement that is without foundation in precedent, practice, or policy.
Appellees, especially the regulatory commissions, vigorously contend that reliance on rates of return showing the Mountain-Pacific carriers in a heavily favorable position was inappropriate because the Commission overlooked the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ disproportionate need for funds for new investment. It might be questioned whether forcing carriers in other parts of the country to accept divisions lower than those to which they would otherwise be entitled is a sensible means of raising funds for new investment in the Far West. But the Commission did not reach this issue because it found that the Mountain-Pacific carriers did not in fact have a greater need for investment funds than railroads elsewhere:
“We are unable to agree with the [Mountain-Pacific carriers] and [the regulatory commissions] that the public interest warrants increases in the divisions of the mountain-Pacific railroads in order to provide a source of investment funds required for enlarged facilities commensurate with industrial development in that region. The railroads in all sections of the country are faced with the continuing necessity of raising funds for additions and betterments and new equipment, and we cannot recognize any difference in the degree of this urgency among the territorial groups.”
The appellees have sought to convince us that this finding is factually incorrect, but we decline to invade the administrative province and second-guess the Commission on matters within its expert judgment. B. & O. R. Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 349, 359; Alabama G.S.R. Co. v. United States, 340 U. S. 216, 227-228.
The appellees also contend that the Commission erred in its treatment of passenger deficits. In discussing revenue needs, the Commission pointed out that since 1950-1952 the Mountain-Pacific carriers had enjoyed substantial increases in operating revenue from freight services, while the freight revenue of the Eastern carriers had declined. It also noted that the Midwestern carriers’ freight revenues had remained relatively constant, and concluded that these comparative trends were likely to continue. The Mountain-Pacific carriers, however, complained that, despite their favorable trend in freight revenues and large amounts of new investment that they had recently made, their rate of return from all services had declined. In reply, the Commission observed that the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ passenger deficits had increased substantially since 1950-1952 and had offset their impressive performance in freight revenues.
The Mountain-Pacific roads now argue that the Commission’s decision to increase the Midwestern divisions was based almost exclusively on its treatment of Mountain-Pacific passenger deficits. They further contend that this treatment was invalid on the grounds that it constituted unfair procedural surprise, that the statute does not permit the Commission to differentiate railroads’ performance as freight carriers and passenger carriers when it assesses revenue needs in a freight rate divisions case, and that the Commission erred in assuming that, because their statistical passenger deficits had increased, the Mountain-Pacific carriers were capable of making a real improvement in their overall performance by reducing passenger service.
We regard the assumption that the Commission attached great importance to Mountain-Pacific passenger deficits in raising the Midwestern divisions as fanciful. As we have already noted, those increases were based exclusively or almost entirely on cost considerations. To the extent the Commission may have relied on comparative revenue needs, passenger deficits were not a significant factor. The discussion of passenger deficits in the Commission’s original report occurred primarily in the context of comparing the revenue needs of the Mountain-Pacific carriers with those of the Eastern roads, when the Commission emphasized that the Eastern railroads had been much more successful in curbing losses on passenger service than the Mountain-Pacific carriers. Any error in the Commission’s treatment of passenger deficits prejudiced the Midwestern as well as the Mountain-Pacific carriers, for in rejecting a Midwestern revenue needs argument in its supplemental report, the Commission noted that the Midwestern carriers had also done a much poorer job than the Eastern carriers in halting the swell of passenger deficits. Furthermore, the Commission did not ignore the overall financial strength of the various groups of carriers, but found that the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ rate of return from all services was substantially higher than that of either the Midwestern or Eastern carriers.
The claim of unfair surprise is strained in light of the fact that the Commission has frequently differentiated passenger and freight revenues in freight rate division cases. While passenger deficits did not become an important issue in this case until the report of the Hearing Examiners was handed down, the Commission relied upon statistics which were matters of public record, and the Mountain-Pacific carriers had ample opportunity to debate the issue in their exceptions to the Hearing Examiners’ report and their petitions for reconsideration of the Commission’s original decision. And while the Commission has sometimes acted to offset passenger deficits in freight rate cases, the issues are quite different when, in a divisions case, it is argued that carriers in one part of the country should subsidize the passenger operations of carriers elsewhere.
If the Commission were to give controlling weight to passenger deficits in a divisions case, it might be appropriate to take more evidence on the issue and discuss it in greater depth than the Commission did here. But in light of the fact that, in this case, passenger deficits were of negligible relevance to the Commission’s decision to increase the Midwestern divisions, we find no errors in the Commission’s findings and procedure on this point that would justify setting aside its order.
IV.
Rejection of the appellees’ attacks on the Commission’s treatment of revenue needs does not exhaust their arsenal. For they argue that the Commission’s findings on costs, which were the basis of its decision to raise the Midwestern divisions, were also infected with serious error.
All are agreed that the relevant costs are those of the Eastern-Transcontinental and Midwestern-Transcontinental freight traffic to which the divisions apply. But throughout the proceedings there has been sharp dispute as to the proper method of ascertaining these costs. At the beginning of the administrative hearings, the Midwestern and Eastern carriers relied principally on the Commission’s standard Rail Form A, a formulation based on average freight data which, as the Commission noted, “has been widely used as an acceptable means of comparing relative transportation costs.” The Mountain-Pacific carriers took the position that Rail Form A, based on averages of all freight service, was not a proper yardstick for measuring the costs of the particular traffic involved in the contested divisions, which, they maintained, had certain distinctive characteristics. The Mountain-Pacific roads prepared their own cost system, based upon a study of this traffic. The Midwestern and Eastern lines responded with other material, and the Midwestern carriers conducted their own special study of line-haul services. Disputes over the applicability of Rail Form A and the various approaches urged by the parties occupied a large part of the administrative proceedings. As the Commission observed:
“The evidence pertaining to the cost studies of the [Mountain-Pacific carriers] and the midwestern lines was extensive. In addition to the detailed testimony of the cost analysts who planned the studies and supervised their compilation, evidence was presented by many other witnesses concerned with operating, statistical, engineering, and mathematical aspects of the projects. In criticism of the studies the [Eastern carriers] and the midwestern lines also introduced detailed evidence of the same general nature and considerable bulk.”
After carefully considering this evidence, the Commission decided to base its cost findings on the special cost study and analysis prepared by the Mountain-Pacific carriers. However, it made certain adjustments in the Mountain-Pacific analysis which, in the judgment of the Commission, more accurately reflected the true costs of the traffic involved.
The Commission substituted its own ratio for empty-car returns, derived from Rail Form A, for that devised by the Mountain-Pacific carriers. It summarized its reasons for this choice in its supplemental report:
“It is difficult to ascribe the empty movement of a car to a particular commodity or class of traffic because of the variety of the lading, and the fact that cars used occasionally for hauling transcontinental traffic may at other times serve widely different uses, including local movements within each territory.... The defendants urge that insufficient consideration was given to special cars.... They would be included in [Rail Form A] tending to increase the empty-return ratios in all territories. Here they accounted for only about 4 percent of the total movement....
“Many special studies of empty-return movement were undertaken in these proceedings, each showing a different result. The deficiencies in the [Mountain-Pacific carriers’] studies of general-purpose boxcar empty return... are so serious in our opinion as to render them without value. We adhere to our prior finding that the 7-day studies made under an order of the Commission and based on uniform instructions to all the railroads as to how the studies were to be made, afford a more reliable basis of comparison among territories. Moreover, on the basis of the evidence in this record, the 7-day studies provide appropriate comparative ratios to the traffic in issue.”
The Commission also disagreed with the Mountain-Pacific study’s treatment of the “constant cost” element of road costs — that which is unrelated to volume of traffic. It found the accounting methods used to distribute these costs in Rail Form A to be more accurate. The Mountain-Pacific roads claimed that this method unduly favored the Midwestern lines by improperly ascribing the maintenance costs of branch and light-density main lines to the cost of their transcontinental traffic. The Commission, however, found that the evidence showed:
“[T]hat the proportion of branch line mileage for each group is almost the same and the amount of traffic on branch lines is so small that some other factors cause the lower unit cost in mountain-Pacific territory. The principal factor is clearly the high density of traffic, 76 percent higher than the Midwest.
“Although the cost per mile may be somewhat higher in mountainous territory, this higher cost is shared by so many more tons of traffic that the cost per ton-mile is lower.
“It is the light density on the main lines in the Midwest which causes [their] higher costs. These lines are used by bridge traffic, and it is, therefore, quite correct to charge this bridge traffic with its proportionate share of maintaining the lines over which it moves.”
The Commission made certain adjustment in the basis for determining locomotive costs; the Mountain-Pacific carriers’ objections to this adjustment were directed at the Commission’s reliance on differences it found between engine districts in Eastern Territory and those elsewhere. Any error in this adjustment is thus relevant only to the Eastern divisions, which are no longer in issue. The Commission also substituted Rail Form A treatment of car service costs, after finding that the Mountain-Pacific study ignored actual territorial differences in this item. Again, this issue related only to the Eastern divisions. In ascertaining the cost attributable to equipment used in the service at issue, the Commission chose a 4% rate of return on investment, a figure traditionally employed by it for this purpose, rather than the 6% figure urged by the Mountain-Pacific carriers. And, in harmony with its treatment of revenue needs, the Commission chose its standard value basis to measure the investment involved, rather than the book cost used by the Mountain-Pacific study.
From the Mountain-Pacific cost study, as adjusted in these particulars, the Commission found that the Mountain-Pacific carriers enjoyed a much higher margin of revenue over costs than did the Midwestern carriers, and for this reason prescribed increases in the Midwestern divisions.
In the proceedings before the District Court, the Mountain-Paeific carriers generally attacked the adjustments made by the Commission in their cost study, claiming that their approach more accurately reflected the costs involved. They particularly maintained that the Commission should have forced the Eastern and Midwestern carriers to produce evidence on empty-car return ratios on the same basis that the Mountain-Pacific carriers had used in their cost study. The Midwestern carriers, however, had come forward with specific empty-return data, and the Commission also observed that:
“In the prehearing conference in the instant cases the advisability of instituting an overall general investigation was discussed but the [Mountain-Pacific carriers] opposed the suggestion, and the matter was dropped.... Nor do we see in the record any basis for assuming that the eastern and midwestern complainants withheld vital evidence merely because they had different conceptions of the nature and extent of facts to be developed.”
The Mountain-Pacific carriers also contended that certain factual premises on which the Commission based its allocation of road maintenance costs were erroneous, and that there was no foundation for the Commission’s choice of a value basis for investment rather than book cost.
The District Court did not directly deal with these contentions, stating rather cryptically that in light of its conclusions on the revenue needs issues, “it is unnecessary to discuss [the cost issues]. However, no inference is to be drawn that the court is of the opinion that the [cost issues], or any other numbered issues not discussed in this opinion, are of the nature it would be required to decide should they be raised at some future time.”
The appellees argue that since the District Court failed to pass on the cost issues, we are precluded from doing so. It is true that we have occasionally stated that it is not our general practice “to review an administrative record in the first instance.” United States v. Great Northern R. Co., 343 U. S. 562, 578; Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. United States, 382 U. S. 154, 157. But we think that policy is not applicable on the facts of this case. The presentation and discussion of evidence on cost issues constituted a dominant part of the lengthy administrative hearings, and the issues were thoroughly explored and contested before the Commission. Its factual findings and treatment of accounting problems concerned matters relating entirely to the special and complex peculiarities of the railroad industry. Our previous description of the Commission’s disposition of these matters is sufficient to show that its conclusions had reasoned foundation and were within the area of its expert judgment. B. & O. R. Co. v. United States, 298 U. S. 349, 359; New York v. United States, 331 U. S. 284, 328, 335, 349. Thirteen years have elapsed since the complaints in this case were first filed. The appellees’ attacks on the legal validity of the Commission’s findings on cost are so insubstantial that no useful purpose would be served by further proceedings in the District Court. We conclude that there was no legal infirmity in the Commission’s cost findings.
Y.
The Commission devised a special divisional scale, adapted to the particular circumstances of this case and designed to produce the moderate overall increases in the Midwestern divisions that it found justified by the evidence relating to cost of service. Appellees contend that the Commission did not sufficiently explain its choice of new divisions, that the divisions are not justified by the evidence relating to cost
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 Jackson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was convicted on a two-count indictment, one charging the substantive offense of selling a pound of opium in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§ 173 and 174, the other conspiring to sell the opium in violation of 18 U. S. C. § 371. The Court of Appeals sustained the conviction by a divided court. We granted certiorari.
The questions raised by petitioner have been considered but only one is of enough general interest to merit discussion. That concerns admission in evidence of two conversations petitioner had, while at large on bail pending trial, with one Chin Poy. The circumstances are these:
Petitioner, On Lee, had a laundry in Hoboken. A customers’ room opened on the street, back of it was a room for ironing tables, and in the rear were his living quarters. Chin Poy, an old acquaintance and former employee, sauntered in and, while customers came and went, engaged the accused in conversation in the course of which petitioner made incriminating statements. He did not know that Chin Poy was what the Government calls “an undercover agent” and what petitioner calls a “stool pigeon” for the Bureau of Narcotics. Neither did he know that Chin Poy was wired for sound, with a small microphone in his inside overcoat pocket and a small antenna running along his arm. Unbeknownst to petitioner, an agent of the Narcotics Bureau named Lawrence Lee had stationed himself outside with a receiving set properly tuned to pick up any sounds the Chin Poy microphone transmitted. Through the large front window Chin Poy could be seen and through the receiving set his conversation, in Chinese, with petitioner could be heard by agent Lee. A few days later, on the sidewalks of New York, another conversation took place between the two, and damaging admissions were again “audited” by agent Lee.
Por reasons left to our imagination, Chin Poy was not called to testify about petitioner’s incriminating admissions. Against objection, however, agent Lee was allowed to relate the conversations as heard with aid of his receiving set. Of this testimony, it is enough to say that it was certainly prejudicial if its admission was improper.
Petitioner contends that this evidence should have been excluded because the manner in which it was obtained violates both the search-and-seizure provisions of the Fourth Amendment, and § 605 of the Federal Communications Act (47 U. S. C. § 605); and, if not rejected on those grounds, we should pronounce it inadmissible anyway under the judicial power to require fair play in federal law enforcement.
The conduct of Chin Poy and agent Lee did not amount to an unlawful search and seizure such as is proscribed by the Fourth Amendment. In Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129, we held that the action of federal agents in placing a detectaphone on the outer wall of defendant’s hotel room, and thereby overhearing conversations held within the room, did not violate the Fourth Amendment. There the agents had earlier committed a trespass in order to install a listening device within the room itself. Since the device failed to work, the Court expressly reserved decision as to the effect on the search-and-seizure question of a trespass in that situation. Petitioner in the instant case has seized upon that dictum, apparently on the assumption that the presence of a radio set would automatically bring him within the reservation if he can show a trespass.
But petitioner cannot raise the undecided question, for here no trespass was committed. Chin Poy entered a place of business with the consent, if not by the implied invitation, of the petitioner. Petitioner contends, however, that Chin Poy’s subsequent “unlawful conduct” vitiated the consent and rendered his entry a trespass ab initio.
If we were to assume that Chin Poy’s conduct was unlawful and consider this argument as an original proposition, it is doubtful that the niceties of tort law initiated almost two and a half centuries ago by the case of the Six Carpenters, 8 Coke 146 (a), cited by petitioner, are of much aid in determining rights under the Fourth Amendment. But petitioner’s argument comes a quarter of a century too late: this contention was decided adversely to him in McGuire v. United States, 273 U. S. 95, 98, 100, where Mr. Justice Stone, speaking for a unanimous Court, said of the doctrine of trespass ab initio: “This fiction, obviously invoked in support of a policy of penalizing the unauthorized acts of those who had entered under authority of law, has only been applied as a rule of liability in civil actions against them. Its extension is not favored.” He concluded that the Court would not resort to “a fiction whose origin, history, and purpose do not justify its application where the right of the government to make use of evidence is involved.” This was followed in Zap v. United States, 328 U. S. 624, 629.
By the same token, the claim that Chin Poy’s entrance was a trespass because consent to his entry was obtained by fraud must be rejected. Whether an entry such as this, without any affirmative misrepresentation, would be a trespass under orthodox tort law is not at all clear. See Prosser on Torts, § 18. But the rationale of the McGuire case rejects such fine-spun doctrines for exclusion of evidence. The further contention of petitioner that agent Lee, outside the laundry, was a trespasser because by these aids he overheard what went on inside verges on the frivolous. Only in the case of physical entry, either by force, as in McDonald v. United States, 335 U. S. 451, by unwilling submission to authority, as in Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 10, or without any express or implied consent, as in Nueslein v. District of Columbia, 73 App. D. C. 85, 115 F. 2d 690, would the problem left undecided in the Goldman case be before the Court.
Petitioner relies on cases relating to the more common and clearly distinguishable problems raised where tangible property is unlawfully seized. Such unlawful seizure may violate the Fourth Amendment, even though the entry itself was by subterfuge or fraud rather than force. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48; Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298 (the authority of the latter case is sharply limited by Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, at 463). But such decisions are inapposite in the field of mechanical or electronic devices designed to overhear or intercept conversation, at least where access to the listening post was not obtained by illegal methods.
Petitioner urges that if his claim of unlawful search and seizure cannot be sustained on authority, we reconsider the question of Fourth Amendment rights in the field of overheard or intercepted conversations. This apparently is upon the theory that since there was a radio set involved, he could succeed if he could persuade' the Court to overturn the leading case holding wiretapping to be outside the ban of the Fourth Amendment, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, and the cases which have followed it. We need not consider this, however, for success in this attempt, which failed in Goldman v. United States, 316 U. S. 129, would be of no aid to petitioner unless he can show that his situation should be treated as wiretapping. The presence of a radio set is not sufficient to suggest more than the most attenuated analogy to wiretapping. Petitioner was talking confidentially and indiscreetly with one he trusted, and he was overheard. This was due to aid from a transmitter and receiver, to be sure, but with the same effect on his privacy as if agent Lee had been eavesdropping outside an open window. The use of bifocals, field glasses or the telescope to magnify the object of a witness’ vision is not a forbidden search or seizure, even if they focus without his knowledge or consent upon what one supposes to be private indiscretions. It would be a dubious service to the genuine liberties protected by the Fourth Amendment to make them bedfellows with spurious liberties improvised by farfetched analogies which would liken eavesdropping on a conversation, with the connivance of one of the parties, to an unreasonable search or seizure. We find no violation of the Fourth Amendment here.
Nor do the facts show a violation of § 605 of the Federal Communications Act. Petitioner had no wires and no wireless. There was no interference with any communications facility which he possessed or was entitled to use. He was not sending messages to anybody or using a system of communications within the Act. Goldstein v. United States, 316 U. S. 114.
Finally, petitioner contends that even though he be overruled in all else, the evidence should be excluded as a means of disciplining law enforcement officers. Cf. McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332. In McNabb, however, we held that, where defendants had been unlawfully detained in violation of the federal statute requiring prompt arraignment before a commissioner, a confession made during the detention would be excluded as evidence in federal courts even though not inadmissible on the ground of any otherwise involuntary character. But here neither agent nor informer violated any federal law; and violation of state law, even had it been shown here, as it was not, would not render the evidence obtained inadmissible in federal courts. Olmstead v. United States, 277 U. S. 438, at 468.
In order that constitutional or statutory rights may not be undermined, this Court has on occasion evolved or adopted from the practice of other courts exclusionary rules of evidence going beyond the requirements of the constitutional or statutory provision. McNabb v. United States, supra; Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383. In so doing, it has, of course, departed from the common-law rule under which otherwise admissible evidence was not rendered inadmissible by the fact that it had been illegally obtained. Such departures from the primary evidentiary criteria of relevancy and trustworthiness must be justified by some strong social policy. In discussing the extension of such rules, and the creation of new ones, it is well to remember the remarks of Mr. Justice Stone in McGuire v. United States, 273 U. S. 95, at 99: “A criminal prosecution is more than a game in which the Government may be checkmated and the game lost merely because its officers have not played according to rule.”
Rules of evidence, except where prescribed by statute, are formulated by the courts to some extent, as “a question of sound policy in the administration of the law.” Zucker v. Whitridge, 205 N. Y. 50, 65, 98 N. E. 209, 213. Courts which deal with questions of evidence more frequently than we do have found it unwise to multiply occasions when the attention of a trial court in a criminal case must be diverted from the issue of the defendant’s guilt to the issue of someone else’s misconduct in obtaining evidence. They have considered that “The underlying principle obviously is that the court, when engaged in trying a criminal cause, will not take notice of the manner in which witnesses have possessed themselves of papers, or other articles of personal property, which are material and properly offered in evidence.” People v. Adams, 176 N. Y. 351, 358, 68 N. E. 636, 638. However, there is a procedure in federal court by which defendant may protect his right in advance of trial to have returned to him evidence unconstitutionally obtained. Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U. S. 385. But since we hold here that there was no violation of the Constitution, such a remedy could not be invoked. Exclusion would have to be based on a policy which placed the penalizing of Chin Poy’s breach of confidence above ordinary canons of relevancy. For On Lee’s statements to Chin Poy were admissions against interest provable against him as an exception to the hearsay rule. The normal manner of proof would be to call Chin Poy and have him relate the conversation. We can only speculate on the reasons why Chin Poy was not called. It seems a not unlikely assumption that the very defects of character and blemishes of record which made On'Lee trust him with confidences would make a jury distrust his testimony. Chin Poy was close enough to the underworld to serve as bait, near enough the criminal design so that petitioner would embrace him as a confidante, but too close to it for the Government to vouch for him as a witness. Instead, the Government called agent Lee. We should think a jury probably would find the testimony of agent Lee to have more probative value than the word of Chin Poy.
Society can ill afford to throw away the evidence produced by the falling out, jealousies, and quarrels of those who live by outwitting the law. Certainly no one would foreclose the turning of state’s evidence by denizens of the underworld. No good reason of public policy occurs to us why the Government should be deprived of the benefit of On Lee’s admissions because he made them to a confidante of shady character.
The trend of the law in recent years has been to turn away from rigid rules of incompetence, in favor of admitting testimony and allowing the trier of fact to judge the weight to be given it. As this Court has pointed out: “ 'Indeed, the theory of the common law was to admit to the witness stand only those presumably honest, appreciating the sanctity of an oath, unaffected as a party by the result, and free from any of the temptations of interest. The courts were afraid to trust the intelligence of jurors. But the last fifty years have wrought a great change in these respects, and to-day the tendency is to enlarge the domain of competency and to submit to the jury for their consideration as to the credibility of the witness those matters which heretofore were ruled sufficient to justify his exclusion. This change has been wrought partially by legislation and partially by judicial construction.’ ” Funk v. United States, 290 U. S. 371, 376.
The use of informers, accessories, accomplices, false friends, or any of the other betrayals which are “dirty business” may raise serious questions of credibility. To the extent that they do, a defendant is entitled to broad latitude to probe credibility by cross-examination and to have the issues submitted to the jury with careful instructions. But to the extent that the argument for exclusion departs from such orthodox evidentiary canons as relevancy and credibility, it rests solely on the proposition that the Government shall be arbitrarily penalized for the low morals of its informers. However unwilling we as individuals may be to approve conduct such as that of Chin Poy, such disapproval must not be thought to justify a social policy of the magnitude necessary to arbitrarily exclude otherwise relevant evidence. We think the administration of justice is better served if stratagems such as we have here are regarded as raising, not questions of law, but issues of credibility. We cannot say that testimony such as this shall, as a matter of law, be refused all hearing.
Judgment affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black
believes that in exercising its supervisory authority over criminal justice in the federal courts (see McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 341) this Court should hold that the District Court should have rejected the evidence here challenged.
193 F. 2d 306.
342 U. S. 941.
It seems probable that petitioner failed to properly object to agent Lee’s testimony. Shortly after agent Lee began to testify, petitioner’s counsel addressed the court: “. . . I would like to enter a general objection to testimony by this witness of conversations alleged to have been had between Agent Gim and Gong not in the hearing of the defendant on trial or in his presence.” This objection is not even addressed to the testimony describing the conversation between On Lee and Chin Poy. Later, when agent Lee started to describe the conversation between On Lee and Chin Poy, petitioner’s counsel said, “That is objected to.” At best this is a general objection which is insufficient to preserve such a specific claim as violation of a constitutional provision in obtaining the evidence. Wigmore on Evidence, §18 (C)(1). Some jurisdictions recognize an exception to the rule that an overruled general objection cannot avail proponent on appeal in the case where it appears on the face of the evidence that it is admissible for no purpose whatever, or where the nature of the precise specific objection which could be made is readily discernible. Sparks v. Territory of Oklahoma, 146 F. 371. But this exception is generally confined to the cases where such evidence was plainly irrelevant. Where, as in this case, the objection relies on collateral matter to show inadmissibility, and in addition the exclusionary rule to be relied on involves interpretation of the Constitution, the orthodox rule of evidence requiring specification of the objection is buttressed by the uniform policy requiring constitutional questions to be raised at the earliest possible stage in the litigation.
To call the objection a general one is to put it in the light most favorable to petitioner; later colloquy between counsel and court indicates that the intended ground of that objection was irrelevance. There were in addition motions to dismiss the indictment on each count, and to exclude certain other testimony, but no reference to the testimony here in question at the motion stage. There was no motion for a new trial, but there was a motion to set aside the verdict — but still no mention of the search-and-seizure argument for exclusion. There is not even any mention of it in the statement of points to be relied on in the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals, however, does treat it fully, presumably under Rule 52 (b) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure, allowing the appellate court to notice “plain error.” Though we think the Court of Appeals would have been within its discretion in refusing to consider the point, their having passed on it leads us to treat the merits also.
“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.” U. S. Const., Amend. IV.
“. . . no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person . . .
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.
The necessity for resolution of conflicting interpretations by Courts of Appeals of § 8 (a) (3) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, 61 Stat. 136, 65 Stat. 601, 29 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 158 (a)(3), impelled us to grant certiorari in these three cases. That section provides that “it shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer... 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:....” The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in No. 6 (hereinafter referred to as Teamsters), following a decision of the Third Circuit, held that express proof that employer discrimination had the effect of encouraging or discouraging employees in their attitude toward union membership is an essential element to establish violation of this section. That holding conflicts with the holdings of the Second Circuit in No. 5 (hereinafter referred to as Radio Officers) and No. 7 (hereinafter referred to as Gaynor), with which decisions of the First and Ninth Circuits accord, that such employee encouragement or discouragement may be inferred from the nature of the discrimination. (See Part III, p. 48, infra.) In reaching its decision in Gaynor, the Second Circuit also rejected the contention, which contention is supported by many decisions of the Courts of Appeals, that there can be no violation of § 8 (a) (3) unless it is shown by specific evidence that the employer intended his discriminatory action to encourage or discourage union membership. The Second Circuit determined that the employer intended the natural result of his discriminatory action. (See Part II, p. 42, infra.) Moreover, Radio Officers and Teamsters present conflicting views by Courts of Appeals as to the scope of the phrase “membership in any labor organization” in §8 (a)(3). The Eighth Circuit restricts this phrase to “adhesion to membership,” i. e., joining or remaining on a union's membership roster; the Second Circuit, on the other hand, interprets it to include obligations of membership, i. e., being a good union member. (See Part I, p. 39, infra.) Radio Officers also raises subsidiary questions regarding the interrelationship of §8 (a)(3) with § 8 (b) (2) of the Act which makes it an unfair labor practice for a labor organization or its agents “to cause or attempt to cause an employer to discriminate against an employee in violation of subsection [8] (a) (3)....” (See Part IV, p. 52, infra.) These cases were argued last term, and, upon our order, reargued this term. They reached us in the following manner.
Teamsters. Upon the basis of a charge filed by Frank Boston, a truck driver employed by Byers Transportation Company and a member of Local Union No. 41, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, A. F. L., the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the union alleging violation of §§ 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8 (b)(2) of the National Labor Relations Act by causing the company to discriminate against Boston by reducing his seniority standing because of Boston’s delinquency in paying his union dues. A hearing was had before a trial examiner, whose intermediate report was largely adopted by the Board with one member dissenting.
The Board found that the union, as exclusive bargaining representative of the teamsters in the company’s employ, had in 1949 negotiated a collective-bargaining agreement with the company which governed working conditions on all over-the-road operations of the company. This agreement established a seniority system under which the union was to furnish periodically to the company a seniority list and provided that “any controversy over the seniority standing of any employee on this list shall be referred to the Union for settlement.” Union security provisions of the agreement were not effective due to lack of the authorization then required by § 8 (a) (3) of the Act. The seniority list therefore included both union members and nonmembers. Each new employee of the company, after a thirty-day trial period, was placed at the bottom of this list, and such employee would gradually advance in position as senior members were either removed from the list or reduced in their position on it. Position upon the seniority list governed the order of truck-driving assignments, the quality of such assignments, and the order of layoff.
The bylaws of Teamsters Local Union No. 41 provided that “any member, under contract, one month in arrears for dues shall forfeit all seniority rights... A member’s dues were payable on the first day of each month, and he was deemed “in arrears” for any month’s dues on the second day of the following month. Boston did not pay his dues for June 1950 until July 5, 1950. When the union transmitted a new seniority list to the company on the following July 15, Boston, who had previously been eighteenth on the list, was reduced to fifty-fourth, the bottom position on the list. As a result of such reduction Boston was denied driving assignments he would otherwise have obtained and for which he would have received compensation.
Upon these facts a majority of the Board found that the union had violated §§ 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8 (b)(2) of the Act. As to the former, the Board held that the union’s reduction of Boston’s seniority restrained and coerced him in the exercise of his right to refrain from assisting a labor organization guaranteed by § 7. The Board held that, “absent a valid contractual union-security provision, Boston had the absolute protected right under the Act to determine how he would handle his union affairs without risking any impairment of his employment rights and that the Union had no right at any time whether Boston was a member or not a member to make his employment status to any degree conditional upon the payment of dues....” As to the latter, the Board concluded that the union had caused the company to discriminate against Boston and adopted the Trial Examiner’s finding that “the normal effect of the discrimination against Boston was to encourage nonmembers to join the Union, as well as members to retain their good standing in the Union, a potent organization whose assistance is to be sought and whose opposition is to be avoided. The Employer’s conduct tended to encourage membership in the Union. [] Its discrimination against Boston had the further effect of enforcing rules prescribed by the Union, thereby strengthening the Union in its control over its members and its dealings with their employers and was thus calculated to encourage all members to retain their membership and good standing either through fear of the consequences of losing membership or seniority privileges or through hope of advantage in staying in....”
The Board entered an order requiring the union to cease and desist from the unfair labor practices found and from related conduct; to notify Boston and the company that the union withdraws its request for the reduction of Boston’s seniority and that it requests the company to offer to restore Boston to his former status; to make Boston whole for any losses of pay resulting from the discrimination; and to post appropriate notices of compliance.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit denied the Board’s petition to enforce its order. The court held that “the evidence here abundantly supports the finding of the Board that the respondent caused or attempted to cause the employer to discriminate against Boston in regard to 'tenure... or condition of employment/ ” but “discrimination alone is not sufficient” and “we can find no substantial evidence to support the conclusion that the discrimination... did or would encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.” This conclusion was reached because “the testimony of Boston... shows clearly that this act neither encouraged nor discouraged his adhesion to membership in the respondent union” and because, assuming the effect of the discrimination on other employees was relevant, the court found no evidence to support a conclusion that such employees were so encouraged or discouraged. We granted the Board’s petition for certiorari.
Radio Officers. Upon the basis of a charge filed by William Christian Fowler, a member of The Radio Officers’ Union of the Commercial Telegraphers Union, A. F. L., the General Counsel of the National Labor Relations Board issued a complaint against the union alleging violation of §§ 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8 (b)(2) of the Act by causing the A. H. Bull Steamship Company to dis-criminatorily refuse on two occasions to employ Fowler. No complaint was issued against the company because Fowler filed no charge against it. Following the usual proceedings under the Act, a hearing was had before a trial examiner, whose findings, conclusions, and recommendations with certain additions were adopted by the Board.
The Board found that at the time the transactions giving rise to this case occurred the union had a collective-bargaining contract with a number of steamship concerns including the Bull Steamship Company covering the employment of radio officers on ships of the contracting companies. Pertinent provisions in this contract are:
“Section 1. The Company agrees when vacancies occur necessitating the employment of Radio Officers, to select such Radio Officers who are members of the Union in good standing, when available, on vessels covered by this Agreement, provided such members are in the opinion of the Company qualified to fill such vacancies.”
“Section 6. The Company shall have the right of free selection of all its Radio Officers and when members of the Union are transferred, promoted, or hired the Company agrees to take appropriate measures to assure that such members are in good standing, and the Union agrees to grant all members of the Union in good standing the necessary 'clearance’ for the position to which the Radio Officer has been assigned. If a member is not in good standing, the Union will so notify the Company in writing.”
The union’s contention that this contract provided for a hiring hall under which complete control over selection of radio officers to be hired by any company was given to the union was rejected by the Trial Examiner and by a majority of the Board. Such an agreement would have legalized the actions of the union in this case. But the Board concluded, primarily from the last sentence of § 6 of the contract, that the contract “was clear on its face and did not provide for any hiring hall arrangement” and that it therefore was not improper for the Trial Examiner to exclude evidence that general, although not universal, practice had been for radio officers to be assigned to employers by the union.
The Board also found that: On February 24, 1948, the company telegraphed an offer of a job as radio officer on the company’s ship S. S. Frances to Fowler, who had often previously been employed by the company; Fowler had notified the company that he would accept the job; the company then informed Kozel, the radio officer on the previous voyage of the ship, that he was being replaced by “a man with senior service in the company”; Fowler reported to the Frances without seeking clearance from the union and Kozel reported such action to the union; the union secretary wired Fowler that he had been suspended from membership for “bumping” another member and taking a job without clearance and notified the company that Fowler was not in good standing in the union; the union secretary had no authority to effect such a suspension, the suspension was void and Fowler was in good standing in the union at all times material in this case; express requests to the union for clearance of Fowler for employment on the Frances by the company and by Fowler were subsequently refused, the union secretary stating that he would never again clear Fowler for a position with that company although Fowler would be cleared for jobs with other employers; unable to obtain clearance for Fowler, the company gave the job to another man supplied by the union, and Fowler returned to his home in Florida; on April 22, 1948, Fowler returned to New York and again advised the company that he was available for work before reporting to the union; the union secretary told Fowler he was being made “a company stiff” and adhered to his position that he would not clear Fowler for work with that company; clearance sought by the company for Fowler for a job on the S. S. Evelyn was subsequently refused, and another man was dispatched to the job by the union.
Upon these facts a majority of the Board found that the union had violated §§ 8 (b)(1)(A) and 8(b)(2). The Board rejected the union’s defense that the union security provision of the contract, preferential hiring for members in good standing, immunized the union’s action. They found that Fowler was in good standing at all times notwithstanding his suspension by the union secretary, and that conformity with the union’s hiring-hall rules and procedures was not also required by the contract. Thus the Board concluded that the union, by refusing to clear Fowler in both February and April, restrained and coerced Fowler in his statutory right to refrain from observance of the union’s rules, and caused the company to discriminate against Fowler by denying him employment. The Board adopted the Trial Examiner’s finding that “the normal effect of the discrimination against Fowler was to enforce not only his obedience as a member, of such rules as the Respondent might prescribe, but also the obedience of all his fellow members. It thereby strengthened the Respondent both in its control of its members for their general, mutual advantage, and in its dealings with their employers as their representative. It thus encouraged non-members to join it as a strong organization whose favor and help was to be sought and whose opposition was to be avoided. In its effect upon nonmembers alone, it must therefore be regarded as encouraging membership in the Respondent. Finally, by its demonstration of the Respondent’s strength, the discrimination in the present case also had the normal effect of encouraging Fowler and other members to retain their membership in the Respondent either through fear of the consequences of dropping out of membership or through hope of advantage in staying in.”
The Board entered an order requiring the union to cease and desist from the unfair labor practices found and from related conduct; to notify Fowler and the company that it withdraws objection to his employment and requests the company to offer him employment as a radio officer; to make Fowler whole for any losses of pay resulting from the discrimination, and to post appropriate notices of compliance.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the Board’s findings and conclusions and granted the Board’s petition for enforcement of its order. The court agreed that the provisions of the contract “plainly give the company the right to select the man it desires to hire, and require the union to grant ‘clearance’ if the man the company wants is a member in good standing,” that “such procedure is not a 'hiring hall’ arrangement,” and that Fowler was in good standing at the time of refusal of clearance. It rejected the union’s contention that its refusal to clear was merely a statement of views concerning breach of its rules and as such was within the protection of § 8 (c). We agree that, viewing the record as a whole, each of these findings is supported by substantial evidence. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers v. Labor Board, 341 U. S. 694; Universal Camera Corp. v. Labor Board, 340 U. S. 474. As to §§ 8 (b)(2) and 8 (a)(3), the court held that “refusal of clearance caused the company to discriminate against Fowler in regard to hire. Without the necessary clearance it could not accept him as an employee. The result was to encourage membership in the union. No threats or promises to the company were necessary.... Whether the union’s motive was, as it argues, to enforce the contract provisions against discharging satisfactory radio officers such as Kozel, is immaterial.... Such conduct displayed to all non-members the union’s power and the strong measure it was prepared to take to protect union members... The court also held that “a finding that the union has violated § 8 (b)(2) can be made without joining the employer and finding a § 8 (a) (3) violation,” and that it was proper to enter a back-pay order against the union without ordering reinstatement by the employer. We granted the union’s petition for certiorari.
Gaynor. Upon the basis of charges filed by Sheldon Loner, a nonunion employee of Gaynor News Company, the General Counsel of the Board issued a complaint against the company alleging inter alia violation of §§ 8 (a) (1), (2) and (3) of the Act by granting retroactive wage increases and vacation payments to employees who were members of the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers’ Union of New York and Vicinity and refusing such benefits to other employees because they were not union members. The Board adopted the findings, conclusions and recommendations of the Trial Examiner with certain additions.
The Board found that in.1946 the company, engaged in the wholesale distribution and delivery of newspapers and periodicals, entered into a collective-bargaining agreement respecting delivery-department employees with the union. This agreement provided for specified wages and paid vacations, and also provided for a closed shop, i. e., restricting employment by the company to members of the union. The agreement, however, permitted the employment by the company of nonunion employees pending such time as the union could supply union employees. This provision was necessary because the union was closed, ordinarily admitting to membership only first-born legitimate sons of members. The company at all pertinent times had nonunion as well as union employees in its delivery department. This original agreement was subsequently extended to 1948 and a supplementary agreement was executed by the parties in 1947 providing that in the event the parties negotiated a new contract, the wage rates set therein would be retroactive for three months. In October 1948 the company and the union entered into such a new contract which included an invalid union-security clause and provided for increased wage and vacation benefits. In this agreement the company expressly recognized the union as exclusive bargaining agent of all employees in the delivery department. In compliance with the 1947 supplementary agreement, the company in November 1948 made lump-sum payments to its union employees of the differential between the old and new wage rates for the three months’ retroactive period. Further payments were subsequently made to union members to compensate for differences in vacation benefits under the two contracts even though the supplementary agreement made no reference to such benefits. The company refused to make similar payments to any of its nonunion employees on the grounds that it was not contractually bound to do so, and, in its business judgment, did not choose to do so.
The Board concluded that, since nothing in the supplementary agreement prohibited equal payment to nonunion employees, “the contract affords no defense to the allegation that the Respondent unlawfully engaged in disparate treatment of employees on the basis of union membership or lack of it...,” and held that the company had violated the Act as alleged. The company’s arguments that its actions had not violated § 8 (a) (3) because “the record is barren of any evidence that the discriminatory treatment of non-union employes encouraged them to join the union” or had such purpose, and that there could be no such evidence because all the nonunion employees had previously sought membership in the union and been denied because of the union’s closed policy, were rejected. The Board adopted the Trial Examiner’s finding that “it is obvious that the discrimination with respect to retroactive wages and vacation benefits had the natural and probable effect not only of encouraging nonunion employees to join the Union, but also of encouraging union employees to retain their union membership.” We assume this concedes that the employer acted from self-interest and not to encourage unionism. An order was entered requiring the company to cease and desist from the unfair labor practices found and from related conduct; to make whole Loner and all other nonunion employees similarly situated for any loss of pay they have suffered by reason of the company’s discrimination against them; and to post appropriate notices of compliance.
The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, upon the Board’s petition, granted enforcement of all parts of the order pertinent here. On the issue of the legality of the discrimination, the court distinguished Labor Board v. Reliable Newspaper Delivery, Inc., 187 F. 2d 547, involving actions closely paralleling the company’s here by another company dealing with the same union, stating, “there discrimination resulted from what the court considered the entirely legal action of the minority union in asking special benefits for its members only. The union made no pretense of representing the majority of employees or of being the exclusive bargaining agent in the plant. The other non-union employees, reasoned the Court, were quite able to elect their own representative and ask for similar benefits. Not so here. The union here represented the majority of employees and was the exclusive bargaining agent for the plant. Accordingly, it could not betray the trust of non-union members, by bargaining for special benefits to union-members only, thus leaving the non-union members with no means of equalizing the situation.” 197 F. 2d, at 722. The court continued, in answer to the company’s contention that its action “had neither the purpose nor the effect required by § 8 (a) (3)”: “discriminatory conduct, such as that practiced here, is inherently conducive to increased union membership. In this respect, there can be little doubt that it ‘encourages’ union membership, by increasing the number of workers who would like to join and/or their quantum of desire. It may well be that the union, for reasons of its own, does not want new members at the time of the employer’s violations and will reject all applicants. But the fact remains that these rejected applicants have been, and will continue to be, ‘encouraged,’ by the discriminatory benefits, in their desire for membership. This backlog of desire may well, as the Board argues, result in action by non-members to ‘seek to break down membership barriers by any one of a number of steps, ranging from bribery to legal action.’ A union’s internal politics are by no means static; changes in union entrance rules may come at any time. If and when the barriers are let down, among the new and now successful applicants will almost surely be large groups of workers previously ‘encouraged’ by the employer’s illegal discrimination. We do not believe that, if the union-encouraging effect of discriminatory treatment is not felt immediately, the employer must be allowed to escape altogether. If there is a reasonable likelihood that the effects may be felt years later, then a reasonable interpretation of the Act demands that the employer be deemed a violator.” 197 F. 2d, at 722-723. We granted the company’s petition for certiorari.
I. Meaning of “Membership.”
The language employed by Congress in enacting the heart of § 8 (a) (3) is identical with that of the predecessor section in the Wagner Act, § 8 (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....” 49 Stat. 452. These are the first cases to reach us involving application of this section or its predecessor to the problem of encouragement of union membership by employers. We have on many occasions considered aspects of the application of these sections to actions by employers aimed at discouragement of union membership. The principles invoked in those cases are, of course, equally applicable to both aspects of employer discrimination, but most of the issues of statutory construction raised here have not previously been considered by this Court.
In past cases we have been called upon to clarify the terms “discrimination” and “membership in any labor organization.” Discrimination is not contested in these cases: involuntary reduction of seniority, refusal to hire for an available job, and disparate wage treatment are clearly discriminatory. But the scope of the phrase “membership in any labor organization” is in issue here. Subject to limitations, we have held that phrase to in-elude discrimination to discourage participation in union activities as well as to discourage adhesion to union membership.
Similar principles govern the interpretation of union membership where encouragement is alleged. The policy of the Act is to insulate employees’ jobs from their organizational rights. Thus §§8 (a)(3) and 8 (b)(2) were designed to allow employees to freely exercise their right to join unions, be good, bad, or indifferent members, or abstain from joining any union without imperiling their livelihood. The only limitation Congress has chosen to impose on this right is specified in the proviso to §8 (a)(3) which authorizes employers to enter into certain union security contracts, but prohibits discharge under such contracts if membership “was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members” or if “membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership.” Lengthy legislative debate preceded the 1947 amendment to the Act which thus limited permissible employer discrimination. This legislative history clearly indicates that Congress intended to prevent utilization of union security agreements for any purpose other than to compel payment of union dues and fees. Thus Congress recognized the validity of unions’ concern about “free riders,” i. e., employees who receive the benefits of union representation but are unwilling to contribute their share of financial support to such union, and gave unions the power to contract to meet that problem while withholding from unions the power to cause the discharge of employees for any other reason. Thus an employer can discharge an employee for nonmembership in a union if the employer has entered a union security contract valid under the Act with such union, and if the other requirements of the proviso are met. No other discrimination aimed at encouraging employees to join, retain membership, or stay in good standing in a union is condoned.
From the foregoing it is clear that the Eighth Circuit too restrictively interpreted the term “membership” in Teamsters. Boston was discriminated against by his employer because he was delinquent in a union obligation. Thus he was denied employment to which he was otherwise entitled, for no reason other than his tardy payment of union dues. The union caused this discrimination by applying a rule apparently aimed at encouraging prompt payment of dues. The union’s action was not sanctioned by a valid union security contract, and, in any event, the union did not choose to terminate Boston’s membership for his delinquency. Thus the union by requesting such discrimination, and the employer by submitting to such an illegal request, deprived Boston of the right guaranteed by the Act to join in or abstain from union activities without thereby affecting his job. A fortiori the Second Circuit correctly concluded in Radio Officers that such encouragement to remain in good standing in a union is proscribed. Thus that union in causing the employer to discriminate against Fowler by denying him employment in order to coerce Fowler into following the union’s desired hiring practices deprived Fowler of a protected right.
II. A. — Necessity for Proving Employer’s Motive.
The language of § 8 (a) (3) is not ambiguous. The unfair labor practice is for an employer to encourage or discourage membership by means of discrimination. Thus this section does not outlaw all encouragement or discouragement of membership in labor organizations; only such as is accomplished by discrimination is prohibited. Nor does this section outlaw discrimination in employment as such; only such discrimination as encourages or discourages membership in a labor organization is proscribed.
The relevance of the motivation of the employer in such discrimination has been consistently recognized under both § 8 (a) (3) and its predecessor. In the first case to reach the Court under the National Labor Relations Act, Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp,, 301 U. S. 1, in which we upheld the constitutionality of § 8 (3), we said with respect to limitations placed upon employers’ right to discharge by that section that “the [employer’s] true purpose is the subject of investigation with full opportunity to show the facts.” Id,, at 46. In another case the same day we found the employer’s “real motive” to be decisive and stated that “the act permits a discharge for any reason other than union activity or agitation for collective bargaining with employees.” Courts of Appeals have uniformly applied this criteria, and writers in the field of labor law emphasize the importance of the employer’s motivation to a finding of violation of this section. Moreover, the National Labor Relations Board in its annual reports regularly reiterates this requirement in its discussion of § 8 (a) (3). For example, a recent report states that “upon scrutiny of all the facts in a particular case, the Board must determine whether or not the employer’s treatment of the employee was motivated by a desire to encourage or discourage union membership or other activities protected by the statute.”
That Congress intended the employer's purpose in discriminating to be controlling is clear. The Senate Report on the Wagner Act said: “Of course nothing in the bill prevents an employer from discharging a man for incompetence; from advancing him for special aptitude; or from demoting him for failure to perform.” Senator Wagner spoke of § 8 (3) as reaching “those very cases where the employer is strong enough to impress his will without the aid of the law.” With this consistent interpretation of that section before it, Congress, as noted above, chose to retain the identical language in its 1947 amendments. No suggestion is found in either the reports or hearings on those amendments that the section had been too narrowly construed, and the House Conference Report states that § 8 (a) (3) “prohibits an employer from discriminating against an employee by reason of his membership or non-membership in a labor organization, except to the extent that he obligates himself to do so under the terms of a permitted union shop or maintenance of membership contract.”
B. — Proof of Motive.
But it is also clear that specific evidence of intent to encourage or discourage is not an indispensable element of proof of violation of §8 (a)(3). This fact was recognized in the House Report on the Wagner Act when it was stated that under § 8 (3) “agreements more favorable to the majority than to the minority are impossible....” Both the Board and the courts have recognized that proof of certain types of discrimination satisfies the intent requirement. This recognition that specific proof of intent is unnecessary where employer conduct inherently encourages or discourages union membership is but an application of the common-law rule that a man is held to intend the foreseeable consequences of his conduct. Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1, 31; Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, 376; United States v. Patten, 226 U. S. 525, 539; Agnew v. United States, 165 U. S. 36, 50. Thus an employer’s protestation that he did not intend to encourage or discourage must be unavailing where a natural consequence of his action was such encouragement or discouragement. Concluding that encouragement or discouragement will result, it is presumed that he intended such consequence. In such circumstances intent to encourage is sufficiently established. Our decision in Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793, relied upon by the Board to support its contention that employers’ motives are irrelevant under § 8 (a)(3), applied this principle. That decision dealt primarily with the right of the Board to infer discouragement from facts proven for purposes of proof of violation of § 8 (3). In holding that discharges and suspensions of employees under company “no solicitation” rules for soliciting union membership, in the circumstances disclosed, violated § 8 (3), we noted that such employer action was not “motivated by opposition to the particular union or, we deduce, to unionism” and that “there was no union bias or discrimination by the company in enforcing the rule.” But we affirmed the Board’s holding that the rules involved were invalid when applied to union solicitation since they interfered with the employees’ right to organize. Since the rules were no defense and the employers intended to discriminate solely on the ground of such protected union activity, it did not matter that they did not intend to discourage membership since such was a foreseeable result.
In Gaynor, the Second Circuit also properly applied this principle. The court there held that disparate wage treatment of employees based solely on union membership status is “inherently conducive to increased union membership.” In holding that a natural consequence of discrimination, based solely on union membership or lack thereof, is discouragement or encouragement of membership in such union, the court merely recognized a fact of common experience — that the desire of employees to unionize is directly proportional to the advantages thought to be obtained from such action. No more striking example of discrimination so foreseeably causing employee response as to obviate the need for any other proof of intent is apparent than the payment of different wages to union employees doing a job than to nonunion employees doing the same job. As noted above, the House Report on § 8 (3) of the Wagner Act emphasized that such disparate treatment was impossible under the Act.
In Gaynor it was conceded that the sole criterion for extra payments was union membership, and the vacation payments were admittedly gratuitous. The wage differential payments, on the other hand, were based upon the 1947 supplementary agreement which the company below contended was negotiated solely in behalf of union members. However, the court below held that the union was exclusive bargaining agent for both union and nonunion employees. The company has not challenged this holding, asserting only that, even though the union represented all employees, the company’s only liability to the nonunion employees can be for breach of contract.
The union’s representative status obviously does not effect the legality of the gratuitous payment. According to the reasoning of the Second Circuit, however, disparate payments based on contract are illegal only when the union, as bargaining agent for both union and nonunion employees, betrays its trust and obtains special benefits for the union members. That court considered such action unfair because such employees are not in a position to protect their own interests. Thus, it reasoned, if a union bargains only for its own members, it is legal for such union to cause an employer to give, and for such employer to give, special benefits to the members of the union for if nonmembers are aggrieved they are free to bargain for similar benefits for themselves.
We express no opinion as to the legality of disparate payments where the union is not exclusive bargaining agent, since that case is not before us. We do hold that in the circumstances of this case, the union being exclusive bargaining agent for both member and nonmember employees, the employer could not, without violating § 8 (a)(3), discriminate in wages solely on the basis of such membership even though it had executed a contract with the union prescribing such action. Statements throughout the legislative history of the National Labor Relations Act emphasize that exclusive bargaining agents are powerless “to make agreements more favorable to the majority than to the minority.” Such discriminatory contracts are illegal and provide no defense to an action under § 8 (a) (3). See Steele v. Louisville & Nashville R. Co., 323 U. S. 192; Wallace Corp. v. Labor Board, 323 U. S. 248; J. I. Case Co. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 332; Order of Railroad Telegraphers v. Railway Express Agency, 321 U. S. 342. Cf. Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U. S. 330.
III. Power op Board to Draw Inferences.
Petitioners in Oaynor and Radio Officers contend that the Board's orders in these cases should not have been enforced by the Second Circuit because the records do not include “independent proof that encouragement of Union membership actually occurred.” The Eighth Circuit subscribed to this view that such independent proof is required in Teamsters when it denied enforcement of the Board’s order in that proceeding on the ground that it was not supported by substantial evidence of encouragement. The Board argues that actual encouragement need not be proved but that a tendency to encourage is sufficient, and “such tendency is sufficiently established if its existence may reasonably be inferred from the character of the discrimination.”
We considered this problem in the Republic Aviation case. To the contention that “there must be evidence before the Board to show that the rules and orders of the employers interfered with and discouraged union organization in the circumstances and situation of each company,” we replied that the statutory plan for an adversary proceeding “does not go beyond the necessity for the production of evidential facts, however, 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: | 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.
In this civil antitrust suit brought by appellee against Otter Tail Power Co. (Otter Tail), an electric utility company, the District Court found that Otter Tail had attempted to monopolize and had monopolized the retail distribution of electric power in its service area in violation of § 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 15 U. S. C. § 2. The District Court found that Otter Tail had attempted to prevent communities in which its retail distribution franchise had expired from replacing it with a municipal distribution system. The principal means employed were (1) refusals to sell power at wholesale to proposed municipal systems in the communities where it had been retailing power; (2) refusals to “wheel” power to such systems, that is to say, to transfer by direct transmission or displacement electric power from one utility to another over the facilities of an intermediate utility; (3) the institution and support of litigation designed to prevent or delay establishment of those systems; and (4) the invocation of provisions in its transmission contracts with several other power suppliers for the purpose of denying the municipal systems access to other suppliers by means of Otter Tail’s transmission systems.
Otter Tail sells electric power at retail in 465 towns in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The District Court’s decree enjoins it from refusing to sell electric power at wholesale to existing or proposed municipal electric power systems in the areas serviced by Otter Tail, from refusing to wheel electric power oyer the lines from the electric power suppliers to existing or proposed municipal systems in the area, from entering into or enforcing any contract which prohibits use of Otter Tail’s lines to wheel electric power to municipal electric power systems, or from entering into or enforcing any contract which limits the customers to whom and areas in which Otter Tail or any other electric power company may sell electric power.
The decree also enjoins Otter Tail from instituting, supporting, or engaging in litigation, directly or indirectly, against municipalities and their officials who have voted to establish municipal electric power systems for the purpose of delaying, preventing, or interfering with the establishment of a municipal electric power system. 331 F. Supp. 54. Otter Tail took a direct appeal to this Court under § 2 of the Expediting Act, as amended, 62 Stat. 989, 15 U. S. C. § 29; and we noted probable jurisdiction, 406 U. S. 944.
In towns where Otter Tail distributes at retail, it operates under municipally granted franchises which are limited from 10 to 20 years. Each town in Otter Tail’s service area generally can accommodate only one distribution system, making each town a natural monopoly market for the distribution and sale of electriq power at retail. The aggregate of towns in Otter Tail’s service area is the geographic market in which Otter Tail competes for the right to serve the towns at retail. That competition is generally for the right to serve the entire retail market within the composite limits of a town, and that competition is generally between Otter Tail and a prospective or existing municipal system. These towns number 510 and of those Otter Tail serves 91%, or 465.
Otter Tail’s policy is to acquire, when it can, existing municipal systems within its service areas. It has acquired six since 1947. Between 1945 and 1970, there were contests in 12 towns served by Otter Tail over proposals to replace it with municipal systems. In only three — Elbow Lake, Minnesota, Colman, South Dakota, and Aurora, South Dakota — were municipal systems actually established. Proposed municipal systems have great obstacles; they must purchase the electric power at wholesale. To do so they must have access to existing transmission lines. The only ones available belong to Otter Tail. While the Bureau of Reclamation has high-voltage bulk-power supply lines in the area, it does not operate a subtransmission network, but relies on wheeling contracts with Otter Tail and other utilities to deliver power for its bulk supply lines to its wholesale customers.
The antitrust charge against Otter Tail does not involve the lawfulness of its retail outlets, but only its methods of preventing the towns it served from establishing their own municipal systems when Otter Tail’s franchises expired. The critical events centered largely in four towns — Elbow Lake, Minnesota, Hankinson, North Dakota, Colman, South Dakota, and Aurora, South Dakota. When Otter Tail’s franchise in each of these towns terminated, the citizens voted to establish a municipal distribution system. Otter Tail refused to sell the new systems energy at wholesale and refused to agree to wheel power from other suppliers of wholesale energy.
Colman and Aurora had access to other transmission. Against them, Otter Tail used the weapon of litigation.
As respects Elbow Lake and Hankinson, Otter Tail simply refused to deal, although according to the findings it had the ability to do so. Elbow Lake, cut off from all sources of wholesale power, constructed its own generating plant. Both Elbow Lake and Hankinson requested the Bureau of Reclamation and various cooperatives to furnish them with wholesale power; they were willing to supply it if Otter Tail would wheel it. But Otter Tail refused, relying on provisions in its contracts which barred the use of its lines for wheeling power to towns which it had served at retail. Elbow Lake after completing its plant asked the Federal Power Commission, under § 202 (b) of the Federal Power Act, 49 Stat. 848, 16 U. S. C. § 824a (b), to require Otter Tail to interconnect with the town and sell it power at wholesale. The Federal Power Commission ordered first a temporary and then a permanent connection. Hankinson tried unsuccessfully to get relief from the North Dakota Commission and then filed a complaint with the federal commission seeking an order to compel Otter Tail to wheel. While the application was pending, the town council voted to withdraw it and subsequently renewed Otter Tail’s franchise.
It was found that Otter Tail instituted or sponsored litigation involving four towns in its service area which had the effect of halting or delaying efforts to establish municipal systems. Municipal power systems are financed by the sale of electric revenue bonds. Before such bonds can be sold, the town’s attorney must submit an opinion which includes a statement that there is no pending or threatened litigation which might impair the value or legality of the bonds. The record amply bears out the District Court’s holding that Otter Tail’s use of litigation halted or appreciably slowed the efforts for municipal ownership. “The delay thus occasioned and the large financial burden imposed on the towns’ limited treasury dampened local enthusiasm for public ownership.” 331 F. Supp. 54, 62.
I
Otter Tail contends that by reason of the Federal Power Act it is not subject to antitrust regulation with respect to its refusal to deal. We disagree with that position.
“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.” United States v. Philadelphia National Bank, 374 U. S. 321, 350-351. See also Silver v. New York Stock Exchange, 373 U. S. 341, 357-361. Activities which come under the jurisdiction of a regulatory agency nevertheless may be subject to scrutiny under the antitrust laws.
In California v. FPC, 369 U. S. 482, 489, the Court held that approval of an acquisition of the assets of a natural gas company by the Federal Power Commission pursuant to § 7 of the Natural Gas Act “would be no bar to [an] antitrust suit.” Under § 7, the standard for approving such acquisitions is “public convenience and necessity.” Although the impact on competition is relevant to the Commission’s determination, the Court noted that there was “no ‘pervasive regulatory scheme’ including the antitrust laws that ha[d] been entrusted to the Commission.” Id., at 485. Similarly, in United States v. Radio Corp. of America, 358 U. S. 334, the Court held that an exchange of radio stations that had been approved by the Federal Communications Commission as in the “public interest” was subject to attack in an antitrust proceeding.
The District Court determined that Otter Tail’s consistent refusals to wholesale or wheel power to its municipal customers constituted illegal monopolization. Otter Tail maintains here that its refusals to deal should be immune from antitrust prosecution because the Federal Power Commission has the authority to compel involuntary interconnections of power pursuant to § 202 (b) of the Federal Power Act. The essential thrust of § 202, however, is to encourage voluntary interconnections of power. See S. Rep. No. 621, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 19-20, 48-49; H. R. Rep. No. 1318, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 8. Only if a power company refuses to interconnect voluntarily may the Federal Power Commission, subject to limitations unrelated to antitrust considerations, order the interconnection. The standard which governs its decision is whether such action is “necessary or appropriate in the public interest.” Although antitrust considerations may be relevant, they are not determinative.
There is nothing in the legislative history which reveals a purpose to insulate electric power companies from the operation of the antitrust laws. To the contrary, the history of Part II of the Federal Power Act indicates an overriding policy of maintaining competition to the maximum extent possible consistent with the public interest. As originally conceived, Part II would have included a “common carrier” provision making it “the duty of every public utility to . . . transmit energy for any person upon reasonable request . . . .” In addition, it would have empowered the Federal Power Commission to order wheeling if it found such action to be “necessary or desirable in the public interest.” H. R. 5423, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; S. 1725, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. These provisions were eliminated to preserve “the voluntary action of the utilities.” S. Rep. No. 621, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 19.
It is clear, then, that Congress rejected a pervasive regulatory scheme for controlling the interstate distribution of power in favor of voluntary commercial relationships. When these relationships are governed in the first instance by business judgment and not regulatory coercion, courts must be hesitant to conclude that Congress intended to override the fundamental national policies embodied in the antitrust laws. See United States v. Radio Corp. of America, supra, at 351. This is particularly true in this instance because Congress, in passing the Public Utility Holding Company Act, which included Part II of the Federal Power Act, was concerned with “restraint of free and independent competition” among public utility holding companies. See 15 U. S. C. § 79a (b)(2).
Thus, there is no basis for concluding that the limited authority of the Federal Power Commission to order interconnections was intended to be a substitute for, or to immunize Otter Tail from, antitrust regulation for refusing to deal with municipal corporations.
HH l — l
The decree of the District Court enjoins Otter Tail from “[Refusing to sell electric power at wholesale to existing or proposed municipal electric power systems in cities and towns located in [its service area]” and from refusing to wheel electric power over its transmission lines from other electric power lines to such cities and towns. But the decree goes on to provide:
“The defendant shall not be compelled by the Judgment in this case to furnish wholesale electric service or wheeling service to a municipality except at rates which are compensatory and under terms and conditions which are filed with and subject to approval by the Federal Power Commission.”
So far as wheeling is concerned, there is no authority granted the Commission under Part II of the Federal Power Act to order it, for the bills originally introduced contained common carrier provisions which were deleted. The Act as passed contained only the interconnection provision set forth in §202 (b). The common carrier provision in the original bill and the power to direct wheeling were left to the “voluntary coordination of electric facilities.” Insofar as the District Court ordered wheeling to correct anticompetitive and monopolistic practices of Otter Tail, there is no conflict with the authority of the Federal Power Commission.
As respects the ordering of interconnections, there is no conflict on the present record. Elbow Lake applied to the Federal Power Commission for an interconnection with Otter Tail and, as we have said, obtained it. Hank-inson renewed Otter Tail’s franchise. So the decree of the District Court, as far as the present record is concerned, presents no actual conflict between the federal judicial decree and an order of the Federal Power Commission. The argument concerning the pre-emption of the area by the Federal Power Commission concerns only instances which may arise in the future, if Otter Tail continues its hostile attitude and conduct against “existing or proposed municipal electric power systems.” The decree of the District Court has an open end by which that court retains jurisdiction “necessary or appropriate” to carry out the decree or “for the modification of any of the provisions.” It also contemplates that future disputes over interconnections and the terms and conditions governing those interconnections will be subject to Federal Power Commission perusal. It will be time enough to consider whether the antitrust remedy may override the power of the Commission under § 202 (b) as, if, and when the Commission denies the interconnection and the District Court nevertheless undertakes to direct it. At present, there is only a potential conflict, not a present concrete case or controversy concerning it.
III
The record makes abundantly clear that Otter Tail used its monopoly power in the towns in its service area to foreclose competition or gain a competitive advantage, or to destroy a competitor, all in violation of the antitrust laws. See United States v. Griffith, 334 U. S. 100, 107. The District Court determined that Otter Tail has “a strategic dominance in the transmission of power in most of its service area” and that it used this dominance to foreclose potential entrants into the retail area from obtaining electric power from outside sources of supply. 331 F. Supp., at 60. Use of monopoly power “to destroy threatened competition” is a violation of the “attempt to monopolize” clause of § 2 of the Sherman Act. Lorain Journal v. United States, 342 U. S. 143, 154; Eastman Kodak Co. v. Southern Photo Materials Co., 273 U. S. 359, 375. So are agreements not to compete, with the aim of preserving or extending a monopoly. Schine Chain Theatres v. United States, 334 U. S. 110, 119. In Associated Press v. United States, 326 U. S. 1, a cooperative news association had bylaws that permitted member newspapers to bar competitors from joining the association. We held that that practice violated the Sherman Act, even though the transgressor “had not yet achieved a complete monopoly.” Id., at 13.
When a community serviced by Otter Tail decides not to renew Otter Tail's retail franchise when it expires, it may generate, transmit, and distribute its own electric power. We recently described the difficulties and problems of those isolated electric power systems. See Gainesville Utilities v. Florida Power Corp., 402 U. S. 515, 517-520. Interconnection with other utilities is frequently the only solution. Id., at 519 n. 3. That is what Elbow Lake in the present case did. There were no engineering factors that prevented Otter Tail from selling power at wholesale to those towns that wanted municipal plants or wheeling the power. The District Court found— and its findings are supported — that Otter Tail's refusals to sell at wholesale or to wheel were solely to prevent municipal power systems from eroding its monopolistic position.
Otter Tail relies on its wheeling contracts with the Bureau of Reclamation and with cooperatives which it says relieve it of any duty to wheel power to municipalities served at retail by Otter Tail at the time the contracts were made. The District Court held that these restrictive provisions were “in reality, territorial allocation schemes,'' 331 F. Supp., at 63, and were per se violations of the Sherman Act, citing Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1. Like covenants were there held to “deny defendant’s competitors access to the fenced-off market on the same terms as the defendant.” Id., at 12. We recently re-emphasized the vice under the Sherman Act of territorial restrictions among potential competitors. United States v. Topco Associates, 405 U. S. 596, 608. The fact that some of the restrictive provisions were contained in a contract with the Bureau of Reclamation is not material to our problem for, as the Solicitor General says, “government contracting officers do not have the power to grant immunity from the Sherman Act.” Such contracts stand on their own footing and are valid or not, depending on the statutory framework within which the federal agency operates. The Solicitor General tells us that these restrictive provisions operate as a “hindrance” to the Bureau and were “agreed to by the Bureau only at Otter Tail’s insistence,” as the District Court found. The evidence supports that finding.
IV
The District Court found that the litigation sponsored by Otter Tail had the purpose of delaying and preventing the establishment of municipal electric systems “with the expectation that this would preserve its predominant position in the sale and transmission of electric power in the area.” 331 F. Supp., at 62. The District Court in discussing Eastern Railroad Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, 365 U. S. 127, explained that it was applicable “only to efforts aimed at influencing the legislative and executive branches of the government.” Ibid. That was written before we decided California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508, 513, where we held that the principle of Noerr may also apply to the use of administrative or judicial processes where the purpose to suppress competition is evidenced by repetitive lawsuits carrying the hallmark of insubstantial claims and thus is within the “mere sham” exception announced in Noerr. 365 U. S., at 144. On that phase of the order, we vacate and remand for consideration in light of our intervening decision in California Motor Transport Co.
y
Otter Tail argues that, without the weapons which it used, more and more municipalities will turn to public power and Otter Tail will go downhill. The argument is a familiar one. It was made in United States v. Arnold, Schwinn & Co., 388 U. S. 365, a civil suit under § 1 of the Sherman Act dealing with a restrictive distribution program and practices of a bicycle manufacturer. We said: “The promotion of self-interest alone does not invoke the rule of reason to immunize otherwise illegal conduct.” Id., at 375.
The same may properly be said of § 2 cases under the Sherman Act. That Act assumes that an enterprise will protect itself against loss by operating with superior service, lower costs, and improved efficiency. Otter Tail’s theory collided with the Sherman Act as it sought to substitute for competition anticompetitive uses of its dominant economic power.
The fact that three municipalities which Otter Tail opposed finally got their municipal systems does not excuse Otter Tail’s conduct. That fact does not condone the antitrust tactics which Otter Tail sought to impose. Moreover, the District Court repeated what we said in FTC v. National Lead Co., 352 U. S. 419, 431, “those caught violating the Act must expect some fencing in.” The proclivity for predatory practices has always been a consideration for the District Court in fashioning its antitrust decree. See United States v. Crescent Amusement Co., 323 U. S. 173, 190.
We do not suggest, however, that the District Court, concluding that Otter Tail violated the antitrust laws, should be impervious to Otter Tail’s assertion that compulsory interconnection or wheeling will erode its integrated system and threaten its capacity to serve adequately the public. As the dissent properly notes, the Commission may not order interconnection if to do so “would impair [the utility’s] ability to render adequate service to its customers.” 16 U. S. C. § 824a (b). The District Court in this case found that the “pessimistic view” advanced in Otter Tail’s “erosion study” “is not supported by the record.” Furthermore, it concluded that “it does not appear that Bureau of Reclamation power is a serious threat to the defendant nor that it will be in the foreseeable future.” Since the District Court has made future connections subject to Commission approval and in any event has retained jurisdiction to enable the parties to apply for “necessary or appropriate” relief and presumably will give effect to the policies embodied in the Federal Power Act, we cannot say under these circumstances that it has abused its discretion.
Except for the provision of the order discussed in part IV of this opinion, the judgment is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Blackmun and Mr. Justice Powell took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Northern States Power Co. also supplies some towns in Otter Tail’s area with electric power at retail. But the District Court excluded these towns from Otter Tail’s area because the two companies do not compete in the towns served by each other. Of the 615 remaining towns in the area, 465 are served at retail by Otter Tail, 45 by municipal systems, and 105 by rural electric cooperatives. The cooperatives are barred by § 4 of the Rural Electrification Act of 1936, 49 Stat. 1365, as amended, 7 U. S. C. § 904, from borrowing federal funds to provide power to towns already receiving central station service. For this and related reasons, the District Court excluded the rural cooperatives from the relevant market.
Subtransmission lines, with voltages from 34.5 kv to 69 kv are used for moving power from the bulk supply lines to points of local distribution. Of Otter Tail’s basic subtransmission system in this area, two-thirds of those lines are 41.6 kv subtransmission lines.
The 38 distribution rural cooperatives in Otter Tail’s area generally own only low-voltage distribution lines, which in most instances could not be used to supply power to proposed municipal utilities. The few rural cooperatives that have generation and transmission services do not, it was found, cut significantly into Otter Tail’s dominant position in subtransmission.
Elbow Lake v. Otter Tail Power Co., 40 F. P. C. 1262, aff’d, Otter Tail Power Co. v. FPC, 429 F. 2d 232 (CA8), cert, denied, 401 U. S. 947.
Elbow Lake v. Otter Tail Power Co., 46 F. P. C. 675.
See S. Rep. No. 621, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; H. R. Rep. No. 1318, 74th Cong., 1st Sess.; Elbow Lake v. Otter Tail Power Co., 46 F. P. C., at 679.
Section 202 (b) provides: “Whenever the Commission, upon application of any State commission or of any person engaged in the transmission or sale of electric energy, and after notice to each State commission and public utility affected and after opportunity for hearing, finds such action necessary or appropriate in the public interest it may by order direct a public utility (if the Commission finds that no undue burden will be placed upon such public utility thereby) to establish physical connection of its transmission facilities with the facilities of one or more other persons engaged in the transmission or sale of electric energy, to sell energy to or exchange energy with such persons: Provided, That the Commission shall have no authority to compel the enlargement of generating facilities for such purposes, nor to compel such public utility to sell or exchange energy when to do so would impair its ability to render adequate service to its customers. The Commission may prescribe the terms and conditions of the arrangement to be made between the persons affected by any such order, including the apportionment of cost between them and the compensation or reimbursement reasonably due to any of them.”
S. Rep. No. 621, supra, n. 6, at 19.
After noting that the “pendency of litigation has the effect of preventing the marketing of the necessary bonds thus preventing the establishment of a municipal system,” 331 F. Supp., at 62, the District Court went on to find:
“Most of the litigation sponsored by the defendant was carried to the highest available appellate court and although all of it was unsuccessful on the merits, the institution and maintenance of it had the effect of halting, or appreciably slowing, efforts for municipal ownership. The delay thus occasioned and the large financial burden imposed on the towns’ limited treasury dampened local enthusiasm for public ownership. In some instances, Otter Tail made offers to the towns to absorb the towns’ costs and expenses, and enhance the quality of its service in exchange for a new franchise. Hankinson, after several years of abortive effort, accepted this type of offer and renewed defendant’s franchise.” Ibid.
The Federal Power Commission said in Elbow Lake v. Otter Tail Power Co., 46 F. P. C., at 678:
“The public interest is far broader than the economic interest of a particular power supplier. It is our legal responsibility, as the Supreme Court made clear in Pennsylvania Water & Power Co. v. FPC, 343 U. S. 414 (1952), to use our statutory authority to assure 'an abundant supply of electric energy throughout the United States,’ and particularly to use our statutory power under Section 202 (b) to compel interconnection and coordination when the public interest requires it. The exercise of that authority may well require, as it does here, that we order a public utility to interconnect with an isolated municipal system. The private company’s lack of enthusiasm for the arrangement cannot deter us, so long as the public interest requires it.”
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 Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case raises the issue of whether a State may, consistent with § 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act, suspend or withhold unemployment compensation benefits from a claimant, when an employer takes an appeal from an initial determination of eligibility. Section 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act, 49 Stat. 626, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 503 (a)(1), provides that benefits must be paid “when due.”
In late summer 1969, appellees Judith Java and Carroll Hudson, having been discharged from employment, applied for unemployment insurance benefits under the California Unemployment Insurance Program. Appel-lees were given an eligibility interview at which the employer did not appear, although such an appearance was permitted. As a result of that interview both employees were ruled eligible for benefits. Payments began immediately. In each case the former employer filed an appeal after learning of the grant of benefits, contending that benefits should be denied because the claimants were discharged for cause. In accordance with the practice of the agency and pursuant to § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code payments automatically stopped. At the subsequent hearings before an Appeals Board Referee, which stage is essentially an appeal from the preliminary determination under California Unemployment Insurance Code §§ 1328, 1334, appellee Hudson’s eligibility was affirmed, but appellee Java was ruled ineligible and the initial determination was reversed.
Prior to the hearings before the Referee, appellees commenced a class action in the United States District Court on behalf of themselves and other claimants similarly situated. They sought a declaration that § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code is unconstitutional and inconsistent with the requirements of §303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act, and an order enjoining the operation of § 1335.
A three-judge court was convened, and it concluded that § 1335 is defective on both constitutional and statutory grounds. The District Court held that by not providing for a pretermination hearing, the California procedure constitutes a denial of procedural due process, relying on Goldberg v. Kelly, 397 U. S. 254 (1970). It further held that the application of § 1335, so as to result in a median seven-week delay in payments to claimants who have been found eligible for benefits, constituted a failure to pay unemployment compensation “when due” within the meaning of § 303 (a) (1) of the Social Security Act. The court granted appellees’ motion for a preliminary injunction, ordering the State of California not to suspend unemployment benefits pursuant to § 1335 because an eligibility determination has been appealed.
(1)
We agree with the conclusion of the District Court that § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code conflicts with the requirements of § 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act. This holding makes it unnecessary to reach the constitutional issue involved in Goldberg v. Kelly, supra, on which the District Court relied.
(2)
The importance of this case to workers is obvious. Because an understanding and the resolution of the basic issue depends on familiarity with a series of detailed procedures, we set out fully the administrative scheme.
All federal-state cooperative unemployment insurance programs are financed in part by grants from the United States pursuant to the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 501-503. No grant may be made to a State for a fiscal year unless the Secretary of Labor certifies the amount to be paid, 42 U. S. C. § 502 (a). The Secretary of Labor may not certify payment of federal funds unless he first finds that the State’s program conforms to federal requirements. In particular, §303 (a)(1) of the Act requires that state methods of administration be found “to be reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due.”
The California Unemployment Insurance Compensation Program, certified by the Secretary of Labor under § 303 of the Act, provides for payment of insurance benefits, over an extended period of time, to persons who find themselves unemployed through no fault of their own. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 1251 et seq. In order to be eligible for benefits a claimant is required to have earned a specified amount of wages during his base period. Id., §1281. Benefits are paid from the State Unemployment Fund, which consists of funds collected from private employers, id., § 976 et seq., and money credited to the State’s account in the federal Unemployment Trust Fund pursuant to 42 U. S. C. §§ 501-503, 1101-1105. The amount of money an employer is required to pay into the State Fund is based on benefits paid to terminated employees which are charged to its reserve account and disbursements from the State Unemployment Fund. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §§ 1025-1032, 976-978.
A claimant, appearing at an unemployment insurance office to assert a claim initially is asked to fill out forms which, taken together, indicate the basis of the claim, the name of the claimant’s previous employer, the reason for his unemployment, his work experience, etc. The claimant is asked to return to the office three weeks later for the purpose of receiving an Eligibility Benefits Rights Interview. The issue most frequently disputed, the claimant’s reason for termination of employment, is answered on Form DE 1101, and the Department immediately sends copies of this form to the affected employer for verification. Meanwhile the employer is asked to furnish, within 10 days, “any facts then known which may affect the claimant’s eligibility for benefits.” Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §§ 1327, 1030. If the employer challenges eligibility, the claimant may then be asked to complete Form DE 4935, which asks for detailed information about the termination of claimant’s previous job. The interviewer has, according to the Local Office Manual (L. O. M.) used in California, the “responsibility to seek from any source the facts required to make a prompt and proper determination of eligibility.” L. O. M. § 1400.3 (2). “Whenever information submitted is not clearly adequate to substantiate a decision, the Department has an obligation to seek the necessary information.” L. O. M. § 1400.5 (1)(a). This clearly contemplates inquiry to the latest employer, among others.
The claimant then appears for his interview. At the interview, the eligibility interviewer reviews available documents, makes certain that required forms have been completed, and clarifies or verifies any questionable statements. If there are inconsistent facts or questions as to eligibility, the claimant is asked to explain and offer his version of the facts. The interviewer is instructed to make telephone contact with other parties, including the latest employer, at the time of the interview, if possible. L. O. M. § 1404.4 (20). Interested persons, including the employer, are allowed to confirm, contradict, explain, or present any relevant evidence. L. O. M. § 1404.4 (21).
The eligibility interviewer must then consider all the evidence and make a determination as to eligibility. Normally, the determination is made at the conclusion of the interview. L. O. M. § 1404.6 (2). However, if necessary to obtain information by mail from any source, the determination may be placed in suspense for 10 days after the date of interview, or, if no response is received, no later than claimant’s next report day. L. O. M. § 1400.3 (2) (a).
From the foregoing it can be seen that the interview for the determination of eligibility is the critical point in the California procedure. In the Department’s own terms, it is “the point at which any issue affecting the claimant’s eligibility is decided and fulfills the Department’s legal obligation to insure that . . . [b]enefits are paid promptly if claimant is eligible.” L. O. M. § 1400.1 (1) (emphasis added). If the initial determination is favorable to the claimant, payments begin immediately, and for 95-98% of the claims, former employers do not appear or seek a hearing; no further problem arises as to initial eligibility. The Department sends out a notice to the employer informing him that the claimant has been found eligible, and that the employer may appeal within 10 days. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 1328. The 10-day period may be extended for “good cause.” Ibid.
If the employer appeals, payment of the claimant's benefits is stopped pending determination on appeal before an Appeals Board Referee. Id., § 1335; see L. O. M. § 1474. The automatic suspension of benefits upon the employer’s appeal, after an initial determination of eligibility, is the aspect of the California procedure challenged here. By that time the claimant may have received one or perhaps two payments. When the employer appeals, a hearing is then scheduled at which both the parties may appear and be represented, call witnesses, and present evidence. “A referee after affording a reasonable opportunity for fair hearing, shall, unless such appeal is withdrawn, affirm, reverse, or modify any determination which is appealed . . . .” Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 1334. The appeal affords a de novo consideration. Generally, processing of the employer’s appeal takes between six and seven weeks, between the date of fifing the appeal and the date of mailing the decision or dismissal.
If upon appeal the Referee finds the claimant eligible, payments are reinstated at once and continue even if the employer exercises his right to appeal further to the Appeals Board. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 1335 (b). Meanwhile as much as seven to 10 weeks may have elapsed. The record indicates that employers are successful in less than 50% of their appeals from initial determinations of eligibility. The Referee’s decision is final unless within 10 days further appeal is initiated to the Appeals Board. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §§ 1334, 1336. The Appeals Board must render a decision within 60 days after the filing of an appeal to it, unless it requires the taking of further evidence. Id., § 1337. If the claimant is successful on appeal, he receives a lump sum payment for weeks of unemployment prior to the Referee’s decision. Id., § 1338. If the employer is successful on appeal, his reserve account is immediately credited with all monies that have been paid his former employee. He has no responsibility for recoupment. Id., §§ 1335, 1380.
(3)
The dispositive issue is the determination of whether § 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code violates the command of 42 U. S. C. § 503 (a)(1) that state unemployment compensation programs must “be reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due.” The purpose of the federal statutory scheme must be examined in order to reconcile the apparent conflict between the provision of the California statute and § 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act.
It is true, as appellants argue, that the unemployment compensation insurance program was not based on need in the sense underlying the various welfare programs that had their genesis in the same period of economic stress a generation ago. A kind of “need” is present in the statutory scheme for insurance, however, to the extent that any “salary replacement” insurance fulfills a need caused by lost employment. The objective of Congress was to provide a substitute for wages lost during a period of unemployment not the fault of the employee. Probably no program could be devised to make insurance payments available precisely on the nearest payday following the termination, but to the extent that this was administratively feasible this must be regarded as what Congress was trying to accomplish. The circumstances surrounding the enactment of the statute confirm this.
The Social Security Act received its impetus from the Report of the Committee on Economic Security, which was established by executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt to study the whole problem of financial insecurity due to unemployment, old age, disability, and health. In its report, transmitted to Congress by the President on January 17, 1935, the Committee recommended a program of unemployment insurance compensation as a “first line of defense for . . . [a worker] ordinarily steadily employed ... for a limited period during which there is expectation that he will soon be reemployed. This should be a contractual right not dependent on any means test. ... It will carry workers over most, if not all, periods of unemployment in normal times without resort to any other form of assistance.” Estimates of possible amounts and duration of unemployment benefits were made by the actuarial staff of the Committee. On the basis of 1922-1933 statistics, it was estimated that 12 weeks of benefits could be paid with a two-week waiting period at a 4% employer contribution rate. The longest waiting period entering into the estimates was four weeks, indicating an intent that payments should begin promptly after the expiration of a short waiting period.
Other evidence in the legislative history of the Act and the commentary upon it supports the conclusion that “when due” was intended to mean at the earliest stage of unemployment that such payments were administratively feasible after giving both the worker and the employer an opportunity to be heard. The purpose of the Act was to give prompt if only partial replacement of wages to the unemployed, to enable workers “to tide themselves over, until they get back to their old work or find other employment, without having to resort to relief.” Unemployment benefits provide cash to a newly unemployed worker “at a time when otherwise he would have nothing to spend,” serving to maintain the recipient at subsistence levels without the necessity of his turning to welfare or private charity. Further, providing for “security during the period following unemployment” was thought to be a means of assisting a worker to find substantially equivalent employment. The Federal Relief Administrator testified that the Act “covers a great many thousands of people who are thrown out of work suddenly. It is essential that they be permitted to look for a job. They should not be doing anything else but looking for a job.” Finally, Congress viewed unemployment insurance payments as a means of exerting an influence upon the stabilization of industry. “Their only distinguishing feature is that they will be specially earmarked for the use of the unemployed at the very times when it is best for business that they should be so used.” Early payment of insurance benefits serves to prevent a decline in the purchasing power of the unemployed, which in turn serves to aid industries producing goods and services. The following extract from the testimony of the Secretary of Labor, in support of the Act, describes the stabilization mechanism contemplated:
“I think that the importance of providing purchasing power for these people, even though temporary, is of very great significance in the beginning of a depression. I really believe that putting purchasing power in the form of unemployment-insurance benefits in the hands of the people at the moment when the depression begins and when the first groups begin to be laid off is bound to have a beneficial effect. Not only will you stabilize their purchases, but through stabilization of their purchases you will keep other industries from going downward, and immediately you spread work by that very device.”
We conclude that the word “due” in § 303 (a)(1), when construed in light of the purposes of the Act, means the time when payments are first administratively allowed as a result of a hearing of which both parties have notice and are permitted to present their respective positions; any other construction would fail to meet the objective of early substitute compensation during unemployment. Paying compensation to an unemployed worker promptly after an initial determination of eligibility accomplishes the congressional purposes of avoiding resort to welfare and stabilizing consumer demands; delaying compensation until months have elapsed defeats these purposes. It seems clear therefore that the California procedure, which suspends payments for a median period of seven weeks pending appeal, after an initial determination of eligibility has been made, is not “reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due.”
(4)
We are not persuaded by appellants’ suggestion that the initial determination is clouded with sufficient uncertainty as to warrant withholding benefits until the appeal is decided to protect the interests of the State or of employers. The California procedure for initial determinations is effective in insuring that benefits are limited to legally eligible claimants. From 95%-98% of ineligible claimants are screened out at this stage. The primary inquiry at the preliminary interview is to examine the claimant’s basic eligibility under the California statute. It is an occasion when the claims of both the employer and the employee can be heard, however. The regulations contemplate that the interviewer shall make inquiries of the employer informally. This may not always flush out objections based on discharge for cause, as this case illustrates. Nonetheless, if the employer has notice of the time and place of the preliminary interview, as was the case here, it is his responsibility to present sufficient data to make clear his objections to the claim for benefits and put the interviewer in a position to broaden the inquiry if necessary. Any procedure or regulation that fails to give notice to the employer would, of course, be violative of the statutory scheme as we construe it.
Although the eligibility interview is informal and does not contemplate taking evidence in the traditional judicial sense, it has adversary characteristics and the minimum obligation of an employer is to inform the interviewer and the claimant of any disqualifying factors. So informed, the interviewer can direct the initial inquiry to identifying a frivolous or dilatory contention by either party.
It would frustrate one of the Act’s basic purposes— providing a “substitute” for wages — to permit an employer to ignore the initial interview or fail to assert and document a claimed defense, and then effectuate cessation of payments by asserting a defense to the claim by way of appeal. If the employer fails to present any evidence, he has in effect defaulted, and neither he nor the State can with justification complain if, on a prima jade showing, benefits are allowed. If the employer’s defenses are not accepted and the claim is allowed, that also constitutes a determination that the benefits are “due.”
As we have noted, this construction of the statutory scheme vindicates the congressional objective; California’s approach tends to frustrate it. Our reading of the statute imposes no hardship on either the State or the employer and gives effect to the congressional objective of getting money into the pocket of the unemployed worker at the earliest point that is administratively feasible. That is what the Unemployment Insurance program was all about.
For the reasons stated enforcement of § 1335- must be enjoined because it is inconsistent with § 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act. See King v. Smith, 392 U. S. 309, 333 (1968); Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 420-421 (1970).
Affirmed.
Section 1335 of the California Unemployment Insurance Code provides:
“If an appeal is filed, benefits with respect to the period prior to the final decision on the appeal shall be paid only after such decision, except that:
“(a) If benefits for any week are payable in accordance with a determination by the department irrespective of any decision on the issues set forth in the appeal, such benefits shall be promptly paid regardless of such appeal, or
“(b) If a referee affirms a determination allowing benefits, such benefits shall be paid regardless of any appeal which may thereafter be taken, and regardless of any action taken under Section 1336 or otherwise by the director, Appeals Board, or other administrative body or by any court.
“If such determination is finally reversed, no employer’s account shall be charged with benefits paid because of that determination.” (Emphasis added.)
Section 303 (a)(1) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 503 (a) (1), provides in part:
“(a) The Secretary of Labor shall make no certification for payment to any State unless he finds that the law of such State, approved by the Secretary of Labor under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, includes provision for—
“(1) Such methods of administration (including after January 1, 1940, methods relating to the establishment and maintenance of personnel standards on a merit basis, except that the Secretary of Labor shall exercise no authority with respect to the selection, tenure of office, and compensation of any individual employed in accordance with such methods) as are found by the Secretary of Labor to be reasonably calculated to insure full -payment of unemployment compensation when due.” (Emphasis added.)
Of the 226,066 claimants ruled ineligible in 1968, only 2,602 (1%) were found ineligible by a state referee upon an employer’s appeal.
Of 667,993 determinations on eligibility in 1968, 441,927 were favorable to the claimant.
In 1968 there were only 5,526 decisions on appeals filed by employers.
In 1968 the period was 49 days; in 1969 it was 40.5 days.
Of 4,159 appeals filed by an employer between January 1, 1969, and September 30, 1969, 2,023 resulted in decisions favorable to the employer. (During the same period there were 14,768 appeals filed by claimants, 4,838 of which were successful.) In 1968 there were 5,526 decisions on appeals filed by employers, resulting in 2,602 decisions favorable to the employer, and 2,924 favorable to the claimant.
Counsel informed the Court that recoupment is effected by the Department as to approximately 65% of the amounts erroneously paid; this is generally accomplished by way of offset against benefits subsequently granted in a later unemployment claim. The Department may also file a civil action for recovery. See Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code § 2739.
Report of the Committee on Economic Security, Hearings on S. 1130 before the Senate Committee on Finance, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 1311 (1935); see generally Larson & Murray, The Development of Unemployment Insurance in the United States, 8 Vand. L. Rev. 181 (1955); Witte, Development of Unemployment Compensation, 55 Yale L. J. 21, 29-34 (1945).
Report of the Committee on Economic Security, supra, n. 9, at 1321-1322. See Note, Charity versus Social Insurance in Unemployment Compensation Laws, 73 Yale L. J. 357 (1963).
Hearings, supra, n. 9, at 1321, 1319.
H. R. Rep. No. 615, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1935).
Statement of the Secretary of Labor, Hearings, supra, n. 9, at 119. Cf. Nash v. Florida Industrial Comm’n, 389 U. S. 235, 239 (1967).
See S. Rep. No. 628, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 12 (1935).
Statement of Federal Relief Administrator and Member of the Committee on Economic Security, Hearings on H. R. 4120 before the House Committee on Ways and Means, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., 214 (1935).
Statement of Sen. Robert F. Wagner, Hearings, supra, n. 9, at 3.
Statement of the Secretary of Labor, Hearings, supra, n. 15, at 182. See Clague, The Economics of Unemployment Compensation, 55 Yale L. J. 53, 69 (1945).
It was uncontested in argument before the District Court that the average period of unemployment in California is approximately nine weeks.
For example, an employer’s reserve account is not charged if a claimant is ruled ineligible because of voluntary termination or discharge for cause, unless the employer fails to furnish the information required. Cal. Unemp. Ins. Code §§ 1032, 1030.
In disposing of the prayer for a permanent injunction, it may be appropriate to join the Secretary of Labor as a party in order that complete relief may be accorded.
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted habeas relief to respondent Duyonn Andre Vincent after concluding that the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, barred his conviction for first-degree murder. Vincent v. Jones, 292 F. 3d 506 (2002). Because this decision exceeds the limits imposed on federal habeas review by 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d), we granted the petition for certiorari, 537 U. S. 1099 (2002), and now reverse.
In an altercation between two groups of youths in front of a high school in Flint, Michigan, Markeis Jones was shot and killed. Respondent was arrested in connection with the shooting and was charged with open murder. At the close of the prosecution’s case in chief and outside the hearing of the jury, defense counsel moved for a directed verdict of acquittal as to first-degree murder, arguing that there was insufficient evidence of premeditation and deliberation. The trial judge stated:
“ ‘[M]y impression at this time is that there’s not been shown premeditation or planning in the, in the alleged slaying. That what we have at the very best is Second Degree Murder.... I think that Second Degree Murder is an appropriate charge as to the defendants. Okay.’ ” 292 F. 3d, at 508.
Before court adjourned, the prosecutor asked to make a brief statement regarding first-degree murder the following morning. Ibid. The trial judge agreed to hear it.
When the prosecution made the statement, however, defense counsel objected. The defense argued that the court had granted its motion for a directed verdict as to first-degree murder the previous day, and that further prosecution on that charge would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Ibid. The judge responded, “ ‘Oh, I granted a motion but I have not directed a verdict.’” Id., at 509. He noted that the jury had not been informed of his statements, and said that he would reserve a ruling on the matter. Subsequently, he decided to permit the charge of first-degree murder to be submitted to the jury. Ibid.
The jury convicted respondent of first-degree murder, and respondent appealed. Ibid. The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed, concluding that the trial judge had directed a verdict on the charge and that the Double Jeopardy Clause prevented respondent’s prosecution for first-degree murder. People v. Vincent, 215 Mich. App. 458, 546 N. W. 2d 662 (1996). The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. It noted that “a judge’s characterization of a ruling and the form of the ruling may not be controlling” for purposes of determining whether a ruling terminated jeopardy. People v. Vincent, 455 Mich. 110, 119, 565 N. W. 2d 629, 632 (1997) (citing United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 571, n. 9 (1977)). The State Supreme Court then reviewed the context and substance of the trial judge’s comments, and concluded that the comments were not sufficiently final to constitute a judgment of acquittal terminating jeopardy. After the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision, respondent discovered that the Clerk had made the following entry on the docket sheet: “‘Motions by all atts for directed verdict. Court amended e[oun]t: 1 open murder to 2nd degree murder.’ ” 292 F. 3d, at 512; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 7. Respondent moved the State Supreme Court to reconsider its judgment in light of this statement. The motion was denied without opinion. Judgt. order reported at 456 Mich. 1201, 568 N. W. 2d 670 (1997).
Respondent sought a writ of habeas corpus from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. That court determined that respondent’s prosecution for first-degree murder violated the Double Jeopardy Clause, and it granted his petition. App. to Pet. for Cert. 78a. The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed, 292 F. 3d 506 (2002), and this petition ensued.
I — I
A habeas petitioner whose claim was adjudicated on the merits in state court is not entitled to relief in federal court unless he meets the requirements of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). The double jeopardy claim in respondent’s habeas petition arises out of the same set of facts upon which he based his direct appeal, and the State Supreme Court’s holding that no double jeopardy violation occurred therefore constituted an adjudication of this claim on the merits. Thus, under § 2254(d), respondent is not entitled to relief unless he can demonstrate that the state court’s adjudication of his claim:
“(1) resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States; or
“(2) resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.”
Although the Court of Appeals recited this standard, 292 F. 3d, at 510, it proceeded to evaluate respondent’s claim de novo rather than through the lens of § 2254(d), apparently because it “agree[d] with the district court that whether the state trial judge acquitted [respondent] of first-degree murder is a question of law and not one of fact.” Id., at 511. The Court of Appeals did not consider whether the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision was “contrary to” or an “unreasonable application of” our clearly established precedents, or whether it was “based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.” Instead, the Court of Appeals declared:
“‘[W]e are not bound by the holding of the Michigan Supreme Court that the trial judge’s statements did not constitute a directed verdict under Michigan law. Instead, we must examine the state trial judge’s comments to determine whether he made a ruling which resolved the factual elements of the first-degree murder charge.’” Ibid.
The Court of Appeals then concluded that, in its judgment, the state trial court’s actions “constituted a grant of an acquittal on the first-degree murder charge such that jeopardy attached,” id., at 512, and affirmed.
This was error. As noted above, under § 2254(d) it must be shown that the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision was either contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, this Court’s clearly established precedents, or was based upon an unreasonable determination of the facts. The parties do not dispute the underlying facts, and respondent is therefore entitled to habeas relief only if he can meet one of the two bases for relief provided in § 2254(d)(1). We will address these bases in turn.
First, we have explained that a decision by a state court is “contrary to” our clearly established law if it “applies a rule that contradicts the governing law set forth in our cases” or if it “confronts a set of facts that are materially indistinguishable from a decision of this Court and nevertheless arrives at a result different from our precedent.” Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 405-406 (2000). See also Early v. Packer, 537 U. S. 3, 7-8 (2002) (per curiam). Here, the Michigan Supreme Court identified the applicable Supreme Court precedents, United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564 (1977), and Smalis v. Pennsylvania, 476 U. S. 140 (1986), and “reaffirmed] the principles articulated” in those decisions. People v. Vincent, 455 Mich., at 121, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633. Moreover, the Michigan Supreme Court properly followed Martin Linen by recognizing that the trial judge’s characterization of his own ruling is not controlling for purposes of double jeopardy, and by inquiring into “ ‘whether the ruling of the [trial] judge, whatever its label, actually represents a resolution, correct or not, of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged.’ ” 455 Mich., at 119, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633 (citing Martin Linen, supra, at 571). Nowhere did the Michigan Supreme Court apply a legal standard contrary to those set forth in our cases. Nor did that court confront a set of facts materially indistinguishable from those presented in any of this Court’s clearly established precedents. In Smalis and Martin Linen, unlike in the present case, the trial courts not only rendered statements of clarity and finality but also entered formal orders from which appeals were taken. 476 U. S., at 142; 430 U. S., at 566.
Second, respondent can satisfy § 2254(d) if he can demonstrate that the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision involved an “unreasonable application” of clearly established law. As we have explained:
“[A] federal habeas court may not issue the writ simply because that court concludes in its independent judgment that the state-court decision applied [a Supreme Court case] incorrectly. See Bell v. Cone, 535 U. S. 685, 698-699 (2002); Williams, supra, at 411. Rather, it is the habeas applicant’s burden to show that the state court applied [that case] to the facts of his case in an objectively unreasonable manner.” Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U. S. 19, 24-25 (2002) (per curiam).
Here, having recognized that, under Martin Linen, the trial judge’s characterization of his own ruling was not controlling for purposes of double jeopardy, the court went on to examine the substance of the judge’s actions, to determine whether “further proceedings would violate the defendant’s double jeopardy rights.” People v. Vincent, 455 Mich., at 119, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633. In doing so, the court noted the goal of the Double Jeopardy Clause to prevent against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal. Id., at 120, n. 5, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633, n. 5; see also Martin Linen, supra, at 569 (noting controlling constitutional principle motivating Double Jeopardy Clause is prohibition against multiple trials and corresponding prevention of oppression by the Government); Lockhart v. Nelson, 488 U. S. 33, 42 (1988). The Michigan Supreme Court also considered Smalis, in which this Court stated:
“[T]he Double Jeopardy Clause bars a postacquittal appeal by the prosecution not only when it might result in a second trial, but also if reversal would translate into 'further proceedings of some sort, devoted to the resolution of factual issues going to the elements of the offense charged.’” 476 U. S., at 145-146 (quoting Martin Linen, supra, at 570).
Applying Martin Linen and Smalis, the State Supreme Court concluded that the judge’s comments simply were not sufficiently final as to terminate jeopardy. People v. Vincent, 455 Mich., at 120, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633 (“[F]urther proceedings were not barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause”); id., at 120, n. 5, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633, n. 5 (“[T]he principles embodied within [double jeopardy] protections were not violated”); id., at 127, 565 N. W. 2d, at 636 (Because “the judge’s comments ... lacked the requisite degree of clarity and specificity,” “the continuation of the trial... did not prejudice or violate the defendant’s constitutional rights”).
In reaching this conclusion, in addition to reviewing the context and substance of the trial judge’s comments at length, the Michigan Supreme Court observed that “there was no formal judgment or order entered on the record.” Ibid. The Michigan Supreme Court noted that formal motions or rulings were not required to demonstrate finality as a matter of Michigan law, but cautioned that “the judgment must bear sufficient indicia of finality to survive an appeal.” Id., at 126, n. 9, 565 N. W. 2d, at 636, n. 9. The court listed factors that might be considered in evaluating finality as including “a clear statement in the record or a signed order,” “an instruction to the jury that a charge or element of the charge has been dismissed by the judge,” or “a docket entry.” Ibid. “[E]ach case,” the court said, “will turn on its own particular circumstances.” Ibid. Even after the docket entry was brought to its attention, the State Supreme Court adhered to its original decision that, in this case, the trial judge’s comments were not sufficiently final to terminate jeopardy. This was not an objectively unreasonable application of clearly established law as defined by this Court. Indeed, numerous other courts have refused to find double jeopardy violations under similar circumstances. Even if we agreed with the Court of Appeals that the Double Jeopardy Clause should be read to prevent continued prosecution of a defendant under these circumstances, it was at least reasonable for the state court to conclude otherwise.
Because respondent did not meet the statutory requirements for habeas relief, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.
It is so ordered.
The Michigan Supreme Court noted that the comments at issue were never discussed in front of the jury, People v. Vincent, 455 Mich., at 114— 115, n. 1, 565 N. W. 2d, at 631, n. 1, and that the jury was never discharged, id., at 121, n. 6, 565 N. W. 2d, at 633, n. 6. Moreover, the State Supreme Court noted, no trial proceedings took place with respondent laboring under the mistaken impression that he was not facing the possibility of conviction for first-degree murder. Id., at 114-115, n. 1, 565 N. W. 2d, at 631, n. 1.
In United States v. LoRusso, 695 F. 2d 45, 54 (1982), for example, the Second Circuit held that double jeopardy did not bar continued prosecution on a charge when the judge withdrew an oral grant of a motion to dismiss a count “[w]here no judgment has been entered ... and there has been no dismissal of the jury.” In United States v. Byrne, 203 F. 3d 671 (2000), the Ninth Circuit found no double jeopardy violation where a trial judge orally granted a motion for acquittal, then agreed to consider an additional transcript. Id., at 674 (“[T]here was no announcement of the court’s decision to the jury, and the trial did not resume until” after the court had denied the defendant’s motion). See also United States v. Baggett, 251 F. 3d 1087, 1095 (CA6 2001) (“Byrne and LoRusso stand for the proposition that an oral grant of a Rule 29 motion outside of the jury’s presence does not terminate jeopardy, inasmuch as a court is free to change its mind prior to the entry of judgment”); State v. Iovino, 524 A. 2d 556, 559 (R. I. 1987) (distinguishing United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564 (1977), on the grounds that in the case before it, “the jury remained impaneled to adjudicate lesser included charges, and that defendant was not faced with any threat of reprosecution beyond the jury already assembled to hear his case”); State v. Sperry, 149 Ore. App. 690, 696, 945 P. 2d 546, 550 (1997) (“[UJnder the circumstances presented here, the trial court could reconsider [its oral grant of a motion for a judgment of acquittal] and withdraw its ruling without violating” the Double Jeopardy Clause).
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.
The respondents, a major metropolitan newspaper and one of its reporters, initiated this litigation to challenge the constitutionality of ¶ 4b (6) of Policy Statement 1220.1A of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. At the time that the case was in the District Court and the Court of Appeals, this regulation prohibited any personal interviews between newsmen and individually designated federal prison inmates. The Solicitor General has informed the Court that the regulation was recently amended “to permit press interviews at federal prison institutions that can be characterized as minimum security.” The general prohibition of press interviews with inmates remains in effect, however, in three-quarters of the federal prisons, i. e., in all medium security and maximum security institutions, including the two institutions involved in this case.
In March 1972, the respondents requested permission from the petitioners, the officials responsible for administering federal prisons, to conduct several interviews with specific inmates in the prisons at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and Danbury, Connecticut. The petitioners denied permission for such interviews on the authority of Policy Statement 1220.1A. The respondents thereupon commenced this suit to challenge these denials and the regulation on which they were predicated. Their essential contention was that the prohibition of all press interviews with prison inmates abridges the protection that the First Amendment accords the newsgathering activity of a free press. The District Court agreed with this contention and held that the Policy Statement, insofar as it totally prohibited all press interviews at the institutions involved, violated the First Amendment. Although the court acknowledged that institutional considerations could justify the prohibition of some press-inmate interviews, the District Court ordered the petitioners to cease enforcing the blanket prohibition of all such interviews and, pending modification of the Policy Statement, to consider interview requests on an individual basis and “to withhold permission to interview . . . only where demonstrable administrative or disciplinary considerations dominate.” 357 F. Supp. 770, 775 (DC 1972).
The petitioners appealed the District Court's judgment to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. We stayed the District Court’s order pending the completion of that appeal, sub nom. Kleindienst v. Washington Post Co., 406 U. S. 912 (1972). The first time this case was before it, the Court of Appeals remanded it to the District Court for additional findings of fact and particularly for reconsideration in light of this Court’s intervening decision in Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U. S. 665 (1972). 155 U. S. App. D. C. 283, 477 F. 2d 1168 (1972). On remand, the District Court conducted further evidentiary hearings, supplemented its findings of fact, and reconsidered its conclusions of law in light of Branzburg and other recent decisions that were urged upon it. In due course, the court reaffirmed its original decision, 357 F. Supp. 779 (DC 1972), and the petitioners again appealed to the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court. It held that press interviews with prison inmates could not be totally prohibited as the Policy Statement purported to do, but may “be denied only where it is the judgment of the administrator directly concerned, based on either the demonstrated behavior of the inmate, or special conditions existing at the institution at the time the interview is requested, or both, that the interview presents a serious risk of administrative or disciplinary problems.” 161 U. S. App. D. C. 75, 87-88, 494 F. 2d 994, 1006-1007 (1974). Any blanket prohibition of such face-to-face interviews was held to abridge the First Amendment’s protection of press freedom. Because of the important constitutional question involved, and because of an apparent conflict in approach to the question between the District of Columbia Circuit and the Ninth Circuit, we granted certiorari. 415 U. S. 956 (1974).
The policies of the Federal Bureau of Prisons regarding visitations to prison inmates do not differ significantly from the California policies considered in Pell v. Procunier, ante, p. 817. As the Court of Appeals noted, “inmates’ families, their attorneys, and religious counsel are accorded liberal visitation privileges. Even friends of inmates are allowed to visit, although their privileges appear to be somewhat more limited.” 161 U. S. App. D. C., at 78, 494 F. 2d, at 997. Other than members of these limited groups with personal and professional ties to the inmates, members of the general public are not permitted under the Bureau’s policy to enter the prisons and interview consenting inmates. This policy is applied with an even hand to all prospective visitors, including newsmen, who, like other members of the public, may enter the prisons to visit friends or family members. But, again like members of the general public, they may not enter the prison and insist on visiting an inmate with whom they have no such relationship. There is no indication on this record that Policy Statement 1220.1A has been interpreted or applied to prohibit a person, who is otherwise eligible to visit and interview an inmate, from doing so merely because he is a member of the press.'
Except for the limitation in Policy Statement 1220.1A on face-to-face press-inmate interviews, members of the press are accorded substantial access to the federal prisons in order to observe and report the conditions they find there. Indeed, journalists are given access to the prisons and to prison inmates that in significant respects exceeds that afforded to members of the general public. For example, Policy Statement 1220.1A permits press representatives to tour the prisons and to photograph any prison facilities. During such tours a newsman is permitted to conduct brief interviews with any inmates he might encounter. In addition, newsmen and inmates are permitted virtually unlimited written correspondence with each other. Outgoing correspondence from inmates to press representatives is neither censored nor inspected. Incoming mail from press representatives is inspected only for contraband or statements inciting illegal action. Moreover, prison officials are available to the press and are required by Policy Statement 1220.1A to “give all possible assistance” to press representatives “in providing background and a specific report” concerning any inmate complaints.
The respondents have also conceded in their brief that Policy Statement 1220.1A “has been interpreted by the Bureau to permit a newsman to interview a randomly selected group of inmates.” As a result, the reporter respondent in this case was permitted to interview a randomly selected group of inmates at the Lewisburg prison. Finally, in light of the constant turnover in the prison population, it is clear that there is always a large group of recently released prisoners who are available to both the press and the general public as a source of information about conditions in the federal prisons.
Thus, it is clear that Policy Statement 1220.1A is not part of any attempt by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to conceal from the public the conditions prevailing in federal prisons. This limitation on prearranged press interviews with individually designated inmates was motivated by the same disciplinary and administrative considerations that underlie § 115.071 of the California Department of Corrections Manual, which we considered in Pell v. Procunier and Procunier v. Hillery, ante, p. 817. The experience of the Bureau accords with that of the California Department of Corrections and suggests that the interest of the press is often “concentrated on a relatively small number of inmates who, as a result, [become] virtual-'public figures’ within the prison society and gai[n] a disproportionate degree of notoriety and influence among their fellow inmates.” Pell, ante, at 831-832. As a result those inmates who are conspicuously publicized because of their repeated contacts with the press tend to become the source of substantial disciplinary problems that can engulf a large portion of the population at a prison.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals sought to meet this problem by decreeing a selective policy whereby prison officials could deny interviews likely to lead to disciplinary problems. In the expert judgment of the petitioners, however, such a selective policy would spawn serious discipline and morale problems of its own by engendering hostility and resentment among inmates who were refused interview privileges granted to their fellows. The Director of the Bureau testified that “one of the very basic tenets of sound correctional administration” is “to treat all inmates incarcerated in [the] institutions, as far as possible, equally.” This expert and professional judgment is, of course, entitled to great deference.
In this case, however, it is unnecessary to engage in any delicate balancing of such penal considerations against the legitimate demands of the First Amendment. For it is apparent that the sole limitation imposed on newsgather-ing by Policy Statement 1220.1A is no more than a particularized application of the general rule that nobody may enter the prison and designate an inmate whom he would like to visit, unless the prospective visitor is a lawyer, clergyman, relative, or friend of that inmate. This limitation on visitations is justified by what the Court of Appeals acknowledged as “the truism that prisons are institutions where public access is generally limited.” 161 U. S. App. D. C., at 80, 494 F. 2d, at 999. See Adderley v. Florida, 385 U. S. 39, 41 (1966). In this regard, the Bureau of Prisons visitation policy does not place the press in any less advantageous position than the public generally. Indeed, the total access to federal prisons and prison inmates that the Bureau of Prisons accords to the press far surpasses that available to other members of the public.
We find this case constitutionally indistinguishable from Pell v. Procunier, ante, p. 817, and thus fully controlled by the holding in that case. “[N]ewsmen have no constitutional right of access to prisons or their inmates beyond that afforded the general public.” . Id., at 834. The proposition “that the Constitution imposes upon government the affirmative duty to make available to journalists sources of information not available to members of the public generally . . . finds no support in the words of the Constitution or in any decision of this Court.” Id., at 834-835. Thus, since Policy Statement 1220.1A “does not deny the press access to sources of information available to members of the general public,” id., at 835, we hold that it does not abridge the freedom that the First Amendment guarantees. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
[For dissenting opinion of Me. Justice Douglas, see ante, p. 836.]
“Press representatives will not be permitted to interview individual inmates. This rule shall apply even where the inmate requests or seeks an interview. However, conversation may be permitted with inmates whose identity is not to be made public, if it is limited to the discussion of institutional facilities, programs and activities.”
Letter of Apr. 16, 1974, to Clerk, Supreme Court of the United States, presently on file with the Clerk.
See Seattle-Tacoma Newspaper Guild v. Parker, 480 E. 2d 1062, 1066-1067 (1973). See also Hillery v. Procunier, 364 F. Supp. 196, 199-200 (ND Cal. 1973).
The Solicitor General’s brief represents that “[m] embers of the press, like the public generally, may visit the prison to see friends there.” Presumably, the same is true with respect to family members. The respondents have not disputed this representation.
Policy Statement 1220.1A ¶¶ 4b (5) and (7).
See id., ¶ 4b (6) set out in n. 1, supra. The newsman is requested not to reveal the identity of the inmate, and the conversation is to be limited to institutional facilities, programs, and activities.
Id., 1H[4b (1) and (2).
Id., 14b (12).
The Solicitor General’s brief informs us that “approximately one-half of the prison population on any one day will be released within the following 12 months. The average population is 23,000, of whom approximately 12,000 are released each year.”
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.
Under the Federal Power Act, an order of the Federal Power Commission that directs one electric utility “to establish physical connection of its transmission facilities with the facilities of” another utility “may prescribe the terms and conditions of the arrangement to be made . . . including the apportionment of cost between them and the compensation or reimbursement reasonably due to any of them.” Federal Power Act §202 (b), 49 Stat. 848, 16 U. S. C. § 824a (b). The Commission order which directed respondent Florida Power Corp. to interconnect its electric system with that of petitioner Gaines-ville Utilities Department did not contain a term or condition sought by respondent requiring petitioner to pay an annual standby charge of approximately $150,000 for the emergency or backup service provided by the interconnection, 40 F. P. C. 1227 (1968); 41 F. P. C. 4 (1969). The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that, because of the omission of such a term or condition, “the terms of the interconnection do not adequately satisfy the statutory requirements because they do not provide Florida Power with the ‘reimbursement reasonably due’ it. . . . Thus we deny enforcement of this order insofar as no provision for the reasonable compensation of Florida Power is made.” 425 F. 2d 1196, 1203 (1970) (footnote omitted). We granted the petition for certiorari of Gainesville Utilities Department in No. 464, and of the Federal Power Commission in No. 469, 400 U. S. 877 (1970). We reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it denied enforcement of the Commission’s order and remand for the entry of a new judgment enforcing the Commission’s order in its entirety.
I
The demand upon an electric utility for electric power fluctuates significantly from hour to hour,' day to day, and season to season. For this reason, generating facilities cannot be maintained on the basis of a constant demand. Rather, the utility’s generating capability must be geared to the utility’s peak load of demand, and also take into account the fact that generating equipment must occasionally be out of service for overhaul, or because of breakdowns. In consequence, the utility builds certain “reserves” of generating capacity in excess of peak load requirements into its system. The practice of a utility that relies completely on its own generating resources (an “isolated” system in industry jargon) is to maintain equipment capable of producing its peak load requirements plus equipment that produces a “reserve” capacity equal to the capacity of its largest generating unit.
The major importance of an interconnection is that it reduces the need for the “isolated” utility to build and maintain “reserve” generating capacity. An interconnection is simply a transmission line connecting two utilities. Electric power may move freely through the line up to the line’s capacity. Ordinarily, however, the energy generated by each system is sufficient to supply the requirements of the system’s customers and no substantial amount of power flows through the interconnection. It is only at the times when one of the connected utilities is unable for some reason to produce sufficient power to meet its customers’ needs that the deficiency may be supplied by power that automatically flows through the interconnection from the other utility. To the extent that the utility may rely upon the interconnection to supply this deficiency, the utility is freed of the necessity of constructing and maintaining its own equipment for the purpose.
The Gainesville Utilities Department is a municipally owned and operated electric utility serving approximately 17,000 customers in a 22-square-mile area covering the city of Gainesville and adjacent portions of Alachua County, Florida. In 1965, Gainesville's “isolated” system had a total generating capability of 108.4 megawatts (mw) while its peak load was 51.1 mw. Gainesville’s generating capacity in 1965 consisted of five steam electric generating units ranging from five to 50 mw. Thus Gainesville’s generating capacity of 108.4 mw gave it a reserve capacity of 57.3 mw over its annual peak load of 51.1 mw — a reserve adequate to cover the shutdown of the system’s largest generating unit of 50 mw. Gaines-ville’s peak load was projected to be doubled to 102 mw by 1970. Its 1970 capacity, however, was projected to increase to only 138.4 mw through the addition in 1968 of two 15-mw gas-turbine generators. Thus an interconnection was necessary if Gainesville was to avoid having to make a still greater investment in generating equipment.
Florida Power Corporation operates a major electric generation, transmission, and distribution system serving 370,000 retail customers in a 20,600-square-mile system serving 32 counties in central and northwest Florida, including Alachua County. It also supplies power at wholesale to 12 municipal distribution systems and 9 REA cooperatives. In 1966, Florida Power had an aggregate generating capability of 1595 mw and experienced a peak load of 1232 mw. At the time of the hearing before the Commission, Florida Power was building a 525-mw generating unit to begin service in December 1969, and anticipated a 1970 generating capability of 2114 mw and a 1970 peak load of 1826 mw. Thus the anticipated excess of capacity over peak load, 288 mw, is less than the size of its largest generating unit, 525 mw. However, the deficiency is provided for by interconnections which Florida Power has with four other Florida utilities. See n. 3, supra. All five of these utilities constitute the Florida Operating Committee, which, though informal in nature, serves as a medium through which the technical operations of its members are coordinated. As a result of the sharing of reserves made possible by the interconnection of the Committee’s members, each utility is able to reduce the reserve generating capacity that would be required if it were electrically isolated. Specifically, each of the Florida Operating Committee members maintains generating capacity equal to 115% of its annual peak load.
For several years prior to 1965, Gainesville sought to negotiate an “interconnection” with Florida Power and with another member of the Florida Operating Committee, Florida Power & Light. When those efforts failed, Gainesville, in 1965, filed an application with the Commission seeking an order under § 202 (b) directing Florida Power to interconnect with Gainesville.
II
Section 202 (b) authorizes the Federal Power Commission to order a utility to interconnect with another, and to “prescribe the terms and conditions of the arrangement . . . ,” if the Commission “finds such action necessary or appropriate in the public interest,” and “if the Commission finds that no undue burden will be placed upon such public utility thereby.” The proviso to the section makes explicit that the Commission has no authority in ordering an interconnection “to compel the enlargement of generating facilities . . . [or] to compel such public utility to sell or exchange energy when to do so would impair its ability to render adequate service to its customers.” 16 U. S. C. § 824a (b).
Following extensive hearings, an examiner made findings that the proposed interconnection would be in the public interest and that it would not place an undue burden on Florida Power. The Commission affirmed the findings and further found that the interconnection would neither compel Florida Power to enlarge its generating facilities nor impair its ability to serve its customers. The Commission ordered the interconnection but on conditions (1) that Gainesville pay the entire $3 million cost of the interconnection, and (2) that Gainesville maintain generating capacity resources at least equal to 115% of its peak load — the requirement imposed by the Florida Operating Committee on all its members. The order also fixed the rates of compensation to be paid for actual energy transfers across the interconnection.
Respondent, Florida Power, does not challenge the Commission's order except in its omission of a term or condition that Gainesville pay approximately $150,000 annually as “compensation or reimbursement reasonably due” respondent for the backup service effected by the interconnection. Respondent contended that this charge, computed on the basis of Gainesville’s largest generator, was justified because only Gainesville could gain from the interconnection since the reserve made available to respondent from Gainesville was too small to be of any realistic value to respondent’s massive power system. The Commission rejected the contention. It noted that respondent had not included a comparable charge in any of the contracts for interconnection voluntarily negotiated with members of the Florida Operating Committee. The Commission also emphasized that “the apportionment of cost” factor had been satisfied by requiring Gainesville to bear the full cost of making the interconnection. Primarily, however, the Commission rested its rejection upon two grounds. First, the Commission stated its view that, in applying the statutory provision, the appropriate analysis should focus not upon the respective gains to be realized by the parties from the interconnection but upon the sharing of responsibilities by the interconnected operations:
“[T]hat sharing must be based upon, and follow the proportionate burdens each system places upon the interconnected system networks, not the benefits each expects to receive. Benefits received in any given situation may approximate these responsibilities or they may not. In the course of negotiation of voluntary pooling arrangements, benefits received may, on occasion, serve to offset burdens imposed in determining the appropriate charge for particular services rendered or facilities supplied. But where, as here, the cost of providing such services and facilities and the appropriate charges therefor have equitably been determined after a careful analysis and apportionment of the burdens and responsibilities of each party, there is no basis for any further consideration of relative benefits . . . .” 40 F. P. C., at 1237.
Second, the Commission found that even if the interconnection were evaluated on the basis of relative benefits, “this record shows that the proposed intertie will afford both parties opportunities to take advantage of substantial and important benefits: electrical operating benefits, and corporate financial savings.” Id., at 1238. In its original opinion and in its opinion denying rehearing, the Commission specified the benefits that it found Florida Power would gain from the interconnection, as set out in the margin. On the basis of these findings, the Commission concluded that no standby charge should be imposed on either party to the interconnection. Thus, under the terms of the Commission's final order, each party pays only for the power actually received from the other, and each party is obligated to deliver power only on an “as available” basis. 40 F. P. C., at 1236 n. 4, 1246.
The Court of Appeals’ denial of enforcement of the Commission’s order insofar as no provision was made “for the reasonable compensation of Florida Power” rested on the court’s conclusion that the Commission’s “proportionate burden” analysis was “largely illusory:”
“The Commission’s policy of proportionate utility responsibility really works only one way. The small system receives high benefits and, because of its size, no real obligations. The large system, however, receives no benefit but does incur real, substantial responsibilities. Such imaginary equity is not reasonable compensation.” 425 F. 2d, at 1203.
The validity of this conclusion, however, depends upon whether the court correctly read the record as showing that Florida Power “receives no benefit” and that Gaines-ville incurs “no real obligations.” The Commission’s findings are squarely contrary.
Although the Commission did argue that the benefits to be derived from the interconnection by each party were irrelevant to the proper decision of the case, nonetheless, in view of respondent’s strenuous protest, the Commission went on to bring its expertise and judgment to bear upon the benefits and burdens and made findings identifying several specific benefits that would accrue to Florida Power from the interconnection. See n. 5, supra. Merely because the Commission argued that on its view of the legal question involved, findings of benefits were unnecessary to its decision does not render them any the less findings on the question of benefits. A reviewing court should hardly complain because an agency provides more analysis than it feels is absolutely necessary.
Section 313 (b) of the Federal Power Act, 16 U. S. C. § 8251 (b), provides that “[t]he finding of the Commission as to the facts, if supported by substantial evidence, shall be conclusive.” See Universal Camera Corp. v. NLRB, 340 U. S. 474 (1951). Among the specific benefits the Commission found would accrue to Florida Power were increased reliability of Florida Power’s service to customers in the Gainesville area, the availability of 60 to 100 mw of reserve capacity during certain periods of the year, and savings from coordinated planning to achieve use at all times of the most efficient generating equipment in both systems. The Commission’s findings were aided by specific studies, made by the Commission’s staff, and placed in the record. Insofar as the Court of Appeals’ opinion implies that there was not substantial evidence to support a finding of some benefits, it is clearly wrong. And insofar as the court’s opinion implies that the responsibilities assumed by Gainesville in combination with the benefits found to accrue to Florida Power were insufficient to constitute “compensation . . . reasonably due,” the Court of Appeals overstepped the role of the judiciary. Congress ordained that that determination should be made, in the first instance, by the Commission, and on the record made in this case, the Court of Appeals erred in not deferring to the Commission’s expert judgment.
Florida Power’s emphasis on Gainesville’s small size occurs only when discussing Gainesville’s ability to provide Florida Power with energy. But Gainesville’s small size has relevance in terms of the amount of power it may, even in emergencies, require from Florida Power. What Florida Power chooses to emphasize is that the availability of a certain amount of power flowing from it to Gainesville is relatively more valuable to Gainesville’s small system than the availability of the same amount of power flowing from Gainesville to Florida Power. It is certainly true that the same service or commodity may be more valuable to some customers than to others, in terms of the price they are willing to pay for it. An airplane seat may bring greater profit to a passenger flying to California to close a million-dollar business deal than to one flying west for a vacation; as a consequence, the former might be willing to pay more for his seat than the latter. But focus on the willingness or ability of the purchaser to pay for a service is the concern of the monopolist, not of a governmental agency charged both with assuring the industry a fair return and with assuring the public reliable and efficient service, at a reasonable price.
Our guidepost here is the Act’s explicit commitment of the judgment as to what compensation is reasonably due, in this highly technical field, to the Commission. Cf. Permian Basin Area Rate Cases, 390 U. S. 747, 767 (1968). In the exercise of this judgment, the Commission’s order placed on Gainesville the entire $3 million cost of constructing the interconnection. Thus the benefits that the Commission found that Florida Power will receive from the interconnection will come without any capital investment on its part. In addition, the Commission required Gainesville to maintain generating capacity equal to at least 115% of its annual peak load and to maintain operating reserves in accordance with the procedures established by the Florida Operating Committee. In light of these circumstances, the Commission concluded on the basis of its proportionate-burden analysis that Gainesville should not pay a standby charge for the availability of emergency service, which is provided only on an “as available” basis. It simply required Gainesville to pay for energy actually received. On this record, we cannot say that the Commission has failed to discharge either its responsibility to assure Florida Power of “reasonable compensation” or its responsibility to the public to assure reliable efficient electric service.
Since we conclude that substantial evidence supports the findings of the Commission that benefits will accrue to Florida Power from the interconnection, we have no occasion to decide whether the Commission in ordering the interconnection of two electric power companies, may properly condition the interconnection, when one party receives no benefits, upon compensation terms based on the relative burdens that each places on the interconnected network. Decision of that question must await a case which presents it.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Blackmun took no part in the decision of these cases.
Section 202 (b) of the Federal Power Act, 49 Stat. 848, 16 U. S. C. § 824a (b), provides:
“(b) Whenever the Commission, upon application of any State commission or of any person engaged in the transmission or sale of electric energy, and after notice to each State commission and public utility affected and after opportunity for hearing, finds such action necessary or appropriate in the public interest it may by order direct a public utility (if the Commission finds that no undue burden will be placed upon such public utility thereby) to establish physical connection of its transmission facilities with the facilities of one or more other persons engaged in the transmission or sale of electric energy, to sell energy to or exchange energy with such persons: Provided, That the Commission shall have no authority to compel the enlargement of generating facilities for such purposes, nor to compel such public utility to sell or exchange energy when to do so would impair its ability to render adequate service to its customers. The Commission may prescribe the terms and conditions of the arrangement to be made between the persons affected by any such order, including the apportionment of cost between them and the compensation or reimbursement reasonably due to any of them.”
The industry distinguishes between various types of “reserve” requirements. Since time is required to start up equipment that is not operating, a certain amount of equipment must be maintained in such a state that it can begin generating power immediately. The industry calls these instantaneous or “spinning” reserves, and they must be available to meet load variations and breakdowns of equipment as they occur. A utility must always maintain “spinning” reserves equal to the size of the largest generator currently in service producing power, in order to protect against a breakdown of that unit. As “spinning” reserves are called upon a utility must start up more equipment in order to maintain “spinning” reserves at an adequate level. These reserves are called “quick-start” or "ready” reserves and must be available on short notice — usually 10 minutes or less. Both spinning and quick-start reserves are collectively referred to as “operating” reserves, in contrast to “installed” reserves. Installed reserves refers to the remaining generating capacity of a utility, those generators that are not ready to be operated, or in operation. Accordingly, the expense associated with “reserve” requirements includes both capital expense — building the necessary “installed” reserve generating capacity — and operating expense — running the necessary “spinning” reserves and maintaining the readiness of “quick-start” reserves. In general, this opinion will not differentiate between the different reserve requirements.
The reason that interconnections lower reserve requirements is well illustrated by a hypothetical discussed in the Commission’s brief, at 15-16.
“Assume that four electric systems operate in isolation and that each has an annual peak load of 500 mw served by several generating units the largest of which is 200 mw. At a minimum, each system would have to provide 700 mw of installed generating capacity (500 mw to cover the annual peak load plus 200 mw of installed reserves equal to the largest unit). If we assume further that each system operates its 200 mw unit near capacity throughout the year, spinning reserves equal to the output of that unit would constantly be required. If the four systems are to be interconnected pursuant to the Florida Operating Committee formula, total generating capacity need not exceed 2300 mw (total annual peak load — if all peaks occur during the same period — plus operating reserves of 300 mw, i.e., 1% times the largest generating unit). This 2300 mw capacity requirement would be met by requiring each system to maintain generating capacity equal to 115 percent of its annual peak load. Each system would thus have to maintain only 575 mw of generating capacity — 125 mw less than would be required if operating in isolation. The interconnected system as a whole would require the constant maintenance of 200 mw of spinning reserves and 100 mw of quick-start reserves; each system’s pro rata share of operating reserves would amount to only 75 mw. Thus, interconnection of the four systems would result in substantial capital savings by reducing installed generating capacity requirements and substantial operating savings by reducing operating reserve requirements.” (Footnote omitted.)
At the same time, Gainesville also filed a complaint with the Commission charging Florida Power with unlawful discrimination under §§ 205 and 206 of the Federal Power Act, 16 U. S. C. §§ 824d, 824e, for failure to agree to an interconnection. The Commission dismissed this complaint as moot when the interconnection was ordered.
“For the Company, the interconnection will add an additional energy source to its network in a geographic area where the Company has a substantial load (customer demands), but does not have generating plants of its own. Because of that, the expected benefit to Florida Power may be very substantial since the [Gainesville] governors have a faster rate of response setting than Florida Power’s. Also of great importance to Florida Power is the improved system reliability which the Company will gain through the proposed inter-tie. That is shown in studies submitted by staff from engineering analyses of loss of load probabilities. They establish that the interconnection will have the effect of improving the reliability of Florida Power’s system.” 40 F. P. C., at 1238.
“[Throughout its application [for rehearing], the Corporation emphasizes the contention that Gainesville will not be able to render any service of significant value to Florida Power. Upon consideration of this argument we find that Florida Power has greatly underestimated Gainesville’s capacity to be of service to the Corporation. Because of its electrical isolation, Gainesville has maintained a very large reserve capacity in relationship to its peak load. In 1965 its peak load was 51.1 mw, and its reserve capacity was 57.3 mw or 112,1 percent of peak demand. Although the purpose of this interconnection proceeding is to enable Gainesville to lessen its need for self-reliance, Gainesville’s reserve capacity will continue to be large even after interconnection. The staff’s witness has testified that during the ten year period 1970-1979, Gainesville’s average minimum reserves at the time of Florida Power’s annual peak hour demand will be 43 percent. According to staff’s computations, Gainesville will be able to deliver, if there will be sufficient interconnection transmission facilities, anywhere from 60 mw to 100 mw to Florida Power during certain periods in January, April, and September 1970. This prediction that Gainesville will be able to furnish capacity of this magnitude to Florida Power plainly refutes Florida Power’s assertion that the interconnection will prove to be a one-way street with all the benefits flowing from the Corporation to the City. The Commission is satisfied that the interconnection will permit a reciprocal exchange of benefits to the mutual advantage of both systems.
“Staff’s studies of Gainesville’s future reserve capacity also serve to refute Florida Power’s allegation that there is ‘no scintilla of evidence’ to support the Commission’s finding that Gainesville will become an additional interchange power source on Florida Power’s network after the interconnection is consummated. Similarly, staff’s studies rebut the Corporation’s assertions regarding the insignificance of Gainesville’s anticipated capacity contributions.” 41 F. P. C., at 5-6 (opinion denying rehearing).
“Florida Power asserts that the Commission erred in finding that the interconnection will add an additional energy source in an area where Florida [Power] has no generating plant. The Corporation states that it now has three energy sources to supply its load in the Gainesville area and that it does not need a fourth. Florida Power’s Form 12 for 1965 shows that the Corporation’s Suwanee Plant is the closest generating source to its Gainesville load center. This plant is more than 75 transmission line miles away from this load center. The next closest plant is the Inglis Station which is more than 80 transmission line miles away. Florida Power’s three energy sources are connected to the Gainesville load area by 69 kv transmission lines. According to staff, two of these lines serve other loads and could be vulnerable to outages. We agree with staff’s position that the connection with Gainesville’s generating resources would upgrade service reliability to the Corporation’s customers in the Gainesville area.” 41 F. P. C., at 7.
Respondent Florida Power concedes that the Commission's proportionate-burden analysis is appropriate when the interconnected systems are approximately equal in size and when the interconnection does benefit both parties to an interconnection. Brief for Florida Power Corp. 21.
We, therefore, reject the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that, because they were stated in the alternative, these were “not fact-findings protected by the umbrella of the substantial evidence test.” 425 F. 2d, at 1203 n. 20. This is not a ease where the Commission did not follow a procedure that it might have followed, see SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80 (1943), or failed to make findings or evaluate considerations relevant to its determination, see Schaffer Transportation Co. v. United States, 355 U. S. 83 (1957).
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 petition for a writ of certiorari is denied in No. 502, Mise. The motion to dismiss is granted in No. 771, Mise., and the appeal is dismissed for want of a substantial federal question.
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 ALITO delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Samuel Ocasio, a former officer in the Baltimore Police Department, participated in a kickback scheme with the owners of a local auto repair shop. When petitioner and other Baltimore officers reported to the scene of an auto accident, they persuaded the owners of damaged cars to have their vehicles towed to the repair shop, and in exchange for this service the officers received payments from the shopowners. Petitioner was convicted of obtaining money from the shopowners under color of official right, in violation of the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, and of conspiring to violate the Hobbs Act, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. He now challenges his conspiracy conviction, contending that, as a matter of law, he cannot be convicted of conspiring with the shopowners to obtain money from them under color of official right. We reject this argument because it is contrary to age-old principles of conspiracy law.
I
Hernan Alexis Moreno Mejia (known as Moreno) and Edwin Javier Mejia (known as Mejia) are brothers who co-owned and operated the Majestic Auto Repair Shop (Majestic). In 2008, Majestic was struggling to attract customers, so Moreno and Mejia made a deal with a Baltimore police officer, Jhonn Corona. In exchange for kickbacks, Officer Corona would refer motorists whose cars were damaged in accidents to Majestic for towing and repairs. Officer Corona then spread the word to other members of the force, and eventually as many as 60 other officers sent damaged cars to Majestic in exchange for payments of $150 to $300 per referral.
Petitioner began to participate in this scheme in 2009. On several occasions from 2009 to 2011, he convinced accident victims to have their cars towed to Majestic. Often, before sending a car to Majestic, petitioner called Moreno from the scene of an accident to ensure that the make and model of the car, the extent of the damage, and the car's insurance coverage would allow the shopowners to turn a profit on the repairs. After directing a vehicle to Majestic, petitioner would call Moreno and request his payment.
Because police are often among the first to arrive at the scene of an accident, the Baltimore officers were well positioned to route damaged vehicles to Majestic. As a result, the kickback scheme was highly successful: It substantially increased Majestic's volume of business and profits, and by early 2011 it provided Majestic with at least 90% of its customers.
Moreno, Mejia, petitioner, and nine other Baltimore officers were indicted in 2011. The shopowners and most of the other officers eventually pleaded guilty pursuant to plea deals, but petitioner did not.
In a superseding indictment, petitioner was charged with three counts of violating the Hobbs Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1951, by extorting money from Moreno with his consent and under color of official right. As all parties agree, the type of extortion for which petitioner was convicted-obtaining property from another with his consent and under color of official right-is the "rough equivalent of what we would now describe as 'taking a bribe.' " Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255, 260, 112 S.Ct. 1881, 119 L.Ed.2d 57 (1992). To prove this offense, the Government "need only show that a public official has obtained a payment to which he was not entitled, knowing that the payment was made in return for official acts." Id., at 268, 112 S.Ct. 1881.
Petitioner and another Baltimore officer, Kelvin Quade Manrich, were also charged with violating the general federal conspiracy statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371. The indictment alleged that petitioner and Manrich conspired with Moreno, Mejia, and other Baltimore officers to bring about the same sort of substantive violations with which petitioner was charged.
Before trial, petitioner began to raise a variant of the legal argument that has brought his case to this Court. He sought a jury instruction stating that "[i]n order to convict a defendant of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the conspiracy was to obtain money or property from some person who was not a member of the conspiracy." App. 53. In support of this instruction, petitioner relied on the Sixth Circuit's decision in United States v. Brock, 501 F.3d 762 (2007), which concerned two bail bondsmen who made payments to a court clerk in exchange for the alteration of court records. The Sixth Circuit held that "[t]o be covered by the [Hobbs Act], the alleged conspirators... must have formed an agreement to obtain 'property from another,'which is to say, formed an agreement to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy." Id., at 767. The District Court did not rule on this request prior to trial.
Petitioner's codefendant, Manrich, pleaded guilty during the trial, and at the close of the prosecution's case and again at the close of all evidence, petitioner moved for a judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count based on Brock. The District Court denied these motions, concluding that the Fourth Circuit had already rejected Brock's holding in United States v. Spitler, 800 F.2d 1267 (1986).
The District Court also refused to give petitioner's proposed instruction. Instead, the court adopted the sort of standard instructions that are typically used in conspiracy cases. See generally L. Sand et al., Modern Federal Jury Instructions: Criminal § 19.01 (2015). In order to convict petitioner of the conspiracy charge, the jury was told, the prosecution was required to prove (1) that two or more persons entered into an unlawful agreement; (2) that petitioner knowingly and willfully became a member of the conspiracy; (3) that at least one member of the conspiracy knowingly committed at least one overt act; and (4) that the overt act was committed to further an objective of the conspiracy. The court "caution[ed]" "that mere knowledge or acquiescence, without participation in the unlawful plan, is not sufficient" to demonstrate membership in the conspiracy. App. 195. Rather, the court explained, the conspirators must have had "a mutual understanding... to cooperate with each other to accomplish an unlawful act," and petitioner must have joined the conspiracy "with the intention of aiding in the accomplishment of those unlawful ends." Id., at 192, 195.
The jury found petitioner guilty on both the conspiracy count and the three substantive extortion counts, and the District Court sentenced him to concurrent terms of 18 months in prison on all four counts. On appeal to the Fourth Circuit, petitioner's primary argument was the same one he had pressed before the District Court: that his conspiracy conviction was fatally flawed because the conspirators had not agreed to obtain money from a person who was not a member of the conspiracy. The Fourth Circuit rejected petitioner's argument and affirmed his convictions. 750 F.3d 399 (2014).
We then granted certiorari, 574 U.S. ----, 135 S.Ct. 1491, 191 L.Ed.2d 430 (2015), and we now affirm.
II
Under longstanding principles of conspiracy law, a defendant may be convicted of conspiring to violate the Hobbs Act based on proof that he entered into a conspiracy that had as its objective the obtaining of property from another conspirator with his consent and under color of official right.
A
In analyzing petitioner's arguments, we begin with the text of the statute under which he was convicted, namely, the general federal conspiracy statute, which makes it a crime to "conspire... to commit any offense against the United States." 18 U.S.C. § 371 (emphasis added). Section 371's use of the term "conspire" incorporates long-recognized principles of conspiracy law. And under established case law, the fundamental characteristic of a conspiracy is a joint commitment to an "endeavor which, if completed, would satisfy all of the elements of [the underlying substantive] criminal offense." Salinas v. United States, 522 U.S. 52, 65, 118 S.Ct. 469, 139 L.Ed.2d 352 (1997) ; see 2 J. Bishop, Commentaries on the Criminal Law § 175, p. 100 (rev. 7th ed. 1882) ("Conspiracy, in the modern law, is generally defined as a confederacy of two or more persons to accomplish some unlawful purpose"); J. Hawley & M. McGregor, The Criminal Law 99-100 (3d ed. 1899) (similar); W. LaFave, Criminal Law 672 (5th ed. 2010) (similar).
Although conspirators must "pursue the same criminal objective," "a conspirator [need] not agree to commit or facilitate each and every part of the substantive offense." Salinas, supra, at 63, 118 S.Ct. 469. A defendant must merely reach an agreement with the "specific intent that the underlying crime be committed " by some member of the conspiracy. 2 K. O'Malley, J. Grenig, & W. Lee, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions: Criminal § 31:03, p. 225 (6th ed. 2008) (emphasis added); see also id., § 31:02, at 220 (explaining that a defendant must "intend to agree and must intend that the substantive offense be committed " (emphasis added)). "The government does not have to prove that the defendant intended to commit the underlying offense himself/herself." Id., § 31:03, at 226. Instead, "[i]f conspirators have a plan which calls for some conspirators to perpetrate the crime and others to provide support, the supporters are as guilty as the perpetrators." Salinas, supra, at 64, 118 S.Ct. 469 ; see Sand, supra, § 19.01, at 19-54 ("[W]hen people enter into a conspiracy to accomplish an unlawful end, each and every member becomes an agent for the other conspirators in carrying out the conspiracy").
A few simple examples illustrate this important point. Entering a dwelling is historically an element of burglary, see, e.g., LaFave, supra, at 1069, but a person may conspire to commit burglary without agreeing to set foot inside the targeted home. It is enough if the conspirator agrees to help the person who will actually enter the dwelling, perhaps by serving as a lookout or driving the getaway car. Likewise, "[a] specific intent to distribute drugs oneself is not required to secure a conviction for participating in a drug-trafficking conspiracy." United States v. Piper, 35 F.3d 611, 614 (C.A.1 1994). Agreeing to store drugs at one's house in support of the conspiracy may be sufficient. Ibid.
Not only is it unnecessary for each member of a conspiracy to agree to commit each element of the substantive offense, but also a conspirator may be convicted "even though he was incapable of committing the substantive offense" himself. Salinas, supra, at 64, 118 S.Ct. 469 ; see United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U.S. 78, 86, 35 S.Ct. 682, 59 L.Ed. 1211 (1915) ("A person may be guilty of conspiring although incapable of committing the objective offense"); Sand, supra, § 19.01, at 19-3 ("[Y]ou may find the defendant guilty of conspiracy despite the fact that he himself was incapable of committing the substantive crime").
The Court applied these principles in two cases involving the Mann Act. See Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825. Section 2 of the Mann Act made it a crime to transport a woman or cause her to be transported across state lines for an immoral purpose. In United States v. Holte, 236 U.S. 140, 35 S.Ct. 271, 59 L.Ed. 504 (1915), a federal grand jury charged a woman, Clara Holte, with conspiring with a man named Chester Laudenschleger to violate this provision. The District Court dismissed the charge against Holte, holding that because a woman such as Holte could not be convicted for the substantive offense of transporting herself or causing herself to be transported across state lines, she also could not be convicted of conspiring to commit that offense.
In a succinct opinion by Justice Holmes, the Court rejected this argument, stating that "plainly a person may conspire for the commission of a crime by a third person," even if "she could not commit the substantive crime" herself. Id., at 144-145, 35 S.Ct. 271. The dissent argued that this holding effectively turned every woman who acquiesced in a covered interstate trip into a conspirator, see id., at 148, 35 S.Ct. 271 (opinion of Lamar, J.), but the Court disagreed. The Court acknowledged that "there may be a degree of cooperation" insufficient to make a woman a conspirator, but it refused to rule out the possibility that a woman could conspire to cause herself to be transported. Id., at 144, 35 S.Ct. 271. To illustrate this point, the Court provided the example of a woman who played an active role in planning and carrying out the trip.
The Court expanded on these points in Gebardi v. United States, 287 U.S. 112, 53 S.Ct. 35, 77 L.Ed. 206 (1932), another Mann Act conspiracy case. A man and a woman were convicted for conspiring to transport the woman from one state to another for an immoral purpose. Id., at 115-116, 53 S.Ct. 35. In deciding the case, the Gebardi Court explicitly reaffirmed the longstanding principle that "[i]ncapacity of one to commit the substantive offense does not necessarily imply that he may with impunity conspire with others who are able to commit it." Id., at 120, 53 S.Ct. 35. Moreover, the Court fully accepted Holte's holding that a woman could be convicted of conspiring to cause herself to be transported across state lines. See 287 U.S., at 116-117, 53 S.Ct. 35. But the Court held that the evidence before it was insufficient to support the conspiracy convictions because it "show[ed] no more than that [the woman] went willingly upon the journeys for the purposes alleged." Id., at 117, 53 S.Ct. 35. Noting that there was no evidence that the woman was "the active or moving spirit in conceiving or carrying out the transportation," the Court held that the evidence of her "mere consent" or "acquiescence" was not enough. Id., at 117, 123, 53 S.Ct. 35.
Holte and Gebardi make perfectly clear that a person may be convicted of conspiring to commit a substantive offense that he or she cannot personally commit. They also show that when that person's consent or acquiescence is inherent in the underlying substantive offense, something more than bare consent or acquiescence may be needed to prove that the person was a conspirator.
B
These basic principles of conspiracy law resolve this case. In order to establish the existence of a conspiracy to violate the Hobbs Act, the Government has no obligation to demonstrate that each conspirator agreed personally to commit-or was even capable of committing-the substantive offense of Hobbs Act extortion. It is sufficient to prove that the conspirators agreed that the underlying crime be committed by a member of the conspiracy who was capable of committing it. In other words, each conspirator must have specifically intended that some conspirator commit each element of the substantive offense.
That is exactly what happened here: Petitioner, Moreno, and Mejia "share[d] a common purpose," namely, that petitioner and other police officers would commit every element of the substantive extortion offense. Salinas, 522 U.S., at 63-64, 118 S.Ct. 469. Petitioner and other officers would obtain property "under color of official right," something that Moreno and Mejia were incapable of doing because they were not public officials. And petitioner and other officers would obtain that money from "another," i.e., from Moreno, Mejia, or Majestic. Although Moreno and Mejia were incapable of committing the underlying substantive offense as principals, they could, under the reasoning of Holte and Gebardi, conspire to commit Hobbs Act extortion by agreeing to help petitioner and other officers commit the substantive offense. See Holte, 236 U.S., at 145, 35 S.Ct. 271 ("[A] conspiracy with an officer or employé of the government or any other for an offence that only he could commit has been held for many years to fall within the conspiracy section... of the penal code"); see also Salinas, supra, at 63-64, 118 S.Ct. 469 ; Gebardi, supra, at 120-121, 53 S.Ct. 35 ; Rabinowich, 238 U.S., at 86, 35 S.Ct. 682. For these reasons, it is clear that petitioner could be convicted of conspiring to obtain property from the shopowners with their consent and under color of official right.
C
In an effort to escape this conclusion, petitioner argues that the usual rules do not apply to the type of Hobbs Act conspiracy charged in this case. His basic argument, as ultimately clarified, is as follows. All members of a conspiracy must share the same criminal objective. The objective of the conspiracy charged in this case was to obtain money "from another, with his consent... under color of official right." But Moreno and Mejia did not have the objective of obtaining money "from another" because the money in question was their own. Accordingly, they were incapable of being members of the conspiracy charged in this case. And since there is insufficient evidence in the record to show that petitioner conspired with anyone other than Moreno and Mejia, he must be acquitted. See Reply Brief 3-11, 17-20.
This argument fails for a very simple reason: Contrary to petitioner's claim, he and the shopowners did have a common criminal objective. The objective was not that each conspirator, including Moreno and Mejia, would obtain money from "another" but rather that petitioner and other Baltimore officers would do so. See App. 36-37, Superseding Indictment ¶ 11 ("It was a purpose of the conspiracy for Moreno and Mejia to enrich over 50 BPD [Baltimore Police Department] Officers... in exchange for the BPD Officers' exercise of their official positions and influence to cause vehicles to be towed or otherwise delivered to Majestic"). Petitioner does not dispute that he was properly convicted for three substantive Hobbs Act violations based on proof that he obtained money "from another." The criminal objective on which petitioner, Moreno, and Mejia agreed was that petitioner and other Baltimore officers would commit substantive violations of this nature. Thus, under well-established rules of conspiracy law, petitioner was properly charged with and convicted of conspiring with the shopowners. Nothing in the text of the Hobbs Act even remotely undermines this conclusion, and petitioner's invocation of the rule of lenity and principles of federalism is unavailing.
1
Petitioner argues that our interpretation makes the Hobbs Act sweep too broadly, creating a national antibribery law and displacing a carefully crafted network of state and federal statutes. He contends that a charge of conspiring to obtain money from a conspirator with his consent and under color of official right is tantamount to a charge of soliciting or accepting a bribe and that allowing such a charge undermines 18 U.S.C. § 666 (a federal bribery statute applicable to state and local officials) and state bribery laws. He also argues that extortion conspiracies of this sort were not known prior to the enactment of the Hobbs Act and that there is no evidence that Congress meant for that Act to plow this new ground.
The subtext of these arguments is that it seems unnatural to prosecute bribery on the basis of a statute prohibiting "extortion," but this Court held in Evans that Hobbs Act extortion "under color of official right" includes the "rough equivalent of what we would now describe as 'taking a bribe.' " 504 U.S., at 260, 112 S.Ct. 1881. Petitioner does not ask us to overturn Evans, see, e.g., Brief for Petitioner 1; Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-5, 12-13, and we have no occasion to do so. Having already held that § 1951 prohibits the "rough equivalent" of bribery, we have no principled basis for precluding the prosecution of conspiracies to commit that same offense.
Petitioner also exaggerates the reach of our decision. It does not, as he claims, dissolve the distinction between extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. Because every act of extortion under the Hobbs Act requires property to be obtained with "consent," petitioner argues, proof of that consent will always or nearly always establish the existence of a conspiratorial agreement and thus allow the Government to turn virtually every such extortion case into a conspiracy case. But there are plenty of instances in which the "consent" required under the Hobbs Act will not be enough to constitute the sort of agreement needed under the law of conspiracy.
As used in the Hobbs Act, the phrase "with his consent" is designed to distinguish extortion ("obtaining of property from another, with his consent, " 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2) (emphasis added)) from robbery ("obtaining of personal property from the person or in the presence of another, against his will, " § 1951(b)(1) (emphasis added)). Thus, "consent" simply signifies the taking of property under circumstances falling short of robbery, and such "consent" is quite different from the mens rea necessary for a conspiracy.
This conclusion is clear from the language of § 1951 prohibiting the obtaining of property "from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear." § 1951(b)(2) (emphasis added). This language applies when, for example, a store owner makes periodic protection payments to gang members out of fear that they will otherwise trash the store. While these payments are obtained with the store owner's grudging consent, the store owner, simply by making the demanded payments, does not enter into a conspiratorial agreement with the gang members conducting the shakedown. See Salinas, 522 U.S., at 63-65, 118 S.Ct. 469 (conspirators must pursue "the same criminal objective"); United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 405, 100 S.Ct. 624, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980) (conspiracy requires "a heightened mental state"); Anderson v. United States, 417 U.S. 211, 223, 94 S.Ct. 2253, 41 L.Ed.2d 20 (1974) ("the prosecution must show that the offender acted with a specific intent"). Just as mere acquiescence in a Mann Act violation is insufficient to create a conspiracy, see Gebardi, 287 U.S., at 121-123, 53 S.Ct. 35 ; Holte, 236 U.S., at 145, 35 S.Ct. 271 the minimal "consent" required to trigger § 1951 is insufficient to form a conspiratorial agreement. Our interpretation thus does not turn virtually every act of extortion into a conspiracy.
Nor does our reading transform every bribe of a public official into a conspiracy to commit extortion. The "consent" required to pay a bribe does not necessarily create a conspiratorial agreement. In cases where the bribe payor is merely complying with an official demand, the payor lacks the mens rea necessary for a conspiracy. See Salinas, supra, at 63-65, 118 S.Ct. 469 ; Bailey, supra, at 405, 100 S.Ct. 624 ; Anderson, supra, at 223, 94 S.Ct. 2253 ;
Gebardi, supra, at 121-123, 53 S.Ct. 35. For example, imagine that a health inspector demands a bribe from a restaurant owner, threatening to close down the restaurant if the owner does not pay. If the owner reluctantly pays the bribe in order to keep the business open, the owner has "consented" to the inspector's demand, but this mere acquiescence in the demand does not form a conspiracy.
2
While petitioner exaggerates the impact of our decision, his argument would create serious practical problems. The validity of a charge of Hobbs Act conspiracy would often depend on difficult property-law questions having little to do with criminal culpability. In this case, for example, ownership of the money obtained by petitioner is far from clear. It appears that the funds came from Majestic's account, App. 97-98, 149, and there is evidence that during the period of petitioner's membership in the conspiracy, Majestic was converted from a limited liability company to a regular business corporation, id., at 145; App. in No. 12-4462 (CA4), pp. 655-656, 736. After that transformation, the money obtained by petitioner may have come from corporate funds. A corporation is an entity distinct from its shareholders, and therefore, even under petitioner's interpretation of the applicable law, Moreno and Mejia would have agreed that petitioner would obtain money "from another," not from them.
Suppose that Moreno or Mejia had made the payments by taking money from a personal bank account. Would that dictate a different outcome? Or suppose that Majestic was a partnership and the payments came from a company account. Would that mean that Moreno agreed that officers would obtain money "from another" insofar as they would obtain Mejia's share of the partnership funds and that Mejia similarly agreed that officers would obtain money "from another" insofar as they would obtain the share belonging to Moreno?
Or consider this example. Suppose that the owner and manager of a nightclub reach an agreement with a public official under which the owner will bribe the official to approve the club's liquor license application. Under petitioner's approach, the public official and the club manager may be guilty of conspiring to commit extortion, because they agreed that the official would obtain property "from another"-that is, the owner. But as "the 'another' from whom the property is obtained," Reply Brief 10, the owner could not be prosecuted. There is no apparent reason, however, why the manager but not the owner should be culpable in this situation.
III
A defendant may be convicted of conspiring to violate the Hobbs Act based on proof that he reached an agreement with the owner of the property in question to obtain that property under color of official right. Because petitioner joined such an agreement, his conspiracy conviction must stand.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
In full, § 2 provided as follows:
"That any person who shall knowingly transport or cause to be transported, or aid or assist in obtaining transportation for, or in transporting, in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or in the District of Columbia, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such woman or girl to become a prostitute or to give herself up to debauchery, or to engage in any other immoral practice; or who shall knowingly procure or obtain, or cause to be procured or obtained, or aid or assist in procuring or obtaining, any ticket or tickets, or any form of transportation or evidence of the right thereto, to be used by any woman or girl in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or the District of Columbia, in going to any place for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent or purpose on the part of such person to induce, entice, or compel her to give herself up to the practice of prostitution, or to give herself up to debauchery, or any other immoral practice, whereby any such woman or girl shall be transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any Territory or the District of Columbia, shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars, or by imprisonment of not more than five years, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court." Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 395, 36 Stat. 825 (emphasis added).
The Court assumed that Holte could not be convicted as a principal for the substantive offense of causing herself to be transported across state lines. But the Court noted that it might be possible for a woman to violate § 2 of the Mann Act in a different way: by "aiding in procuring any form of transportation for" a covered interstate trip. Holte, 236 U.S., at 144, 35 S.Ct. 271 ; see 36 Stat. 825 ("aid or assist in obtaining transportation"). If a woman could commit that substantive § 2 violation, the Court explained, there is no reason why she could not also be convicted of conspiring to commit that offense. See 236 U.S., at 145, 35 S.Ct. 271. The Court, however, refused to hold that this was the only ground on which a woman like Holte could be convicted for conspiring to violate § 2. Id., at 144-145, 35 S.Ct. 271. It thus addressed the broader question of whether it was possible for a woman in Holte's position to commit the offense of conspiring "that Laudenschleger should procure transportation and should cause [Holte] to be transported." Id., at 144, 35 S.Ct. 271.
The Court wrote:
"Suppose, for instance, that a professional prostitute, as well able to look out for herself as was the man, should suggest and carry out a journey within the act of 1910 in the hope of blackmailing the man, and should buy the railroad tickets, or should pay the fare from Jersey City to New York, she would be within the letter of the act of 1910, and we see no reason why the act should not be held to apply." Id., at 145, 35 S.Ct. 271.
The path of reasoning by which the Gebardi Court reached these conclusions was essentially as follows:
First, the Court perceived in § 2 of the Mann Act a congressional judgment that a woman should not be convicted for the offense created by that provision if she did no more than consent to or acquiesce in the interstate trip. Gebardi, 287 U.S., at 123, 53 S.Ct. 35. The Court concluded that the transported woman could never be convicted under the language prohibiting a person from transporting a woman or causing a woman to be transported across state lines for an immoral purpose. See id., at 118-119, 53 S.Ct. 35 ("The Act does not punish the woman for transporting herself"). And with respect to the statutory language making it a crime to " 'aid or assist' someone else in transporting or in procuring transportation for herself," the Court held that aiding and assisting requires more than mere "consent" or "acquiescence." Id., at 119, 53 S.Ct. 35 ; see also Rosemond v. United States, 572 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 134 S.Ct. 1240, 1246-1247, 188 L.Ed.2d 248 (2014) (aiding and abetting requires intent to facilitate commission of offense).
Second, turning to the issue of conspiracy, the Court reasoned that something more than the woman's mere consent or acquiescence was needed to avoid undermining the congressional judgment that it saw in § 2. The Court framed its holding as follows: "[W]e perceive in the failure of the Mann Act to condemn the woman's participation in those transportations which are effected with her mere consent, evidence of an affirmative legislative policy to leave her acquiescence unpunished." Gebardi, supra, at 123, 53 S.Ct. 35 (emphasis added).
Section 371 also requires that one of the conspirators commit an overt act in furtherance of the offense. Petitioner does not dispute that this element was satisfied.
The Government argues that the lower courts have long held that a private person may be guilty of this type of Hobbs Act extortion as an aider and abettor. See Brief for United States 36-37. We have no occasion to reach that question here.
Petitioner's position has evolved over the course of this litigation. As noted, petitioner requested a jury instruction stating that "[i]n order to convict a defendant of conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the conspiracy was to obtain money or property from some person who was not a member of the conspiracy." App. 53. Under this instruction, as long as the shopowners were named as conspirators, petitioner could not have been convicted even if there was ample evidence to prove that he conspired with other Baltimore officers to obtain money from the shopowners. (And, indeed, when he first raised his Brock argument, see United States v. Brock, 501 F.3d 762 (C.A.6 2007), another officer, Manrich, was still in the case and was charged with the same conspiracy.)
The petition for a writ of certiorari appears to have been based on this same broad argument. The question presented was phrased as follows: "Does a conspiracy to commit extortion require that the conspirators agree to obtain property from someone outside the conspiracy?" Pet. for Cert. i. And the argument in petitioner's opening brief was similar. See Brief for Petitioner 1 (arguing that "a Hobbs Act conspiracy requires that the conspirators agree among themselves to wrongly obtain property from someone outside the ring of conspiracy").
As the Government's brief pointed out, this argument has strange implications. See Brief for United States 27. Assume that there was sufficient evidence to prove that petitioner conspired with other Baltimore officers to obtain money from Moreno and Mejia. Under petitioner's original, broad argument, this charge would be valid so long as Moreno and Mejia were not named as conspirators, but naming them in the indictment would render the charge invalid. Indictments, however, very often do not attempt to name all the conspirators, and the indictment in this case did not do so. See App. 36 (charging that petitioner and Manrich conspired with, among others, persons unknown). It would be very strange if the decision to name Moreno and Mejia rendered an otherwise valid charge defective. (Of course, petitioner might make the even broader argument that the conspiracy charge would fail if Moreno and Mejia, although not named as conspirators in the indictment, were later listed as conspirators in response to a bill of particulars or if the Government took that position at trial, perhaps by seeking to introduce their out-of-court statements under the co-conspirator exemption from the hearsay rule.)
In response to the Government's argument, petitioner's reply brief claimed that his argument is actually the narrower one that we now consider, i.e., that, as a matter of law, Moreno and Mejia cannot be members of a conspiracy that has as its aim the obtaining of money from them with their consent and under color of official right. See Reply Brief 17-20. The reply brief contends that acceptance of this narrower argument requires his acquittal because there is insufficient evidence to show that he conspired with anyone other than Moreno and Mejia. Ibid. The Court of Appeals, however, concluded otherwise. See 750 F.
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 appeal is dismissed for want of a properly presented federal question.
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Freedman v. Maryland, 380 U. S. 51 (1965), a case involving a state motion-picture censorship scheme, the Court announced procedural requirements necessary to guard against unconstitutional prior restraint of expression. Those requirements included assurance of “a prompt final judicial decision, to minimize the deterrent effect of an interim and possibly erroneous denial of a license.” Id., at 59. Twenty-five years later, in FW/PBS, Inc. v. Dallas, 493 U. S. 215 (1990), the Court applied some of the Freedman standards to a municipal ordinance conditioning the operation of sexually oriented businesses on receipt of a license. Unsuccessful applicants for an adult business license, the opinion announcing the judgment stated, must be accorded “an avenue for prompt judicial review.” 493 U. S., at 229.
Courts have divided over the meaning of FW/PBS’s “prompt judicial review” requirement. Some have held that the unsuccessful applicant for an adult business license must be assured a prompt judicial determination on the merits of the permit denial. See, e. g., Baby Tam & Co. v. Las Vegas, 154 F. 3d 1097, 1101-1102 (CA9 1998); 11126 Baltimore Blvd., Inc. v. Prince George’s County, 58 F. 3d 988, 999-1000 (CA4 1995) (en banc). Others, like the Court of Appeals of Wisconsin whose judgment is before us, 231 Wis. 2d 93, 115-116, 604 N. W. 2d 870, 882 (1999), have held that prompt access to court review suffices. See, e. g., Boss Capital, Inc. v. Casselberry, 187 F. 3d 1251, 1256-1257 (CA11 1999); TK’s Video, Inc. v. Denton County, 24 F. 3d 705, 709 (CA5 1994). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 530 U. S. 1242 (2000). We now find, however, that the issue stemming from Freedman is not genuinely presented to us in this case. We therefore dismiss the petition and leave the judgment of the Wisconsin court undisturbed.
H — 1
The City of Waukesha, Wisconsin (City), requires sellers of sexually explicit materials to obtain and annually renew adult business licenses. See Waukesha Municipal Code §§8.195(2), (7) (1995), reprinted in App. to Pet. for Cert. 101, 104. Petitioner City News and Novelty, Inc. (City News), pursuant to a City license first obtained in 1989, owned and operated an adult-oriented shop in downtown Waukesha. In November 1995, City News applied for a renewal of its license, then due to expire in two months. In December 1995, Waukesha’s Common Council denied the application, finding that City News had violated the City’s ordinance by permitting minors to loiter on the premises, failing to maintain an unobstructed view of booths in the store, and allowing patrons to engage in sexual activity inside the booths. Wauke-sha’s refusal to renew City News’s license was upheld in administrative proceedings and on judicial review in the state courts.
Petitioning for certiorari, City News raised three questions. First, City News asserted that the persuasion burden had been improperly assigned to it. Second, City News urged that Waukesha’s ordinance unconstitutionally accorded City officials unbridled discretion to vary punishments for ordinance violations. Third, City News asked us to “resolve the conflict among the circuits concerning whether the guarantee of prompt judicial review that must accompany [an. adult business] licensing scheme means a prompt judicial determination or simply the right to promptly file for judicial review.” Pet. for Cert. 13. We granted the petition only on the third question.. Accordingly, City News cannot now contend that any of the substantive requirements governing adult business licenses in Waukesha conflict with the First Amendment. Nor does City News contend that the evidence failed to substantiate the charged violations. We now explain why City News is not properly situated to raise the question on which we granted review.
> — I
In letters sent to Waukesha two months after petitioning for review in this Court, City News gave notice that it would withdraw its renewal application and close its business upon the City’s grant of a license to another corporation, B. J. B., Inc., “a larger and more modern business” with which City News felt “it [could not] effectively compete.” Letters from Jeff Scott Olson to Vince Mosehella (June 12 and 19, 2000), Respondent’s Lodging, Vol. 1, Tab No. 14. Wau-kesha granted B. J. B.’s license application on June 20. It is undisputed that City News has ceased to operate as an adult business and no longer seeks to renew its license. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14-15.
Observing that City News neither now pursues nor currently expresses an intent to pursue a license under Wauke-sha law, Waukesha asserts that the case has become moot, for City News no longer has “a legally cognizable interest in the outcome.” County of Los Angeles v. Davis, 440 U. S. 625, 631 (1979) (citing Powell v. McCormack, 395 U. S. 486, 496 (1969)). We agree that the case no longer qualifies for judicial review. Urging that the case remains fit for adjudication, City News tenders two points. We find' neither persuasive.
Noting that it “has never promised not to apply for a license” in the future, Reply Brief 1, City News first contends that, notwithstanding the voluntary termination of its license renewal effort, a live controversy remains under the Court’s reasoning in Erie v. Pap’s A. M., 529 U. S. 277 (2000). In our view, Erie differs critically from this case. In Erie, we similarly granted a petition to review a state-court judgment addressing an adult business’ First Amendment challenge to a city ordinance. We concluded that the controversy persisted, even though the adult business had shut down. We reached that conclusion, it is true, in part because the business “could again decide to operate.” Id., at 287. That speculation standing alone, however, did not shield the case from a mootness determination. Another factor figured prominently. The nude dancing entrepreneur in Erie sought “to have the case declared moot” after the business had “prevailed below,” obtaining a judgment that invalidated Erie’s ordinance. Id., at 288. Had we accepted the entrepreneur’s plea, then consistent with our practice when a case becomes moot on review from a state court, we would have dismissed the petition, leaving intact the judgment below. See ASARCO Inc. v. Radish, 490 U. S. 605, 621, n. 1 (1989); Erie, 529 U. S., at 305 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment). Thus, had we declared Erie moot, the defendant municipality would have been saddled with an “ongoing injury,” i. e., the judgment striking its law. Id., at 288. And the plaintiff arguably would have prevailed in an “attemp[t] to manipulate the Court’s jurisdiction to insulate a favorable decision from review.” Ibid.
In this case, we confront no parallel circumstance. The adult enterprise before us left the fray as a loser, not a winner. Our dismissal here does not keep Waukesha under the weight of an adverse judgment, or deprive Waukesha of its victory in state court.. Nor does a mootness dismissal reward an arguable manipulation of our jurisdiction, for plaintiff City News, unlike the nude dancing entrepreneur in Erie, opposes a declaration of mootness.
City News also urges that it experiences ongoing injury because it is conclusively barred by Waukesha’s ordinance from reopening as an adult business until 2005. It is far from clear, however, whether City News actually suffers that disability. And as our prior discussion suggests, supra, at 283, a live controversy is not maintained by speculation that City News might be temporarily disabled from reentering a business that City News has left and currently asserts no plan to reenter. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U. S. 1, 15-16 (1998).
City News’s contention that it remains a qualified complainant also fails for a separate reason. Full briefing and argument have revealed that the question City News tendered, and which we took up for review, is not now and never was accurately reflective of City News’s grievance. Unlike the initial license applicant whose expression cannot begin prepermission (the situation of the complainant in Freedman), City News was already licensed to conduct an adult business and sought to fend off a stop order. Swift judicial review is the remedy needed by those held back from speaking. We do not doubt that an ongoing adult enterprise facing loss of its license to do business may allege First Amendment injuries. Such an establishment’s typical concern, however, is not the speed of court proceedings, but the availability of a stay of adverse action during the pendency of judicial review, however long that review takes.
Unlike the petitioner in Freedman, who sought, through swift court review, an end to the status quo of silence, City News sought to maintain, pendente lite, the status quo of speech (or expressive conduct). Brief for Petitioner 43-44. We venture no view on the merits of an argument urging preservation of speech (or expressive conduct) as the status quo pending administrative and judicial review proceedings. It suffices to point out that the question is not the one on which the courts have divided or on which we granted certiorari.
For the reasons stated, the writ of certiorari is
Dismissed.
City News appears to rely on the general rule that voluntary cessation of a challenged practice rarely moots a federal case. See, e. g., Friends of Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., 528 U. S. 167, 189 (2000). But that rule traces to the principle that a party should not be able to evade judicial review, or to defeat a judgment, by temporarily altering questionable behavior. See Gwaltney of Smithfield, Ltd. v. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Inc., 484 U. S. 49, 66-67 (1987) (“Mootness doctrine ... protects plaintiffs from defendants who seek to evade sanction by predictable ‘protestations of repentance and reform.’ ”) (quoting United States v. Oregon State Medical Soc., 343 U. S. 326, 333 (1952)); see also Friends of Earth, 528 U. S., at 189 (Courts are not “compelled to leave ‘[t]he defendant . . . free to return to his old ways.’”) (quoting City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U. S. 283, 289, n. 10 (1982), in turn quoting United States v. W.T. Grant Co., 345 U. S. 629, 632 (1953)). That principle does not aid City News. For it is City News, not its adversary, whose conduct saps the controversy of vitality, and City News can gain nothing from our dismissal.
City News points to Waukesha’s rule that to receive an adult entertainment license, an applicant “shall not have been found to have previously violated [the adult business ordinance] within 5 years immediately preceding the date of the application.” Waukesha Municipal Code § 8.195(4)(a)(2) (1995), reprinted in App. to Pet. for Cert. 103. It was in 1995, however, that Waukesha last found City News to have violated the City ordinance. As City News recognizes, the disabilities from these violations expired in 2000. Reply Brief 2. City News asserts that it remains vulnerable to the bar because, in violation of the ordinance, it operated without a license into the year 2000. But this argument runs up against the facts that, since 1995, City News has not “been found” by Waukesha’s Common Council to have violated the ordinance, and that the council expressly permitted City News to continue in business during the pendency of state-court proceedings. See Petitioner’s Lodging, Tab No. 3. If City News seeks a license in the future, and if Waukesha attempts to invoke its five-year bar, nothing in the prior proceedings or in our disposition today will disable City News from contesting the bar’s application.
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners are husband and wife. They were both convicted in a Federal District Court for stealing several thousand dollars in currency from a commissary store at a United States Naval Base. The wife was convicted also on a separate count for receiving and concealing the stolen currency. Both petitioners were sentenced to prison on the larceny conviction, the husband for a term of five years, and the wife for a ten-year term. In addition, the wife received a five-year concurrent sentence on the receiving count.
Throughout the trial counsel for the petitioners consistently maintained the position that a thief could not be convicted of receiving from himself. Although directing an acquittal on the receiving count in the husband’s case, the trial judge overruled a similar motion on behalf of the wife. Counsel then clearly indicated his intention to request that the jury be instructed that it could not find the wife guilty of both stealing and receiving. The trial judge responded by pointing out that the Fourth Circuit had decided, in Aaronson v. United States, 175 F. 2d 41, that “it is possible that as long as the person did not actually participate in the actual taking of the goods, that same person may be found guilty of receiving and concealing and may also be found guilty as an accessory before the fact or as an aider and an abetter of the actual charge of theft.” Faced with this controlling Fourth Circuit authority, counsel did not engage in the futile exercise of submitting a more formal request for such instructions.
When the case reached the Court of Appeals, that court put aside its decision in the Aaronson case, in the light of this Court’s decision in Heflin v. United States, 358 U. S. 415, which had been announced in the meantime. In Heflin we held that a defendant could not be convicted and cumulatively sentenced under 18 U. S. C. § 2113 for both robbing a bank and receiving the proceeds of the robbery. Relying on that decision, the court set aside the sentence imposed upon the wife for receiving. 275 F. 2d 716. It was the court’s view that “in the absence of a contrary indication by Congress, a defendant charged with offenses under statutes of this character may not be convicted and punished for stealing and also for receiving the same goods.” 275 F. 2d, at 719. Although Heflin involved a different section of the criminal code, the court found “no differences between the two statutes or their legislative histories justifying divergent interpretations in respect to the issue before us.”
In this view we think that the Court of Appeals was correct. As the court recognized, the question is one of statutory construction, not of common law distinctions. Compare Metcalf v. State, 98 Fla. 457, 124 So. 427; Smith v. State, 59 Ohio St. 350, 52 N. E. 826; Jenkins v. State, 62 Wis. 49, 21 N. W. 232; Regina v. Hilton, Bell C. C. 20, 169 Eng. Rep. 1150, with Allen v. State, 76 Tex. Cr. R. 416, 175 S. W. 700; Regina v. Perkins, 2 Den. C. C. 458, 169 Eng. Rep. 582; Regina v. Coggins, 12 Cox C. C. 517. With respect to the receiving statute before us in Heflin, we decided that “Congress was trying to reach a new group of wrongdoers, not to multiply the offense of the . . . robbers themselves,” 358 U. S., at 420. We find nothing in the language or history of the present statute which leads to a different conclusion here. As in Heflin, the provision of the statute which makes receiving an offense came into the law later than the provision relating to robbery.
It is now contended that setting aside the sentence on the receiving count was not enough — that the conviction on the larceny count must also be reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial. The argument is that although the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for either larceny or receiving, the judge should have instructed the jury that a guilty verdict could be returned upon either count but not both. It is urged that since it is now impossible to say what verdict would have been returned by a jury so instructed, and thus impossible to know what sentence would have been imposed, a new trial is in order. This was the view of Chief Judge Sobeloff, dissenting in the Court of Appeals. 275 F. 2d, at 721.
We think that the point is well taken. In Heflin we were not concerned with the correctness of jury instructions, since that case arose out of a collateral proceeding to correct an illegal sentence where the petitioner was asking only that the cumulative punishment imposed for receiving be set aside. In this case, by contrast, a direct review of the conviction brings here the entire record of the trial. We hold, based on what has been said as to the scope of the applicable statute, that the trial judge erred in not charging that the jury could convict of either larceny or receiving, but not of both.
Though setting aside the shorter concurrent sentence imposed upon the wife for receiving, the Court of Appeals left standing a ten-year prison term for larceny, double the punishment that had been imposed upon the husband for the identical offense. Yet there is no way of knowing whether a properly instructed jury would have found the wife guilty of larceny or of receiving (or, conceivably, of neither). Thus we cannot say that the mere setting aside of the shorter concurrent sentence sufficed to cure any prejudice resulting from the trial judge’s failure to instruct the jury properly. It may well be, as the Court of Appeals assumed, that the jury, if given the choice, would have rendered a verdict of guilty on the larceny count, and that the trial judge would have imposed the maximum ten-year sentence on that count alone. But for a reviewing court to make those assumptions is to usurp the functions of both the jury and the sentencing judge.
We find no merit in the petitioners' argument as to the trial court’s conduct with respect to cautionary instructions to the witnesses for the Government. Accordingly, the judgment as to Mike Milanovich is affirmed. For the reasons stated, the judgment as to Virginia Milanovich is set aside, and her case remanded to the District Court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The statute under which the petitioners were convicted is 18 U. S. C. § 641. It provides:
“Whoever embezzles, steals, purloins, or knowingly converts to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sells, conveys or disposes of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof, or any propertymade or being made under contract for the United States or any department or agency thereof; or
“Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted—
“Shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; but if the value of such property does not exceed the sum of $100, he shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
“[W]e feel, sir — for the jury to be considering both receiving and stealing — that both charges are inconsistent and if the evidence is to be believed that these people are participants, then they cannot be guilty of receiving, and if they are guilty of receiving, they cannot be guilty of participating.”
“Your Honor, we will ask the Court to instruct the jury that inasmuch as they are inconsistent counts that they can only come back, if they come back with a verdict of guilty, as to one or the other, but not both.”
The paragraph making it an offense to steal government property had its genesis in the Act of March 2, 1863, c. 67, 12 Stat. 696, 698. The paragraph as to receivers originated in the Act of March 3, 1875, c. 144, § 2, 18 Stat. 479.
It is acknowledged here that the evidence was sufficient to support a jury finding that both petitioners aided and abetted the larceny, and thus were guilty as principals under 18 U. S. C. § 2. It is also conceded that the evidence was sufficient to support the wife’s conviction for receiving and concealing the stolen property (a substantial amount of silver currency having been found in a suitcase in her home two weeks after the robbery).
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.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 1915, providing for appearances informa pauperis, authorizes federal courts to favor any “person” meeting its criteria with a series of benefits including dispensation from the obligation to prepay fees, costs, or security for bringing, defending, or appealing a lawsuit. Here, we are asked to decide whether the term “person” as so used applies to the artificial entities listed in the definition of that term contained in 1 U. S. C. § 1. We hold that it does not, so that only a natural person may qualify for treatment in forma pauperis under § 1915.
I
Respondent California Men’s Colony, Unit II Men’s Advisory Council (Council), is a representative association of prison inmates organized at the behest of one of the petitioners, the Warden of the Colony, to advise him of complaints and recommendations from the inmates, and to communicate his administrative decisions back to them. The general prison population elects the Council’s members.
In a complaint filed in the District Court in 1989, the Council charged the petitioners, state correctional officers, with violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments in discontinuing their practice of providing free tobacco to indigent inmates. The Council sought leave to proceed in forma pauperis under 28 U. S. C. § 1915(a), claiming by affidavit of the Council’s chairman that the warden forbad the Council to hold funds of its own. The District Court denied the motion for an inadequate showing of indigency, though it responded to the Council’s motion for reconsideration with a suggestion of willingness to consider an amended application containing “details of each individual’s indigency.”
On appeal, the Council was allowed to proceed in forma pauperis to enable the court to reach the very question “whether an organization, such as [the Council], may proceed in forma pauperis pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1915(a).” No. 90-55600 (CA9, July 20, 1990). The court requested that a lawyer represent the Council pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1915(d).
The Court of Appeals reversed, 939 F. 2d 854 (CA9 1991), noting that a “person” who may be authorized by a federal court to proceed in forma pauperis under § 1915(a) may be an “association” under a definition provided in 1 U. S. C. § 1. The Council being an “association,” it was a “person” within the meaning of § 1915(a), and could proceed in forma pau-peris upon the requisite proof of its indigency. The court found it adequate proof that prison regulations prohibited the Council from maintaining a bank account, and, apparently, from owning any other asset.
We granted certiorari, 503 U. S. 905 (1992), to resolve a conflict between that decision and the holding in FDM Manufacturing Co. v. Scottsdale Ins. Co., 855 F. 2d 213 (CA5 1988) (per curiam) (“person,” within the meaning of § 1915(a), includes only natural persons). We reverse.
II
A
Both § 1915(a), which the Council invoked in seeking to be excused from prepaying filing fees, and § 1915(d) employ the word “person” in controlling access to four benefits provided by § 1915 and a related statute. First, a qualifying person may “commenc[e], prosecut[e] or defen[d]... any suit, action or proceeding, civil or criminal, or appeal therein, without prepayment of fees and costs or security therefor.” 28 U. S. C. § 1915(a). Second, a court may in certain cases direct the United States to pay the person's expenses in printing the record on appeal and preparing a transcript of proceedings before a United States magistrate. § 1915(b). Third, if the person is unable to employ counsel, “[t]he court may request an attorney to represent [him].” § 1915(d). And, fourth, in an appeal, the United States will pay for a transcript of proceedings below “if the trial judge or a circuit judge certifies that the appeal is not frivolous (but presents a substantial question).” 28 U. S. C. § 753(f); see ibid, (detailing slightly different criteria for habeas proceedings).
“Persons” were not always so entitled, for the benefits of § 1915 were once available only to “citizens,” a term held, in the only two cases on the issue, to exclude corporations. See Atlantic S. S. Corp. v. Kelley, 79 F. 2d 339, 340 (CA5 1935) (construing the predecessor to § 1915); Quittner v. Motion Picture Producers & Distributors of America, Inc., 70 F. 2d 331, 332 (CA2 1934) (same). In 1959, however, Congress passed a one-sentence provision that “section 1915(a) of title 28, United States Code, is amended by deleting the word ‘citizen’ and inserting in place thereof the. word ‘person.’” Pub. L. 86-320, 73 Stat. 590. For this amendment, the sole reason cited in the legislative history was to extend the statutory benefits to aliens.
B
The relevant portion of the Dictionary Act, 1 U. S. C. § 1, provides (as it did in 1959) that
“[i]n determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, unless the context indicates otherwise—
“the wor[d] ‘person’... include[s] corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.”
See 1 U. S. C. § 1 (1958 ed.). “Context” here means the text of the Act of Congress surrounding the word at issue, or the texts of other related congressional Acts, and this is simply an instance of the word’s ordinary meaning: “[t]he part or parts of a discourse preceding or following a ‘text’ or passage or a word, or so intimately associated with it as to throw light upon its meaning.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 576 (2d ed. 1942). While “context” can carry a secondary meaning of “[associated surroundings, whether material or mental,” ibid., we doubt that the broader sense applies here. The Dictionary Act uses “context” to give an instruction about how to “determin[e] the meaning of a[n] Act of Congress,” a purpose suggesting the primary sense. If Congress had meant to point further afield, as to legislative history, for example, it would have been natural to use a more spacious phrase, like “evidence of congressional intent,” in place of “context.”
If “context” thus has a narrow compass, the “indication” contemplated by 1 U. S. C. § 1 has a broader one. The Dictionary Act’s very reference to contextual “indication” bespeaks something more than an express contrary definition, and courts would hardly need direction where Congress had thought to include an express, specialized definition for the purpose of a particular Act; ordinary rules of statutory construction would prefer the specific definition over the Dictionary Act’s general one. Where a court needs help is in the awkward case where Congress provides no particular definition, but the definition in 1 U. S. C, § 1 seems not to fit. There it is that the qualification “unless the context indicates otherwise” has a real job to do, in excusing the court from forcing a square peg into a round hole.
The point at which the indication of particular meaning becomes insistent enough to excuse the poor fit is of course a matter of judgment, but one can say that “indicates” certainly imposes less of a burden than, say, “requires” or “necessitates.” One can also say that this exception from the general rule would be superfluous if the context “indicate[d] otherwise” only when use of the general definition would be incongruous enough to invoke the common mandate of statutory construction to avoid absurd results. See, e. g., Mc- Nary v. Haitian Refugee Center, Inc., 498 U. S. 479, 496 (1991) (“It is presumable that Congress legislates with knowledge of our basic rules of statutory construction”). In fine, a contrary “indication” may raise a specter short of inanity, and with something less than syllogistic force.
H-1 HH
Four contextual features indicate that “person” in § 1915(a) refers only to individuals, the first being the provision of § 1915(d) that “[t]he court may request an attorney to represent any such person unable to employ counsel.” (Emphasis added.) This permissive language suggests that Congress assumed the court would in many cases not “request” counsel, see Mallard v. United States District Court, Southern District of Iowa, 490 U. S. 296, 301-302 (1989) (holding that § 1915(d) does not authorize mandatory appointments of counsel), leaving the “person” proceeding informa pauperis to conduct litigation on his own behalf. Underlying this congressional assumption are probably two others: that the “person” in question enjoys the legal capacity to appear before a court for the purpose of seeking such benefits as appointment of counsel without being represented by professional counsel beforehand, and likewise enjoys the capacity to litigate without counsel if the court chooses to provide none, in the exercise of the discretion apparently conferred by the permissive language. The state of the law, however, leaves it highly unlikely that Congress would have made either assumption about an artificial entity like an association, and thus just as unlikely that “person” in § 1915 was meant to cover more than individuals. It has been the law for the better part of two centuries, for example, that a corporation may appear in the federal courts only through licensed counsel. Osborn v. President of Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 829 (1824); see Turner v. American Bar Assn., 407 F. Supp. 451, 476 (ND Tex. 1975) (citing the “long line of cases” from 1824 to the present holding that a corporation may only be represented by licensed counsel), affirmance order sub nom. Taylor v. Montgomery, 539 F. 2d 715 (CA7 1976), and aff’d sub nom. Pilla v. American Bar Assn., 542 F. 2d 56 (CA8 1976). As the courts have recognized, the rationale for that rule applies equally to all artificial entities. Thus, save in a few aberrant cases, the lower courts have uniformly held that 28 U. S. C. § 1654, providing that “parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel,” does not allow corporations, partnerships, or associations to appear in federal court otherwise than through a licensed attorney. See, e. g., Eagle Associates v. Bank of Montreal, 926 F. 2d 1305 (CA2 1991) (partnership); Taylor v. Knapp, 871 F. 2d 803, 806 (CA9) (nonprofit corporation formed by prison inmates), cert. denied, 493 U. S. 868 (1989); Jones v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 722 F. 2d 20, 22 (CA2 1983) (corporation); Richdel, Inc. v. Sunspool Corp., 699 F. 2d 1366 (CA Fed. 1983) (per curiam) (corporation); Southwest Express Co. v. ICC, 670 F. 2d 53, 55 (CA5 1982) (per curiam) (corporation); In re Victor Publishers, Inc., 545 F. 2d 285, 286 (CA1 1976) (per curiam) (corporation); Strong Delivery Ministry Assn. v. Board of Appeals of Cook County, 543 F. 2d 32, 34 (CA7 1976) (per curiam) (corporation); United States v. 9.19 Acres of Land, 416 F. 2d 1244, 1245 (CA6 1969) (per curiam) (corporation); Simbraw, Inc. v. United States, 367 F. 2d 373, 374 (CA3 1966) (per curiam) (corporation). Viewing § 1915(d) against the background of this tradition, its assumption that litigants proceeding in forma pauperis may represent themselves tells us that Congress was thinking in terms of “persons” who could petition courts themselves and appear pro se, that is, of natural persons only.
The second revealing feature of § 1915(d) is its description of the affidavit required by § 1915(a) as an “allegation of poverty.” Poverty, in its primary sense, is a human condition, to be “[w]anting in material riches or goods; lacking in the comforts of life; needy,” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1919 (2d ed. 1942), and it was in just such distinctly human terms that this Court had established the standard of eligibility long before Congress considered extending in forma pauperis treatment from “citizens” to “persons.” As we first said in 1948, “[w]e think an affidavit is sufficient which states that one cannot because of his poverty ‘pay or give security for the costs... and still be able to provide’ himself and dependents ‘with the necessities of life.’” Adkins v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 335 U. S. 331, 339. But artificial entities do not fit this description. Whatever the state of its treasury, an association or corporation cannot be said to “lac[k] the comforts of life,” any more than one can sensibly ask whether it can provide itself, let alone its dependents, with life’s “necessities.” Artificial entities may be insolvent, but they are not well spoken of as “poor.” So eccentric a description is not lightly to be imputed to Congress.
The third clue is much like the second. Section 1915(a) authorizes the courts to allow litigation without the prepayment of fees, costs, or security “by a person who makes affidavit that he is unable to pay such costs or give security therefor,” and requires that the affidavit also “state the nature of the action, defense or appeal and affiant’s belief that he is entitled to redress.” Because artificial entities cannot take oaths, they cannot make affidavits. See, e. g., In re Empire Refining Co., 1 F. Supp. 548, 549 (SD Cal. 1932) (“It is, of course, conceded that a corporation cannot make an affidavit in its corporate name. It is an inanimate thing incapable of voicing an oath”); Moya Enterprises, Inc. v. Harry Anderson Trucking, Inc., 162 Ga. App. 39, 290 S. E. 2d 145 (1982); Strand Restaurant Co. v. Parks Engineering Co., 91 A. 2d 711 (D. C. 1952); 9A T. Bjur & C. Slezak, Fletcher Cyclopedia of Law of Private Corporations §4629 (Perm. ed. 1992) (“A document purporting to be the affidavit of a corporation is void, since a corporation cannot make a sworn statement”) (footnote omitted).
Of course, it is true that courts have often coupled this recognition of a corporation’s incapacity to make an affidavit with a willingness to accept the affidavit of a corporate officer or agent on its behalf even when the applicable statute makes no express provision for doing so. See, e. g., In re Ben Weiss Co., 271 F. 2d 234 (CA7 1959). Any such accommodation would raise at least three difficulties in this particular statutory context, however. There would be, first, the frequent problem of establishing an affiant’s authorization. The artificial entities covered by “person” in the Dictionary Act include not only corporations, for which lines of authority are well established by state law, but also amorphous legal creatures like the unincorporated association before us here. A court may not as readily determine whether a member of such an association, even a member styled as “president” or “chairman” or whatnot, has any business purporting to bind it by affidavit. Next, some weight should probably be given to the requirement of § 1915(a) that the affidavit state the “affiant’s belief that he is entitled to redress” (emphasis added). “He,” read naturally, refers to the “affiant” as the person claiming informa pauperis entitlement. If the affi-ant is an agent making an affidavit on behalf of an artificial entity, however, it would wrench the rules of grammar to read “he” as referring to the entity. Finally, and most significantly, the affidavit requirement cannot serve its deterrent function fully when applied to artificial entities. We said in Adkins that “[o]ne who makes this affidavit exposes himself ‘to the pains of perjury in a case of bad faith.’... This constitutes a sanction important in protection of the public against a false or fraudulent invocation of the statute’s benefits.” Adkins, supra, at 338 (quoting Pothier v. Rodman, 261 U. S. 307, 309 (1923)), The perjury sanction thus serves to protect the public against misuse of public funds by a litigant with adequate funds of his own, and against the filing of “frivolous or malicious” lawsuits funded from the public purse. 28 U. S. C. §§ 1915(a), 1915(d). The force of these sanctions pales when applied to artificial persons, however. Natural persons can be imprisoned for perjury, but artificial entities can only be fined. And while a monetary sanction may mean something to an entity whose agent has lied about its ability to pay costs or security, it has no teeth when the lie goes only to belief of entitlement to redress. So far, then, as Congress assumed that the threat of a perjury conviction couid deter an impoverished “person” from filing a frivolous or malicious lawsuit, it probably assumed that the person was an individual.
The fourth clue to congressional understanding is the failure of § 1915 even to hint at a resolution of the issues raised by applying an “inability to pay” standard to artificial entities. It is true, of course, that because artificial entities have no use for food or the other “necessities of life,” Congress could not have intended the courts to apply the traditional “inability to pay” criterion to such entities. Yet no alternative standard can be discerned in the language of § 1915, and we can find no obvious analogy to the “necessities of life” in the organizational context. Although the most promising candidate might seem to be commercial-law “insolvency,” commercial law actually knows a number of different insolvency concepts. See, e. g., 11 U. S. C. § 101(32) (1988 ed., Supp. III) (defining insolvency as used in the Federal Bankruptcy Code); Kreps v. Commissioner, 351 F. 2d 1, 9 (CA2 1965) (discussing a type of “equity” insolvency); Uniform Commercial Code § 1-201(23), 1 U. L. A. 65 (1989) (combining three' different types of insolvency). In any event, since it is common knowledge that corporations can often perfectly well pay court costs and retain paid legal counsel in spite of being temporarily “insolvent” under any or all of these definitions, it is far from clear that corporate insolvency is appropriately analogous to individual indigency.
If § 1915 yields no “inability to pay” standard applicable to artificial entities, neither does it guide courts in determining when to “pierce the veil” of the entity, that is, when to look beyond the entity to its owners or members in determining ability to pay. Because courts would necessarily have to do just this to avoid abuse, congressional silence on the subject indicates that Congress simply was not thinking in terms of granting informa pauperis status to artificial entities.
While the courts that have nonetheless held § 1915 applicable to artificial entities have devised their own tests for telling when to “pierce the veil” for a look at individual members or owners, none of their tests is based on the language of § 1915 or on any assumption implicit in it. For example, the leading opinion on the subject, a dissent from a majority opinion that never reached the issue, appears to frame the issue as whether the individual shareholders of a corporation “have adopted the corporate form as a subterfuge to avoid the payment of court costs.” S. O. U P., Inc. v. FTC, 146 U. S. App. D. C. 66, 68, 449 F. 2d 1142, 1144 (1971) (Bazelon, C. J., dissenting) (footnote omitted). While this test certainly emphasizes why we could hardly hold that a court should never look beyond the organization to its individuals, it stems from nothing in §1915 suggesting that entities claiming to have slight assets should be treated in forma pauperis unless they were organized to cheat the courts.
The Council makes the argument, apparently accepted by the court below, that however difficult it might be to formulate comprehensive rules for determining organizational eligibility to file informa pauperis, we are excused from facing the difficulty in this case, because the Council’s circumstances would make it eligible under any set of rules. But we cannot construe tlie statute very well by sidestepping the implications of deciding one way or the other, and even if we did assume that some narrow band of eligibility escaped the contrary contextual indicators, it is not wholly clear that the Council could conclusively establish informa pauperis entitlement. It is not obvious, for example, why the Council’s inability to maintain a separate bank account should conclusively establish pauper status under § 1915, any more than a bank account with a one-cent balance would be conclusive. Account or no account, the Council, like thousands of other associations, appears to have no source of revenue but the donations of its members. If members with funds must donate to pay court fees, why should it make a conclusive legal difference whether they are able to donate indirectly through an intermediate bank account, or through one member who transmits donations by making a payment to the federal court when the Council files a complaint? Thus, recognizing the possibility of an organizational in forma pauperis status even in the supposedly “extreme” case of the Council would force us to delve into the difficult issues of policy and administration without any guidance from § 1915. This context of congressional silence on these issues indicates the natural character of a § 1915 “person.”
IV
We do not forget our cases holding that the broad definition of “person” in 1 U. S. C. § 1 applies in spite of incongruities as strong, or stronger, than those produced by the four contextual features we have noted in § 1915. But in each of these cases, some other aspect of statutory context independently indicated the broad reading. In Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U. S. 653, 666 (1979), for example, we held that a statutory burden of proof on a “white person” involved in a property dispute with an Indian applied to the artificial “persons” listed in the Dictionary Act as well as to individuals. Because a wholly legal creature has no color, and belongs to no race, the use of the adjective “white” to describe a “person” is one of the strongest contextual indicators imaginable that “person” covers only individuals, and if there had been no more to the context at issue in Omaha Tribe, we would have to concede that our decision in that case is inconsistent with our conclusion here. But Omaha Tribe involved another important, countervailing contextual indication. The larger context of the whole statute and other laws related to it revealed that the statute’s purpose was “to protect Indians from claims made by non-Indian squatters on their lands,” id., at 665, and we recognized that construing the disability placed on “white persons” by the statute as extending only to individuals would virtually frustrate this purpose. “[I]n terms of the protective purposes of the Acts of which [the property dispute provision was] a part, it would make little sense to construe the provision so that individuals, otherwise subject to its burdens, could escape its reach merely by incorporating and carrying on business as usual.” Id., at 666.
United States v. A & P Trucking Co., 358 U. S. 121 (1958), is a comparable case, involving two criminal statutes applying to truckers, one of which expressly applied to partnerships, and the other of which imposed criminal liability on “whoever” knowingly violated Interstate Commerce Commission regulations on transporting dangerous articles. The issue was whether partnerships could violate the statutes. We noted that the statutes required proof of knowing violations, and that a partnership at common law was deemed not to be a separate entity for purposes of suit. Id., at 124. Nonetheless, given that “[t]he purpose of both statutes [was] clear: to ensure compliance by motor carriers, among others, with safety and other requirements laid down by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the exercise of its statutory duty to regulate the operations of interstate carriers for hire,” id., at 123-124, we concluded that it would make no sense if motor carriers could avoid criminal liability for violating the trucking regulations “merely because of the form under which they were organized to do business,” id., at 124 (footnote omitted).
Thus, in both Omaha Tribe and A & P Trucking Co., we found that the statutes in question manifested a purpose that would be substantially frustrated if we did not construe the statute to reach artificial entities. Section 1915, however, manifests no such single purpose subject to substantial frustration by limiting the statutory reach to natural persons. Denying artificial entities the benefits of § 1915 will not in any sense render nugatory the benefits that § 1915 still provides to individuals. Thus, Omaha Tribe and A & P Trucking Co. confirm our focus on context, but turned on contextual indicators not present here.
V
The Council argues that denying it informa pauperis status would place an unconstitutional burden on its members’' First Amendment rights to associate, to avoid which we should construe § 1915 broadly. See, e. g., NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U. S. 490, 500 (1979) (“[A]n Act of Congress ought not be construed to violate the Constitution if any other possible construction remains available”). We find no merit in this argument. It is true that to file a suit in forma pauperis, not in the Council’s name, as such, but under the title “X, Y, and Z, known as the Council v. Rowland,” X, Y, and Z would each need to file an affidavit stating that he met the indigency requirements of § 1915. Nothing, however, in § 1915 suggests that the requirements would be less burdensome if the suit were titled “The Council v. Rowland”; even if we held that an association could proceed in forma pauperis, our prior discussion shows that a court could hardly ignore the assets of the association’s members in making the indigency determination. Because the extension of § 1915 to artificial entities need not lighten its practical requirements, the limitation of § 1915 to individuals puts no unconstitutional burden on the right to associate in the manner suggested.
VI
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded with instructions that the case be remanded to the District Court, where the motion for leave to file informa pauperis must be denied.
So ordered.
For a description of § 1915(d) and its relationship to § 1915(a), see infra, at 198, 203.
The House Report noted three reasons for “extend[ing] the same privilege of proceedings in forma pauperis as is now afforded citizens.” H. R. Rep. No. 650, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1959). First, “[i]t is the opinion of the Department of Justice that this proposal would be consonant with the ideas or policies of the United States.” Ibid. Second, “the Judicial Conference of the United States in recommending this legislation pointed out that the distinction between citizens and aliens as contained in existing law may be unconstitutional.” Ibid. Third, “it may also be in violation of various treaties entered into by the United States with foreign countries which guarantees [sic] to their citizens access of the courts of the United States on the same terms as American citizens.” Ibid.; see also S. Rep. No. 947, 86th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1959) (quoting the portion of the House Report containing these three reasons). None of these reasons supports extension of § 1916 benefits to artificial entities, or suggests that anyone involved with drafting or evaluating this legislation was thinking of such an extension. The House debate on the bill contains a discussion about the deportation of alien criminals, a matter which obviously concerns only natural persons, see 106 Cong. Rec. 13714 (1969) (remarks of Rep. Gross and Rep. Rogers); otherwise, the congressional debates provide no additional information, see ibid.; id., at 18909 (remarks of Sen. Eastland).
This rule has been applied throughout the history of 1 U. S. C. § 1 and its predecessors. See, e. g., Green v. Bock Laundry Machine Co., 490 U. S. 504, 510-511 (1989); Trans Alaska Pipeline Rate Cases, 436 U. S. 631, 643 (1978); Commissioner v. Brown, 380 U. S. 563, 571 (1965); Helvering v. Hammel, 311 U. S. 504, 510-611 (1941); United States v. Katz, 271 U. S. 354, 357 (1926); Caminetti v. United States, 242 U. S. 470, 490 (1917); United States v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482, 486-487 (1869).
This assumption reflects a reality well known within the legal community. See, e. g., Turner, When Prisoners Sue: A Study of Prisoner Section 1983 Suits in the Federal Courts, 92 Harv. L. Rev. 610, 617 (1979) (study of 42 U. S. C. § 1983 cases filed by prisoners in five districts found that the “overwhelming majority” of cases were filed informa pauperis, and that “almost all” the cases were filed pro se).
Two federal cases cited by respondent are the only two, of which we are aware, to hold that artificial entities may be represented by persons who are not licensed attorneys: United States v. Reeves, 431 F. 2d 1187 (CA9 1970) (per curiam) (partner can appear on behalf of a partnership), and In re Holliday’s Tax Services, Inc., 417 F. Supp. 182 (EDNY 1976) (sole shareholder can appear for a closely held corporation), affirmance order sub nom. Holliday’s Tax Services, Inc. v. Hauptman, 614 F. 2d 1287 (CA2 1979). These cases neither follow federal precedent, nor have themselves been followed. See, e. g., Eagle Associates v. Bank of Montreal, 926 F. 2d 1305, 1309-1310 (CA2 1991) (criticizing and reiusing to follow Reeves); Jones v. Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, 722 F. 2d 20, 22, n. 3 (CA2 1983) (distinguishing and narrowing Holliday’s Tax Services).
On occasion, when a party is a minor or incompetent, or fails to cooperate with appointed counsel, or is for some other reason unable to file a timely affidavit, we will accept an affidavit from a guardian ad litem or an attorney. By accepting such an affidavit, we bend the requirement that the affiant state that “he” is indigent and that “he” believes “he” is entitled to relief. In such a case, however, it is clear that the party himself is a “person” within the meaning of § 1915. The only question is whether Congress intended to deny § 1915 benefits to such a person who for some reason peculiar to him is' disabled from filing an affidavit. It is quite a different question whether Congress intended to extend § 1915 to entities that, by their nature, could never meet the statute’s requirements.
We are not ignoring the fact that the individual who made the affidavit as the entity’s agent could still be prosecuted for perjury. However, this is clearly a “second-best” solution; the law does not normally presume that corporate misbehavior can adequately be deterred solely by threatening to punish individual agents.
One plausible motive for Congress to include artificial entities within the meaning of “person” in § 1916 would be to aid organizations in bankruptcy proceedings. But the fact that the law has been settled for almost 20 years that § 1916(a) does not apply to bankruptcy proceedings, see United States v. Kras, 409 U. S. 434, 440 (1973), would seem to foreclose speculation about such a motive.
Two other decisions allowing organizations to proceed in forma pau-peris appear to place importance on the “public interest” character of the organization or the litigation in question. See River Valley, Inc. v. Dubuque County, 63 F. R. D. 123, 125 (ND Iowa 1974) (noting that the corporation at issue “was formed... for the purpose of assisting the poor and underprivileged”); Harlem River Consumers Cooperative, Inc. v. Associated Grocers of Harlem, Inc., 71 F. R. D. 93, 96 (SDNY 1976) (finding that “[t]here is a public interest quality to the stated goal for which the corporation was formed” and that “there is a public interest aspect to any private suit for treble damages under the antitrust laws”). The language of § 1915, however, suggests indifference to the character of the litigant and to the type of litigation pursued, so long as it is not frivolous or malicious.
There is no evidence in the record suggesting that an inmate would not be allowed to donate part of the Council’s court costs directly from his personal account to the court, or that the inmates could not coordinate such donations.
Justice Thomas asserts that, by drawing an inference from congressional silence, we “deparft] from the definition of ‘context’ set out at the beginning of [our] opinion.” Post, at 221, n. 9. It is not from some dimensionless void, however, that we draw our conclusion. Rather, it is from a pointed silence in the face of obvious problems created by applying to artificial entities the text
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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we once again examine when a state prisoner can appeal the denial or dismissal of his petition for writ of habeas corpus. In 1986 two Dallas County assistant district attorneys used peremptory strikes to exclude 10 of the 11 African-Americans eligible to serve on the jury which tried petitioner Thomas Joe Miller-El. During the ensuing 17 years, petitioner has been unsuccessful in establishing, in either state or federal court, that his conviction and death sentence must be vacated because the jury selection procedures violated the Equal Protection Clause and our holding in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). The claim now arises in a federal petition for writ of habeas corpus. The procedures and standards applicable in the case are controlled by the habeas corpus statute codified at Title 28, chapter 153, of the United States Code, most recently amended in a substantial manner by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). In the interest of finality AEDPA constrains a federal court’s power to disturb state-court convictions.
The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, after reviewing the evidence before the state trial court, determined that petitioner failed to establish a constitutional violation warranting habeas relief. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, concluding there was insufficient merit to the case, denied a certificate of appeal-ability (COA) from the District Court’s determination. The COA denial is the subject of our decision.
At issue here are the standards AEDPA imposes before a court of appeals may issue a COA to review a denial of habeas relief in the district court. Congress mandates that a prisoner seeking postconviction relief under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 has no automatic right to appeal a district court’s denial or dismissal of the petition. Instead, petitioner must first seek and obtain a COA. In resolving this case we decide again that when a habeas applicant seeks permission to initiate appellate review of the dismissal of his petition, the court of appeals should limit its examination to a threshold inquiry into the underlying merit of his claims. Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U. S. 473, 481 (2000). Consistent with our prior precedent and the text of the habeas corpus statute, we reiterate that a prisoner seeking a COA need only demonstrate “a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” 28 U. S. C. §2253(c)(2). A petitioner satisfies this standard by demonstrating that jurists of reason could disagree with the district court’s resolution of his constitutional claims or that jurists could conclude the issues presented are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further. Slack, supra, at 484. Applying these principles to petitioner’s application, we conclude a COA should have issued.
I
A
Petitioner, his wife Dorothy Miller-El, and one Kenneth Flowers robbed a Holiday Inn in Dallas, Texas. They emptied the cash drawers and ordered two employees, Doug Walker and Donald Hall, to lie on the floor. Walker and Hall were gagged with strips of fabric, and their hands and feet were bound. Petitioner asked Flowers if he was going to kill Walker and Hall. When Flowers hesitated or refused, petitioner shot Walker twice in the back and shot Hall in the side. Walker died from his wounds.
The State indicted petitioner for capital murder. He pleaded not guilty, and jury selection took place during five weeks in February and March 1986. When voir dire had been concluded, petitioner moved to strike the jury on the grounds that the prosecution had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by excluding African-Americans through the use of peremptory challenges. Petitioner’s trial occurred before our decision in Batson, supra, and Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965), was then the controlling precedent. As Swain required, petitioner sought to show that the prosecution’s conduct was part of a larger pattern of discrimination aimed at excluding African-Americans from jury service. In a pretrial hearing held on March 12, 1986, petitioner presented extensive evidence in support of his motion. The trial judge, however, found “no evidence... that indicated any systematic exclusion of blacks as a matter of policy by the District Attorney’s office; while it may have been done by individual prosecutors in individual cases.” App. 813. The state court then denied petitioner’s motion to strike the jury. Ibid. Twelve days later, the jury found petitioner guilty; and the trial court sentenced him to death.
Petitioner appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. While the appeal was pending, on April 30, 1986, the Court decided Batson v. Kentucky and established its three-part process for evaluating claims that a prosecutor used peremptory challenges in violation of the Equal Protection Clause. First, a defendant must make a prima facie showing that a peremptory challenge has been exercised on the basis of race. 476 U. S., at 96-97. Second, if that showing has been made, the prosecution must offer a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in question. Id., at 97-98. Third, in light of the parties’ submissions, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has shown purposeful discrimination. Id., at 98.
After acknowledging petitioner had established an inference of purposeful discrimination, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals remanded the case for new findings in light of Batson. Miller-El v. State, 748 S. W. 2d 459 (1988). A post-trial hearing was held on May 10, 1988 (a little over two years after petitioner’s jury had been empaneled). There, the original trial court admitted all the evidence presented at the Swain hearing and further evidence and testimony from the attorneys in the original trial. App. 843-844.
On January 13, 1989, the trial court concluded that petitioner’s evidence failed to satisfy step one of Batson because it “did not even raise an inference of racial motivation in the use of the state’s peremptory challenges” to support a prima facie ease. App. 876. Notwithstanding this conclusion, the state court determined that the State would have prevailed on steps two and three because the prosecutors had offered credible, race-neutral explanations for each African-American excluded. The court further found “no disparate prosecutorial examination of any of the veniremen in question” and “that the primary reasons for the exercise of the challenges against each of the veniremen in question [was] their reluctance to assess or reservations concerning the imposition of the death penalty.” Id., at 878. There was no discussion of petitioner’s other evidence.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied petitioner’s appeal, and we denied certiorari. Miller-El v. Texas, 510 U. S. 831 (1993). Petitioner’s state habeas proceedings fared no better, and he was denied relief by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Petitioner filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2254. Although petitioner raised four issues, we concern ourselves here with only petitioner’s jury selection claim premised on Batson. The Federal Magistrate Judge who considered the merits was troubled by some of the evidence adduced in the state-court proceedings. He, nevertheless, recommended, in deference to the state courts’ acceptance of the prosecutors’ race-neutral justifications for striking the potential jurors, that petitioner be denied relief. The United States District Court adopted the recommendation. Pursuant to §2253, petitioner sought a COA from the District Court, and the application was denied. Petitioner renewed his request to the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and it also denied the COA.
The Court of Appeals noted that, under controlling habeas principles, a COA will issue “ ‘only if the applicant has made a substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.’ ” Miller-El v. Johnson, 261 F. 3d 445, 449 (2001) (quoting 28 U. S. C. § 2253(c)(2)). Citing our decision in Slack v. McDaniel, 529 U. S. 473 (2000), the court reasoned that “[a] petitioner makes a ‘substantial showing’ when he demonstrates that his petition involves issues which are debatable among jurists of reason, that another court could resolve the issues differently, or that the issues are adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.” 261 F. 3d, at 449. The Court of Appeals also interjected the requirements of 28 U. S. C. § 2254 into the COA determination: “As an appellate court reviewing a federal habeas petition, we are required by § 2254(d)(2) to presume the state court findings correct unless we determine that the findings result in a decision which is unreasonable in light of the evidence presented. And the unreasonableness, if any, must be established by clear and convincing evidence. See 28 U. S. C. § 2254(e)(1).” 261 F. 3d, at 451.
Applying this framework to petitioner’s COA application, the Court of Appeals concluded “that the state court’s findings are not unreasonable and that Miller-El has failed to present clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.” Id., at 452. As a consequence, the court “determined that the state court’s adjudication neither resulted in a decision that was unreasonable in light of the evidence presented nor resulted in a decision contrary to clearly established federal law as determined by the Supreme Court,” ibid,.; and it denied petitioner’s request for a COA. We granted certiorari. 534 U. S. 1122 (2002).
B
While a COA ruling is not the occasion for a ruling on the merit of petitioner’s claim, our determination to reverse the Court of Appeals counsels us to explain in some detail the extensive evidence concerning the jury selection procedures. Petitioner’s evidence falls into two broad categories. First, he presented to the state trial court, at a pretrial Swain hearing, evidence relating to a pattern and practice of race discrimination in the voir dire. Second, two years later, he presented, to the same state court, evidence that directly related to the conduct of the prosecutors in his case. We discuss the latter first.
A comparative analysis of the venire members demonstrates that African-Americans were excluded from petitioner’s jury in a ratio significantly higher than Caucasians were. Of the 108 possible jurors reviewed by the prosecution and defense, 20 were African-American. Nine of them were excused for cause or by agreement of the parties. Of the 11 African-American jurors remaining, however, all but 1 were excluded by peremptory strikes exercised by the prosecutors. On this basis 91% of the eligible black jurors were removed by peremptory strikes. In contrast the prosecutors used their peremptory strikes against just 13% (4 out of 31) of the eligible nonblack prospective jurors qualified to serve on petitioner’s jury.
These numbers, while relevant, are not petitioner’s whole case. During voir dire, the prosecution questioned venire members as to their views concerning the death penalty and their willingness to serve on a capital case. Responses that disclosed reluctance or hesitation to impose capital punishment were cited as a justification for striking a potential juror for cause or by peremptory challenge. Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412 (1985). The evidence suggests, however, that the manner in which members of the venire were questioned varied by race. To the extent a divergence in responses can be attributed to the racially disparate mode of examination, it is relevant to our inquiry.
Most African-Americans (53%, or 8 out of 15) were first given a detailed description of the mechanics of an execution in Texas:
“[I]f those three [sentencing] questions are answered yes, at some point[,] Thomas Joe Miller-El will be taken to Huntsville, Texas. He will be placed on death row and at some time will be taken to the death house where he will be strapped on a gurney, an IV put into his arm and he will be injected with a substance that will cause his death... as the result of the verdict in this case if those three questions are answered yes.” App. 215.
Only then were these African-American venire members asked whether they could render a decision leading to a sentence of death. Very few prospective white jurors (6%, or 3 out of 49) were given this preface prior to being asked for their views on capital punishment. Rather, all but three were questioned in vague terms: “Would you share with us... your personal feelings, if you could, in your own words how you do feel about the death penalty and capital punishment and secondly, do you feel you could serve on this type of a jury and actually render a decision that would result in the death of the Defendant in this ease based on the evidence? ” Id., at 506.
There was an even more pronounced difference, on the apparent basis of race, in the manner the prosecutors questioned members of the venire about their willingness to impose the minimum sentence for murder. Under Texas law at the time of petitioner’s trial, an unwillingness to do so warranted removal for cause. Huffman v. State, 450 S. W. 2d 858, 861 (Tex. Crim. App. 1970), vacated in part, 408 U. S. 936 (1972). This strategy normally is used by the defense to weed out pro-state members of the venire, but, ironically, the prosecution employed it here. The prosecutors first identified the statutory minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment to 34 out of 36 (94%) white venire members, and only then asked: “If you hear a case, to your way of thinking [that] calls for and warrants and justifies five years, you’ll give it?” App. 509. In contrast, only one out of eight (12.5%) African-American prospective jurors were informed of the statutory minimum before being asked what minimum sentence they would impose. The typical questioning of the other seven black jurors was as follows:
“[Prosecutor]: Now, the maximum sentence for [murder]... is life under the law. Can you give me an idea of just your personal feelings what you feel a minimum sentence should be for the offense of murder the way I’ve set it out for you?
“[Juror]: Well, to me that’s almost like it’s premeditated. But you said they don’t have a premeditated statute here in Texas.
“[Prosecutor]: Again, we’re not talking about self-defense or accident or insanity or killing in the heat of passion or anything like that. We’re talking about the knowing—
“[Juror]: I know you said the minimum. The minimum amount that I would say would be at least twenty years.” Id., at 226-227.
Furthermore, petitioner points to the prosecution’s use of a Texas criminal procedure practice known as jury shuffling. This practice permits parties to rearrange the order in which members of the venire are examined so as to increase the likelihood that visually preferable venire members will be moved forward and empaneled. With no information about the prospective jurors other than their appearance, the party requesting the procedure literally shuffles the juror cards, and the venire members are then reseated in the new order. Tex. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 35.11 (Vernon Supp. 2003). Shuffling affects jury composition because any prospective jurors not questioned during voir dire are dismissed at the end of the week, and a new panel of jurors appears the following week. So jurors who are shuffled to the back of the panel are less likely to be questioned or to serve.
On at least two occasions the prosecution requested shuffles when there were a predominant number of African-Americans in the front of the panel. On yet another occasion the prosecutors complained about the purported inadequacy of the card shuffle by a defense lawyer but lodged a formal objection only after the postshuffle panel composition revealed that African-American prospective jurors had been moved forward.
Next, we turn to the pattern and practice evidence adduced at petitioner’s pretrial Swain hearing. Petitioner subpoenaed a number of current and former Dallas County assistant district attorneys, judges, and others who had observed firsthand the prosecution’s conduct during jury selection over a number of years. Although most of the witnesses denied the existence of a systematic policy to exclude African-Americans, others disagreed. A Dallas County district judge testified that, when he had served in the District Attorney’s Office from the late-1950’s to early-1960’s, his superior warned him that he would be fired if he permitted any African-Americans to serve on a jury. Similarly, another Dallas County district judge and former assistant district attorney from 1976 to 1978 testified that he believed the office had a systematic policy of excluding African-Americans from juries.
Of more importance, the defense presented evidence that the District Attorney’s Office had adopted a formal policy to exclude minorities from jury service. A 1963 circular by the District Attorney’s Office instructed its prosecutors to exercise peremptory strikes against minorities: '“Do not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated.’ ” App. 710. A manual entitled “Jury Selection in a Criminal Case” was distributed to prosecutors. It contained an article authored by a former prosecutor (and later a judge) under the direction of his superiors in the District Attorney’s Office, outlining the reasoning for excluding minorities from jury service. Although the manual was written in 1968, it remained in circulation until 1976, if not later, and was available at least to one of the prosecutors in Miller-El’s trial. Id., at 749, 774, 783.
Some testimony casts doubt on the State’s claim that these practices had been discontinued before petitioner’s trial. For example, a judge testified that, in 1985, he had to exclude a prosecutor from trying cases in his courtroom for race-based discrimination in jury selection. Other testimony indicated that the State, by its own admission, once requested a jury shuffle in order to reduce the number of African-Americans in the venire. Id., at 788. Concerns over the exclusion of African-Americans by the District Attorney’s Office were echoed by Dallas County’s Chief Public Defender.
This evidence had been presented by petitioner, in support of his Batson claim, to the state and federal courts that denied him relief. It is against this background that we examine whether petitioner’s ease should be heard by the Court of Appeals.
II
A
As mandated by federal statute, a state prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus has no absolute entitlement to appeal a district court’s denial of his petition. 28 U. S. C. §2253. Before an appeal may be entertained, a prisoner who was denied habeas relief in the district court must first seek and obtain a COA from a circuit justice or judge. This is a jurisdictional prerequisite because the COA statute mandates that “[u]nless a circuit justice or judge issues a certificate of appealability, an appeal may not be taken to the court of appeals... § 2253(c)(1). As a result, until a COA has been issued federal courts of appeals lack jurisdiction to rule on the merits of appeals from habeas petitioners.
A COA will issue only if the requirements of § 2253 have been satisfied. “The COA statute establishes procedural rules and requires a threshold inquiry into whether the circuit court may entertain an appeal.” Slack, 529 U. S., at 482; Hohn v. United States, 524 U. S. 236, 248 (1998). As the Court of Appeals observed in this case, § 2253(c) permits the issuance of a COA only where a petitioner has made a “substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right.” In Slack, supra, at 483, we recognized that Congress codified our standard, announced in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880 (1983), for determining what constitutes the requisite showing. Under the controlling standard, a petitioner must “sho[wj that reasonable jurists could debate whether (or, for that matter, agree that) the petition should have been resolved in a different manner or that the issues presented were ‘adequate to deserve encouragement to proceed further.’” 529 U. S., at 484 (quoting Barefoot, supra, at 893, n. 4).
The COA determination under § 2253(c) requires an overview of the claims in the habeas petition and a general assessment of their merits. We look to the District Court’s application of AEDPA to petitioner’s constitutional claims and ask whether that resolution was debatable amongst jurists of reason. This, threshold inquiry does not require full consideration of the factual or legal bases adduced in support of the claims. In fact, the statute forbids it. When a court of appeals sidesteps this process by first deciding the merits of an appeal, and then justifying its denial of a COA based on its adjudication of the actual merits, it is in essence deciding an appeal without jurisdiction.
To that end, our opinion in Slack held that a COA does not require a showing that the appeal will succeed. Accordingly, a court of appeals should not decline the application for a COA merely because it believes the applicant will not demonstrate an entitlement to relief. The holding in Slack would mean very little if appellate review were denied because the prisoner did not convince a judge, or, for that matter, three judges, that he or she would prevail. It is consistent with §2253 that a COA will issue in some instances where there is no certainty of ultimate relief. After all, when a COA is sought, the whole premise is that the prisoner “ ‘has already failed in that endeavor.’ ” Barefoot, supra, at 893, n. 4.
Our holding should not be misconstrued as directing that a COA always must issue: Statutes such as AEDPA have placed more, rather than fewer, restrictions on the power of federal courts to grant writs of habeas corpus to state prisoners. Duncan v. Walker, 533 U. S. 167, 178 (2001) (“ ‘AEDPA’s purpose [is] to further the principles of comity, finality, and federalism’” (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 420, 436 (2000))); Williams v. Taylor, 529 U. S. 362, 399 (2000) (opinion of O’Connor, J.). The concept of a threshold, or gateway, test was not the innovation of AEDPA. Congress established a threshold prerequisite to appealability in 1908, in large part because it was “concerned with the increasing number of frivolous habeas corpus petitions challenging capital sentences which delayed execution pending completion of the appellate process....” Barefoot, supra, at 892, n. 3. By enacting AEDPA, using the specific standards the Court had elaborated earlier for the threshold test, Congress confirmed the necessity and the requirement of differential treatment for those appeals deserving of attention from those that plainly do not. It follows that issuance of a COA must not be proforma or a matter of course.
A prisoner seeking a COA must prove “ ‘something more than the absence of frivolity’ ” or the existence of mere “good faith” on his or her part. Barefoot, supra, at 893. We do not require petitioner to prove, before the issuance of a COA, that some jurists would grant the petition for habeas corpus. Indeed, a claim can be debatable even though every jurist of reason might agree, after the COA has been granted and the case has received full consideration, that petitioner will not prevail. As we stated in Slack, “[w]here a district court has rejected the constitutional claims on the merits, the showing required to satisfy § 2253(c) is straightforward: The petitioner must demonstrate that reasonable jurists would find the district court’s assessment of the constitutional claims debatable or wrong.” 529 U. S., at 484.
B
Since Miller-El’s claim rests on a Batson violation, resolution of his COA application requires a preliminary, though not definitive, consideration of the three-step framework mandated by Batson and reaffirmed in our later precedents. E. g., Purkett v. Elem, 514 U. S. 765 (1995) (per curiam); Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352 (1991) (plurality opinion). Contrary to the state trial court’s ruling on remand, the State now concedes that petitioner, Miller-El, satisfied step one: “[T]here is no dispute that Miller-El presented a prima facie claim” that prosecutors used their peremptory challenges to exclude venire members on the basis of race. Brief for Respondent 32. Petitioner, for his part, acknowledges that the State proceeded through step two by proffering facially race-neutral explanations for these strikes. Under Batson, then, the question remaining is step three: whether Miller-El “has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination.” Hernandez, supra, at 359.
As we confirmed in Purkett v. Elem, 514 U. S., at 768, the critical question in determining whether a prisoner has proved purposeful discrimination at step three is the persuasiveness of the prosecutor’s justification for his peremptory strike. At this stage, “implausible or fantastic justifications may (and probably will) be found to be pretexts for purposeful discrimination.” Ibid. In that instance the issue comes down to whether the trial court finds the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanations to be credible. Credibility can be measured by, among other factors, the prosecutor’s demeanor; by how reasonable, or how improbable, the explanations are; and by whether the proffered rationale has some basis in accepted trial strategy.
In Hernandez v. New York, a plurality of the Court concluded that a state court’s finding of the absence of discriminatory intent is “a pure issue of fact” accorded significant deference:
“Deference to trial court findings on the issue of discriminatory intent makes particular sense in this context because, as we noted in Batson, the finding ‘largely will turn on evaluation of credibility.’ 476 U. S., at 98, n. 21. In the typical peremptory challenge inquiry, the decisive question will be whether counsel’s race-neutral explanation for a peremptory challenge should be believed. There will seldom be much evidence bearing on that issue, and the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge. As with the state of mind of a juror, evaluation of the prosecutor’s state of mind based on demeanor and credibility lies ‘peculiarly within a trial judge’s province.’ Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 428 (1985), citing Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1038 (1984).” 500 U. S., at 365.
Deference is necessary because a reviewing court, which analyzes only the transcripts from voir dire, is not as well positioned as the trial court is to make credibility determinations. “[I]f an appellate court accepts a trial court’s finding that a prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation for his peremptory challenges should be believed, we fail to see how the appellate court nevertheless could find discrimination. The credibility of the prosecutor’s explanation goes to the heart of the equal protection analysis, and once that has been settled, there seems nothing left to review.” Id., at 367.
In the context of direct review, therefore, we have noted that “the trial court’s decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a finding of fact of the sort accorded great deference on appeal” and will not be overturned unless clearly erroneous. Id., at 364. A federal court’s collateral review of a state-court decision must be consistent with the respect due state courts in our federal system. Where 28 U. S. C. §2254 applies, our habeas jurisprudence embodies this deference. Factual determinations by state courts are presumed correct absent clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, § 2254(e)(1), and a decision adjudicated on the merits in a state court and based on a factual determination will not be overturned on factual grounds unless objectively unreasonable in light of the evidence presented in the state-court proceeding, § 2254(d)(2); see also Williams, 529 U. S., at 399 (opinion of O’Connor, J.).
Even in the context of federal habeas, deference does not imply abandonment or abdication of judicial review. Deference does not by definition preclude relief. A federal court can disagree with a state court’s credibility determination and, when guided by AEDPA, conclude the decision was unreasonable or that the factual premise was incorrect by clear and convincing evidence. In the context of the threshold examination in this Batson claim the issuance of a COA can be supported by any evidence demonstrating that, despite the neutral explanation of the prosecution, the peremptory strikes in the final analysis were race based. It goes without saying that this includes the facts and circumstances that were adduced in support of the prima facie case. Cf. Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U. S. 133 (2000) (in action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, employee’s prima facie case and evidence that employer’s race-neutral response was a pretext can support a finding of purposeful discrimination). Only after a COA is granted will a reviewing court determine whether the trial court’s determination of the prosecutor’s neutrality with respect to race was objectively unreasonable and has been rebutted by clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. At this stage, however, we only ask whether the District Court’s application of AEDPA deference, as stated in §§ 2254(d)(2) and (e)(1), to petitioner’s Batson claim was debatable amongst jurists of reason.
C
Applying these rules to Miller-El’s application, we have no difficulty concluding that a COA should have issued. We conclude, on our review of the record at this stage, that the District Court did not give full consideration to the substantial evidence petitioner put forth in support of the prima facie case. Instead, it accepted without question the state court’s evaluation of the demeanor of the prosecutors and jurors in petitioner’s trial. The Court of Appeals evaluated Miller-El’s application for a COA in the same way. In ruling that petitioner’s claim lacked sufficient merit to justify appellate proceedings, the Court of Appeals recited the requirements for granting a writ under § 2254, which it interpreted as requiring petitioner to prove that the state-court decision was objectively unreasonable by clear and convincing evidence.
This was too demanding a standard on more than one level. It was incorrect for the Court of Appeals, when looking at the merits, to merge the independent requirements of §§ 2254(d)(2) and (e)(1). AEDPA does not require petitioner to prove that a decision is objectively unreasonable by clear and convincing evidence. The clear and convincing evidence standard is found in § 2254(e)(1), but that subsection pertains only to state-court determinations of factual issues, rather than decisions. Subsection (d)(2) contains the unreasonable requirement and applies to the granting of habeas relief rather than to the granting of a COA.
The Court of Appeals, moreover, was incorrect for an even more fundamental reason. Before the issuance of a COA, the Court of Appeals had no jurisdiction to resolve the merits of petitioner’s constitutional claims. True, to the extent that the merits of this case will turn on the agreement or disagreement with a state-court factual finding, the clear and convincing evidence and objective unreasonableness standards will apply. At the COA stage, however, a court need not make a definitive inquiry into this matter. As we have said, a COA determination is a separate proceeding, one distinct from the underlying merits. Slack, 529 U. S., at 481; Hohn, 524 U. S., at 241. The Court of Appeals should have inquired whether a “substantial showing of the denial of a constitutional right” had been proved. Deciding the substance of an appeal in what should only be a threshold inquiry undermines the concept of a COA. The question is the debatability of the underlying constitutional claim, not the resolution of that debate.
In this case, the statistical evidence alone raises some debate as to whether the prosecution acted with a race-based reason when striking prospective jurors. The prosecutors used their peremptory strikes to exclude 91% of the eligible African-American venire members, and only one served on petitioner’s jury. In total, 10 of the prosecutors’ 14 peremptory strikes were used against African-Americans. Happenstance is unlikely to produce this disparity.
The case for debatability is not weakened when we examine the State’s defense of the disparate treatment. The Court of Appeals held that “[t]he presumption of correctness is especially strong, where, as here, the trial court and state habeas court are one and the same.” 261 F. 3d, at 449. As we have noted, the trial court held its Batson hearing two years after the voir dire. While the prosecutors had proffered contemporaneous race-neutral justifications for many of their peremptory strikes, the state trial court, had no occasion to judge the credibility of these explanations at that time because our equal protection jurisprudence then, dictated by Swain, did not require it. As a result, the evidence presented to the trial court at the Batson hearing was subject to the usual risks of imprecision and distortion from the passage of time.
In this case, three of the State’s proffered race-neutral rationales for striking African-American jurors pertained just as well to some white jurors who were not challenged and who did serve on the jury. The prosecutors explained that their peremptory challenges against six African-American potential jurors were based on ambivalence about the death penalty; hesitancy to vote to execute defendants capable of being rehabilitated; and the jurors’ own family history of criminality. In rebuttal of the prosecution’s explanation, petitioner identified two empaneled white jurors who expressed ambivalence about the death penalty in a manner similar to their African-American counterparts who were the subject of prosecutorial peremptory challenges. One indicated that capital punishment was not appropriate for a first offense, and another stated that it would be “difficult” to impose a death sentence. Similarly, two white jurors expressed hesitation in sentencing to death a defendant who might be rehabilitated; and four white jurors had family members with criminal histories. As a consequence, even though the prosecution’s reasons for striking African-American members of the venire appear race neutral, the application of these rationales to the venire might have been selective and based on racial considerations. Whether a comparative juror analysis would demonstrate the prosecutors’ rationales to have been pretexts for discrimination is an unnecessary determination at this stage, but the evidence does make debatable the District Court’s conclusion that no purposeful discrimination occurred.
We question the Court of Appeals’ and state trial court’s dismissive and strained interpretation of petitioner’s evidence of disparate questioning. 261 F. 3d, at 452 (“The findings of the state court that there was no disparate questioning of the Batson jurors... [is] fully supported by the record”). Petitioner argues that the prosecutors’ sole purpose in using disparate questioning was to elicit responses from the African-American venire members that reflected an opposition to the death penalty or an unwillingness to impose a minimum sentence, either of which justified for-cause challenges by the prosecution under the then-applicable state law. This is more than a remote possibility. Disparate questioning did occur. Petitioner submits that disparate questioning created the appearance of divergent opinions even though the
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.
The issues tendered in this case are the construction and, ultimately, the constitutionality of 18 U. S. C. § 610, an Act of Congress that prohibits corporations and labor organizations from making “a contribution or expenditure in connection with” any election for federal office. This is a direct appeal by the Government from a judgment of the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan dismissing a four-count indictment that charged appellee, a labor organization, with having made expenditures in violation of that law. Appellee had moved to dismiss the indictment on the grounds (1) that it failed to state an offense under the statute and (2) that the provisions of the statute “on their face and as construed and applied” are unconstitutional. The district judge held that the indictment did not allege a statutory offense and that he was therefore not required to rule upon the constitutional questions presented. 138 F. Supp. 53. The case came here, 351 U. S. 904, under the Criminal Appeals Act of 1907, as amended, 18 U. S. C. § 3731.
It is desirable at the outset to quote the statute in its entirety:
“It is unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by authority of any law of Congress, -to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, or for any corporation whatever, or any labor organization to make a contribution or expenditure in connection with any election at which Presidential and Vice Presidential electors or a Senator or Representative in, or a Delegate or Resident Commissioner to Congress are to be voted for, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any of the foregoing offices, or for any candidate, political committee, or other person to accept or receive any contribution prohibited by this section.
“Every corporation or labor organization which makes any contribution or expenditure in violation of this section shall be fined not more than $5,000; and every officer or director of any corporation, or officer of any labor organization, who consents to any contribution or expenditure by the corporation or labor organization, as the case may be, and any person who accepts or receives any contribution, in violation of this section, shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and-if the violation was willful, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.
“For the purposes of this section ‘labor organization’ means any organization of any kind, or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exist for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work.” 18 U. S. C. § 610, taken from the Act of June 23, 1947, 61 Stat. 136, 159.
Appreciation of the circumstances that begot this statute is necessary for its understanding, and understanding of it is necessary for adjudication of the legal problems before us. Speaking broadly, what is involved here is the integrity of our electoral process, and, not less, the responsibility of the individual citizen for the successful functioning of that process. This case thus raises issues not less than basic to a democratic society.
The concentration of wealth consequent upon the industrial expansion in the post-Civil War era had profound implications for American life. The impact of the abuses resulting from this concentration gradually made itself felt by a rising tide of reform protest in the last decade of the nineteenth century. The Sherman Law was a response to the felt threat to economic freedom created by enormous industrial combines. The income tax law of 1894 reflected congressional concern over the growing disparity of income between the many and the few.
No less lively, although slower to evoke federal action, was popular feeling that aggregated capital unduly influenced politics, an influence not stopping short of corruption. The matter is not exaggerated by two leading historians :
“The nation was fabulously rich but its wealth was gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of the population, and the power of wealth threatened to undermine the political integrity of the Republic.” 2 Morison and Commager, The Growth of the American Republic (4th ed. 1950), 355.
In the 90’s many States passed laws requiring candidates for office and their political committees to make public the sources and amounts of contributions to their campaign funds and the recipients and amounts of their campaign expenditures. The theory behind these laws was that- the spotlight of publicity would discourage corporations from making political contributions and would thereby end their control over party policies. But these state publicity laws either became dead letters or were found to be futile. As early as 1894, the sober-minded Elihu Root saw the need for more effective legislation. He urged the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York to prohibit political contributions by corporations:
“The idea is to prevent... the great railroad companies, the great insurance companies, the great telephone companies, the great aggregations of wealth from using their corporate funds, directly or indirectly, to send members of the legislature to these halls in order to vote for their protection and the advancement of their interests as against those of the public. It strikes at a constantly growing evil which has done more to shake the confidence of the plain people of small means of this country in our political institutions than any other practice which has ever obtained since the foundation of our Government. And I believe that the time has come when something ought to be done to put a check to the giving of $50,000 or $100,000 by a great corporation toward political purposes upon the understanding that a debt is created from a political party to it.” Quoted in Hearings before House Committee on Elections, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. 12; see Root, Addresses on Government and Citizenship (Bacon and Scott ed. 1916), 143.
Concern over the size and source of campaign funds so actively entered the presidential campaign of 1904 that it crystallized popular sentiment for federal action to purge national politics of what was conceived to be the pernicious influence of “big money” campaign contributions. A few days after the election of 1904, the defeated candidate for the presidency said:
“The greatest moral question which now confronts us is, Shall the trusts and corporations be prevented from contributing money to control or aid in controlling elections?” Quoted, Hearings, supra, at 56.
President Theodore Roosevelt quickly responded to this national mood. In his annual message to Congress on December 5, 1905, he recommended that:
“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law; directors should not be permitted to use stockholders’ money for such purposes; and, moreover, a prohibition of this kind would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts.” 40 Cong. Rec. 96.
Grist was added to the reformers’ mill by the investigation of the great life insurance companies conducted by the Joint Committee of the New York Legislature, the Armstrong Committee, under the guidance of Charles Evans Hughes. The Committee’s report, filed early in 1906, revealed that one insurance company alone had contributed almost $50,000 to a national campaign committee in 1904 and had given substantial amounts in preceding presidential campaigns. The Committee concluded:
“Contributions by insurance corporations for political purposes should be strictly forbidden. Neither executive officers nor directors should be allowed to use the moneys paid for purposes of insurance in support of political candidates or platforms.... Whether made for the purpose of supporting political views or with the desire to obtain protection for the corporation, these contributions have been wholly unjustifiable. In the one case executive officers have sought to impose their political views upon a constituency of divergent convictions, and in the other they have been guilty of a serious offense against public morals. The frank admission that moneys have been obtained for use in State campaigns upon the expectation that candidates thus aided in their election would support the interests of the companies, has exposed both those who solicited the contributions and those who made them to severe and just condemnation.” Report of the Joint Committee of the Senate and Assembly of the State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Affairs of Life Insurance Companies, 397 (1906).
Less than a month later the Committee on Elections of the House of Representatives began considering a number of proposals designed to cleanse the political process. Some bills prohibited political contributions by certain classes of corporations; some merely required disclosure of contributions; and others made bribery at elections a federal crime. The feeling of articulate reform groups was reflected at a public hearing held by the Committee. Perry Belmont, leader of a nation-wide organization advocating a federal publicity bill, stated:
“... this thing has come to the breaking point. We have had enough of it. We don’t want any more secret purchase of organizations, which nullifies platforms, nullifies political utterances and the pledges made by political leaders in and out of Congress.” Hearings before House Committee on Elections, 59th Cong., 1st Sess. 12.
This view found strong support in the testimony of Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor, who said, with respect to the publicity bill:
“Whether this bill meets all of the needs may be questioned; that is open to discussion; but the necessity for some law upon the subject is patent to every man who hopes for the maintenance of the institutions under which we live. It is doubtful to my mind if the contributions and expenditures of vast sums of money in the nominations and elections for our public offices can continue to increase without endangering the endurance of our Republic in its purity and in its essence.
“... If the interests of any people are threatened by corruption in our public life or corruption in elections, surely it must of necessity be those, that large class of people, whom we for convenience term the wageworkers.
“I am not in a mood, and never am, to indulge in denunciations or criticism, but it does come to me sometimes that one of the reasons for the absence of legislation of a liberal or sympathetic or just character, so far as it affects the interest of the wage-earners of America, can be fairly well traced with the growth of the corruption funds and the influences that are in operation during elections and campaigns.... I am under the impression that the patience of the American workingmen is about exhausted—
“... [If] we are really determined that our elections shall be free from the power of money and its lavish use and expenditure without an accounting to the conscience and the judgment of the people of America, we will have to pass some measure of this kind.” Id.. at 28-31.
President Roosevelt’s annual message of 1906 listed as the first item of congressional business a law prohibiting political contributions by corporations. 41 Cong. Rec. 22. Shortly thereafter, in 1907, Congress provided:
“That it shall be unlawful for any national bank, or any corporation organized by authority of any laws of Congress, to make a money contribution in connection with any election to any political office. It shall also be unlawful for any corporation whatever to make a money contribution in connection with any election at which Presidential and Vice-Presidential electors or a Representative in Congress is to be voted for or any election by any State legislature of a United States Senator.” 34 Stat. 864.
As the historical background of this statute indicates, its aim was not merely to prevent the subversion of the integrity of the electoral process. Its underlying philosophy was to sustain the active, alert responsibility of the individual citizen in a democracy for the wise conduct of government.
This Act of 1907 was merely the first concrete manifestation of a continuing congressional concern for elections “free from the power of money.” (See statement of Samuel Gompers, supra.) The 1909 Congress witnessed unsuccessful attempts to amend the Act to proscribe the contribution of anything of value and to extend its application to the election of state legislatures. The Congress of 1910 translated popular demand for further curbs upon the political power of wealth into a publicity law that required committees operating to influence the results of congressional elections in two or more States to report all contributions and disbursements and to identify contributors and recipients of substantial sums. That law also required persons who spent more than $50 annually for the purpose of influencing congressional elections in more than one State to report those expenditures if they were not made through a political committee. 36 Stat. 822. At the next session that Act was extended to require all candidates for the Senate and the House of Representatives to make detailed reports with respect to both nominating and election campaigns. The amendment also placed maximum limits on the amounts that congressional candidates could spend in seeking nomination and election, and forbade them from promising employment for the purpose of obtaining support. 37 Stat. 25. And in 1918 Congress made it unlawful either to offer or to solicit anything of value to influence voting. 40 Stat. 1013.
This Court’s decision in Newberry v. United States, 256 U. S. 232, invalidating federal regulation of Senate primary elections, led to the Federal Corrupt Practices Act of 1925, 43 Stat. 1070, a comprehensive revision of existing legislation. The debates preceding that Act’s passage reveal an attitude important to an understanding of the course of this legislation. Thus, Senator Robinson, one of the leaders of the Senate, said:
“We all know... that one of the great political evils of the time is the apparent hold on political parties which business interests and certain organizations seek and sometimes obtain by reason of liberal campaign contributions. Many believe that when an individual or association of individuals makes large contributions for the purpose of aiding candidates of political parties in winning the elections, they expect, and sometimes demand, and occasionally, at least, receive, consideration by the beneficiaries of their contributions which not infrequently is harmful to the general public interest. It is unquestionably an evil which ought to be dealt with, and dealt with intelligently and effectively.” 65 Cong. Rec. 9507-9508.
One of the means chosen by Congress to deal with this evil was § 313 of the 1925 Act, which strengthened the 1907 statute (1) by changing the phrase “money contribution” to “contribution” (§ 302 (d) defined “contribution” broadly); (2) by extending the prohibition on corporate contributions to the election to Congress of Delegates and Resident Commissioners; and (3) by penalizing the recipient of any forbidden contribution as well as the contributor.
When, in 1940, Congress moved to extend the Hatch Act, 53 Stat. 1147, which was designed to free the political process of the abuses deemed to accompany the operation of a vast civil administration, its reforming zeal also led Congress to place further restrictions upon the political potentialities of wealth. Section 20 of the law amending the Hatch Act made it unlawful for any “political committee,” as defined in the Act of 1925, to receive contributions of more than $3,000,000 or to make expenditures of more than that amount in any calendar year. And § 13 made it unlawful “for any person, directly or indirectly, to make contributions in an aggregate amount in excess of $5,000, during any calendar year, or in connection with any campaign for nomination or election, to or on behalf of any candidate for an elective Federal office” or any committee supporting such a candidate. The term “person” was defined to include any committee, association, organization or other group of persons. 54 Stat. 767. In offering § 13 from the Senate floor Senator Bankhead said:
“We all know that money is the chief source of corruption. We all know that large contributions to political campaigns not only put the political party under obligation to the large contributors, who demand pay in the way of legislation, but we also know that large sums of money are used for the purpose of conducting expensive campaigns through the newspapers and over the radio; in the publication of all sorts of literature, true and untrue; and for the purpose of paying the expenses of campaigners sent out into the country to spread propaganda, both true and untrue.” 86 Cong. Rec. 2720.
The need for unprecedented economic mobilization propelled by World War II enormously stimulated the power of organized labor and soon aroused consciousness of its power outside its ranks. Wartime strikes gave rise to fears of the new concentration of power represented by the gains of trade unionism. And so the belief grew that, just as the great corporations had made huge political contributions to influence governmental action or inaction, whether consciously or unconsciously, the powerful unions were pursuing a similar course, and with the same untoward consequences for the democratic process. Thus, in 1943, when Congress passed the Smith-Connally Act to secure defense production against work stoppages, contained therein was a provision extending to labor organizations, for the duration of the war, § 313 of the Corrupt Practices Act. 57 Stat. 163, 167. The testimony of Congressman Landis, author of this measure, before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Labor makes plain the dominant concern that evoked it:
“The fact that a hearing has been granted is a high tribute to the ability of the Labor Committee to recognize the fact that public opinion toward the conduct of labor unions is rapidly undergoing a change. The public thinks, and has a right to think, that labor unions, as public institutions should be granted the same rights and no greater rights than any other public group. My bill seeks to put labor unions on exactly the same basis, insofar as their financial activities are concerned, as corporations have been on for many years.
“... One of the matters upon which I sensed that the public was taking a stand opposite to that of labor leaders was the question of the handling of funds of labor organizations. The public was aroused by many rumors of huge war chests being maintained by labor unions, of enormous fees and dues being extorted from war workers, of political contributions to parties and candidates which later were held as clubs over the head of high Federal officials.
“... The source of much of the national trouble today in the coal strike situation is that ill-advised political contribution of another day [referring, apparently, to the reported contribution of over $400,-000 by the United Mine Workers in the 1936 campaign, see S. Rep. No. 151, 75th Cong., 1st Sess.]. If the provision of my bill against such an activity has [sic] been in force when that contribution was made, the Nation, the administration, and the labor unions would be better off.” Hearings before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Labor on H. R. 804 and H. R. 1483, 78th Cong., 1st Sess. 1, 2, 4.
Despite § 313’s wartime application to labor organizations Congress was advised of enormous financial outlays said to have been made by some unions in connection with the national elections of 1944. The Senate’s Special Committee on Campaign Expenditures investigated, inter alia, the role of the Political Action Committee of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. The Committee found “no clear-cut violation of the Corrupt Practices Act on the part of the Political Action Committee” on the ground that it had made direct contributions only to candidates and political committees involved in state and local elections and federal primaries, to which the Act did not apply, and had limited its participation in federal elections to political “expenditures,” as distinguished from “contributions” to candidates or committees. S. Rep. No. 101, 79th Cong., 1st Sess. 23. The Committee also investigated, on complaint of Senator Taft, the Ohio C. I. O. Council’s distribution to the public at large of 200,000 copies of a pamphlet opposing the re-election of Senator Taft and supporting his rival. In response to the C. I. O.’s assertion that this was not a proscribed “contribution” but merely an “expenditure of its own funds to state its position to the world, exercising its right of free speech... the Committee requested the Department of Justice to bring a test case on these facts. Id., at 59. It also recommended extension of § 313 to cover primary campaigns and nominating conventions. Id., at 81. A minority of the Committee, Senators Ball and Ferguson, advocated further amendment of § 313 to proscribe “expenditures” as well as “contributions” in order to avoid the possibility of emasculation of the statutory policy through a narrow judicial construction of “contributions.” Id., at 83.
The 1945 Report of the House Special Committee to Investigate Campaign Expenditures expressed concern over the vast amounts that some labor organizations were devoting to politics:
“The scale of operations of some of these organizations is impressive. Without exception, they operate on a Nation-wide basis; and many of them have affiliated local organizations. One was found to have an annual budget for 'educational’ work approximating $1,500,000, and among other things regularly supplies over 500 radio stations with ‘briefs for broadcasters.’ Another, with an annual budget of over $800,000 for political ‘education,’ has distributed some 80,000,000 pieces of literature, including a quarter million copies of one article. Another, representing an organized labor membership of 5,000,000, has raised $700,000 for its national organizations in union contributions for political ‘education’ in a few months, and a great deal more has been raised for the same purpose and expended by its local organizations.” H. R. Rep. No. 2093, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. 3.
Like the Senate Committee, it advocated extension of § 313 to primaries and nominating conventions, id., at 9, and noted the existence of a controversy over the scope of “contribution.” Id., at 11. The following year the House Committee made a further study of the activities of organizations attempting to influence the outcome of federal elections. It found that the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen and other groups employed professional political organizers, sponsored partisan radio programs and distributed campaign literature. H. R. Rep. No. 2739, 79th Cong., 2d Sess. 36-37. It concluded that:
“The intent and purpose of the provision of the act prohibiting any corporation 5r labor organization making any contribution in connection with any election would be wholly defeated if it were assumed that the term ‘making any contribution’ related only to the donating of money directly to a candidate, and excluded the vast expenditures of money in the activities herein shown to be engaged in extensively. Of what avail would a law be to prohibit the contributing direct to a candidate and yet permit the expenditure of large sums in his behalf?
“The committee is firmly convinced, after a thorough study of the provisions of the act, the legislative history of the same, and the debates on the said provisions when it was pending before the House, that the act was intended to prohibit such expenditures.” Id., at 40.
Accordingly, to prevent further evasion of the statutory policy, the Committee attached to its recommendation that the prohibition of contributions by labor organizations be made permanent the additional proposal that the statute
“be clarified so as to specifically provide that expenditures of money for salaries to organizers, purchase of radio time, and other expenditures by the prohibited organizations in connection with elections, constitute violations of the provisions of said section, whether or not said expenditures are with or without the knowledge or consent of the candidates.” Id,, at 46. (Italics omitted.)
Early in 1947 the Special Committee to Investigate Senatorial Campaign Expenditures in the 1946 elections, the Ellender Committee, urged similar action to “plug the existing loophole,” S. Rep. No. 1, Part 2, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 38-39, and Senator Ellender introduced a bill to that effect. o
Shortly thereafter, Congress again acted to protect the political process from what it deemed to be the corroding effect of money employed in elections by aggregated power. Section 304 of the labor bill introduced into the House by Representative Hartley in 1947, like the Ellender bill, embodied the changes recommended in the reports of the Senate and House Committees on Campaign Expenditures. It sought to amend § 313 of the Corrupt Practices Act to proscribe any “expenditure” as well as “any contribution,” to make permanent § 313’s application to labor organizations and to extend its coverage to federal primaries and nominating conventions. The Report of the House Committee on Education and Labor, which considered and approved the Hartley bill, merely summarized § 304, H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 46, and this section gave rise to little debate in the House. See 93 Cong. Rec. 3428, 3522. Because no similar measure was in the labor bill introduced by Senator Taft, the Senate as a whole did not consider the provisions of § 304 until they had been adopted by the Conference Committee. In explaining § 304 to his colleagues, Senator Taft, who was one of the conferees, said:
“I may say that the amendment is in exactly the same words which were recommended by the Ellender committee, which investigated expenditures by Senators in the last election.... In this instance the words of the Smith-Connally Act have been somewhat changed in effect so as to plug up a loophole which obviously developed, and which, if the courts had permitted advantage to be taken of it, as a matter of fact, would absolutely have destroyed the prohibition against political advertising by corporations. If 'contribution’ does not mean ‘expenditure/ then a candidate for office could have his corporation friends publish an advertisement for him in the newspapers every day for a month before election. I do not think the law contemplated such a thing, but it was claimed that it did, at least when it applied to labor organizations. So, all we are doing here is plugging up the hole which developed, following the recommendation by our own Elections Committee, in the Ellender bill.” 93 Cong. Rec. 6439.
After considerable debate, the conference version was approved by the Senate, and the bill subsequently became law despite the President’s veto. It is this section of the statute that the District Court held did not reach the activities alleged in the indictment.
On review under the Criminal Appeals Act of a district court judgment dismissing an indictment on the basis of statutory interpretation, this Court must take the indictment as it was construed by the district judge. United States v. Borden Co., 308 U. S. 188. The court below summarized the allegations of the indictment at the outset of its opinion:
“Here the specific charge is that the 'expenditure’ violation came in connection with the selection of candidates for a senator and representatives to the United States Congress during the 1954 primary and general elections. It is alleged that defendant paid a specific amount from its general treasury fund to Luckoff and Wayburn Productions, Detroit, Michigan, to defray the costs of certain television broadcasts sponsored by the Union from commercial television station WJBK.
“It is charged that the broadcasts urged and endorsed selection of certain persons to be candidates for representatives and senator to the Congress of the United States and included expressions of political advocacy intended by defendant to influence the electorate and to affect the results of the election.
“It is further charged that the fund used came from the Union’s dues, was not obtained by voluntary political contributions or subscriptions from members of the Union, and was not paid for by advertising or sales.” 138 F. Supp., at 54.
Thus, for our purposes, the indictment charged appellee with having used union dues to sponsor commercial television broadcasts designed to influence the electorate to select certain candidates for Congress in connection with the 1954 elections.
To deny that such activity, either on the part of a corporation or a labor organization, constituted an “expenditure in connection with any [federal] election” is to deny the long series of congressional efforts calculated to avoid the deleterious influences on federal elections resulting from the use of money by those who exercise control over large aggregations of capital. More particularly, this Court would have to ignore the history of the statute from the time it was first made applicable to labor organizations. As indicated by the reports of the Congressional Committees that investigated campaign expenditures, it was to embrace precisely the kind of indirect contribution alleged in the indictment that Congress amended § 313 to proscribe “expenditures.” It is open to the Government to prove under this indictment activity by appellee that, except for an irrelevant difference in the medium of communication employed, is virtually indistinguishable from the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen’s purchase of radio time to sponsor candidates or the Ohio C. I. O.’s general distribution of pamphlets to oppose Senator Taft. Because such conduct was claimed to be merely “an expenditure [by the union] of its own funds to state its position to the world,” the Senate and House Committees recommended and Congress enacted, as we have seen, the prohibition of “expenditures” as well as “contributions” to “plug the existing loophole.”
Although not entitled to the same weight as these carefully considered committee reports, the Senate debate preceding the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act confirms what these reports demonstrate. A colloquy between Senator Taft and Senator Pepper dealt with the problem confronting us:
“Mr. Pepper. Does what the Senator has said in the past also apply to a radio speech? If a national labor union, for example, should believe that it was in the public interest to elect the Democratic Party instead of the Republican Party, or vice versa, would it be forbidden by this proposed act to pay for any radio time, for anybody to make a speech that would express to the people the point of view of that organization?
“Mr. Taft. If it contributed its own funds to get somebody to make the speech, I would say they would violate the law.
“Mr. Pepper. If they paid for the radio time?
“Mr. Taft. If they are simply giving the time, I would say not; I would say that is in the course of their regular business.
“Mr. Pepper. What I mean is this: I was not assuming that the radio station was owned by the labor organization. Suppose that in the 1948 campaign, Mr. William Green, as president of the American Federation of Labor, should believe it to be in the interest of his membership to go on the radio and support one party or the other in the national election, and should use American Federation of Labor funds to pay for the radio time. Would that be an expenditure which is forbidden to a labor organization under the statute?
“Mr. Taft. Yes.” 93 Cong. Rec. 6439.
The discussion that followed, while suggesting that difficult questions might arise as to whether or not a particular broadcast fell within the statute, buttresses the conclusion that § 304 was understood to proscribe the expenditure of union dues to pay for commercial broadcasts that are designed to urge the public to elect a certain candidate or party.
United States v. C. I. O., 335 U. S. 106, presented a different situation. The decision in that case rested on the Court’s reading of an indictment that charged defendants with having distributed only to union members or purchasers an issue, Yol. 10, No. 28, of “The CIO News,” a weekly newspaper owned and published by the C. I. 0. That issue contained a statement by the C. I. 0. president urging all members of the C. I. O. to vote for a certain candidate. Thus, unlike the union-sponsored political broadcast alleged in this case, the communication for which the defendants were indicted in C. I. 0. was neither directed nor delivered to the public at large. The organization merely distributed its house organ to its own people. The evil at which Congress has struck in § 313 is the use of corporation or union funds to influence the public at large to vote for a particular candidate or a particular party.
Our holding that the District Court committed error when it dismissed the indictment for having failed to state an offense under the statute implies no disrespect for “the cardinal rule of construction, that wdiere the language of an act will bear two interpretations, equally obvious, that one which is clearly in accordance with the provisions of the constitution is to be preferred.” Knights Templars’ Indemnity Co. v. Jarman, 187 U. S. 197, 205. The case before us does not call for its application. Here only one interpretation may be fairly derived from the relevant materials. The rule of construction to be invoked when constitutional problems lurk in an ambiguous statute does not permit disregard of what Congress commands.
Appellee urges that if, as we hold, 18 U. S. C. § 610 embraces the activity alleged in the indictment, it offends several rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The Gov-eminent replies that the actual restraint upon union political activity imposed by the statute is so narrowly limited that Congress did not exceed its powers to protect the political process from undue influence of large aggregations of capital and to promote individual responsibility for democratic government. Once more we are confronted with the duty of being mindful of the conditions under which we may enter upon the delicate process of constitutional adjudication.
The impressive lesson of history confirms the wisdom of the repeated enunciation, the variously expressed admonition, of self-imposed inhibition against passing on the validity of an Act of Congress “unless absolutely necessary to a decision of the case.” Burton v. United States, 196 U. S. 283, 295. Observance of this principle makes for the minimum tension within our democratic political system where “Scarcely any question arises... which does not become, sooner or later, a subject of judicial debate.” 1 De Tocqueville, Democracy in America (4th Am. ed. 1843), 306.
The wisdom of refraining from avoidable constitutional pronouncements has been most vividly demonstrated on the rare occasions when the Court, forgetting “the fallibility of the human judgment,” has departed from its own practice. The Court’s failure in Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, “to take the smooth handle for the sake of repose” by disposing of the case solely upon “the outside issue” and the effects of its attempt “to settle the agitation” are familiar history. Bred Scott does not stand alone. These exceptions have rightly been characterized as among the Court’s notable “self-inflicted wounds.” Charles Evans Hughes, The Supreme Court of the United States, 50.
Clearly in this case it is not “absolutely necessary to a decision,” Burton v. United States, supra, to canvass the constitutional issues. The case came here under the Criminal Appeals Act because the District Court blocked the prosecution on the ground that the indictment failed to state an offense within § 313 of the Corrupt Practices Act. Our reversal of the district judge’s erroneous construction clears the way for the prosecution to proceed.
Refusal to anticipate constitutional questions is peculiarly appropriate in the circumstances of this case. First of all, these questions come to us unillumined by the consideration of a single judge — we are asked to decide them in the first instance. Again, only an adjudication on the merits can provide the concrete factual setting that sharpens the deliberative process especially demanded for constitutional decision. Finally, by remanding the case for trial it may well be that the Court will not be called upon to pass on the questions now raised. Compare United States v. Petrillo, 332 U. S. 1, 9 et seq., with the subsequent adjudication on the merits in United States v. Petrillo, 75 F. Supp. 176.
Counsel are prone to shape litigation, so far as it is within their control, in order to secure comprehensive rulings. This is true both of counsel for defendants and for the Government. Such desire on their part is not difficult to appreciate. But the Court has its responsibility. Matter now buried under abstract constitutional issues may, by the elucidation of a trial, be brought to the surface, and in the outcome constitutional questions may disappear. Allegations of the indictment hypothetically framed
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 Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner, a resident of Alabama and employed there by Lawler Construction Co., Inc., a Georgia corporation, was injured. Both he and Lawler were under Georgia’s Workmen’s Compensation Act at the time. Petitioner sued in an Alabama court under the Georgia Act and obtained a judgment by default against Lawler. Respondent, the insurer of Lawler, was sued in the Federal District Court by petitioner on his Alabama judgment, federal jurisdiction being based on diversity of citizenship. The District Court granted respondent’s motion to dismiss (224 F. Supp. 87) and the Court of Appeals affirmed. 324 F. 2d 499. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 377 U. S. 942.
The District Court and the Court of Appeals stood on Green v. J. A. Jones Construct. Co., 161 F. 2d 369, which held that a Mississippi state court had no jurisdiction to award damages under the Georgia Workmen’s Compensation Act and that the Federal District Court for Mississippi was under the same disability, Georgia decisions settling the point that the remedy provided by the Georgia Act is “an exclusive one which can be afforded only” by the Georgia Compensation Board. Ibid.
We assume that the lower courts were correct in stating what the Georgia law is. But the mere fact that petitioner, if he had sued in Georgia, would have had to follow that course does not necessarily mean that the Alabama state court was in error in taking jurisdiction of the cause.
The Alabama state court dealt with an injury occurring to an Alabama resident while working in Alabama. Under Bradford Electric Co. v. Clapper, 286 U. S. 145, a State could fix one exclusive remedy for personal injuries involving its residents wherever the accident happened and the Full Faith and Credit Clause (Art. IV, § 1) required the other States to refuse to enforce any inconsistent remedy. That case would have been on all fours with the present' one had petitioner been a resident of Georgia, rather than Alabama. Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, 294 U. S. 532, and Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Commission, 306 U. S. 493, mark a break with the Clapper philosophy. Alaska Packers allowed the State of residence of the injured employee to supply a remedy different from the Compensation Act of the place of the injury, even though the employee had agreed to be bound by the latter remedy. Pacific Insurance held that a person injured while working in California could recover under California’s Compensation Act even though the injured person was a Massachusetts resident, regularly employed there by a Massachusetts corporation and even though the Massachusetts Compensation Act purported to give an exclusive remedy. In Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U. S. 408, Arkansas, the place where the injury occurred, was allowed to grant common-law damages even though Missouri, the home State, had a Compensation Act that purported to be exclusive. As we stated in that case:
“Missouri can make her Compensation Act exclusive, if she chooses, and enforce it as she pleases within her borders. Once that policy is extended into other States, different considerations come into play. Arkansas can adopt Missouri’s policy if she likes. Or, as the Pacific Employers Insurance Co. case teaches, she may supplement it or displace it with another, insofar as remedies for acts occurring within her boundaries are concerned. Were it otherwise, the State where the injury occurred would be powerless to provide any remedies or safeguards to nonresident employees working within its borders. We do not think the Full Faith and Credit Clause demands that subserviency from the State of the injury.” Id., pp. 413-414.
The State where the employee lives and where he was injured has a large and considerable interest in the event. As we said in Carroll v. Lanza, supra, p. 413, “The State where the tort occurs certainly has a concern in the problems following in the wake of the injury. The problems of medical care and of possible dependents are among these . . . .” The State where the employee lives has perhaps even a larger concern, for it is there that he is expected to return; and it is on his community that the impact of the injury is apt to be most keenly felt. Certainly when the injury occurs in the home State of the employee, the interest of that State is at least commensurate with the interest, of the State in which an injury occurs involving a nonresident, as in Carroll v. Lanza. If Arkansas had a sufficient interest there to override Missouri's exclusive remedy, Alabama may override Georgia’s here.
The Alabama policy in that regard is reflected in the judgment rendered by the Alabama court on which this federal suit was instituted. That Alabama judgment adopted and enforced the remedy provided by Georgia — a procedure we indicated in Pacific Employers Ins. Co. v. Commission, supra, p. 500, a State might follow. Here as in Alaska Packers Assn. v. Commission, supra, p. 544, “. . . the compensation acts of either jurisdiction may, consistently with due process, be applied in either . . . .” We were consistent with that view in Carroll v. Lanza, supra, when we said, in what we have already quoted, that the State of the forum may “supplement” or “displace” the remedy of the other State, consistently with constitutional requirements. 349 U. S., p. 414.
It is earnestly argued by the dissent that the Green decision, supra, which the Court of Appeals followed in the present case, “did not rest on constitutional grounds,” post, p. 46. Rather it is said that Green expresses merely a state conflicts rule. We do not so read Green. There the court said that its decision was controlled by the principle that “where the provision for the liability claimed is coupled with a provision for a special remedy to be afforded not by a court but by a commission, that remedy and that alone must be employed . . . .” 161 F. 2d 359. This principle is almost a verbatim restatement of the rule adverted to in Tennessee Coal Co. v. George, 233 U. S. 354, 359: “ ‘where the provision for the liability is coupled with a provision for a special remedy, that remedy, and that alone, must be employed.’ ” And our older cases assumed that this broad rule was compelled by the Full Faith and Credit Clause. See, e. g., ibid., and cases cited; Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Sowers, 213 U. S. 55; and also the discussion in Pearson v. Northeast Airlines, Inc., 309 F. 2d 553. But, as we have demonstrated, that rule has been eroded by the line of cases beginning with Alaska Packers and Pacific Insurance. Our holding frees the Court of Appeals on remand to reconsider its holding free from any supposed constitutional compulsion.
Reversed.
We stated in Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 345 U. S. 514, 516:
“The states are free to adopt such rules of conflict of laws as they choose, Kryger v. Wilson, 242 U. S. 171 (1916), subject to the Full Faith and Credit Clause and other constitutional restrictions. The Full Faith and Credit Clause does not compel a state to adopt any particular set of rules of conflict of laws; it merely sets certain minimum requirements which each state must observe when asked to apply the law of a sister, state.”
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 State of Illinois moved to file its bill of complaint in this case on the theory that a “reciprocal treaty” between the States of Illinois and Michigan was violated by a decision of the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan which allowed recovery by two injured workmen against an Illinois re-insurance company. Federoff v. Ewing, 386 Mich. 474, 192 N. W. 2d 242 (1971). It claims that such an agreement arose when the two States enacted the Uniform Insurers Liquidation Act, which contains certain reciprocal features, and that the agreement has the dignity of an interstate compact.
The State of Illinois was a party to the case decided by the Supreme Court of Michigan through the person of the Director of Insurance of the State of Illinois, who was the liquidator of the workmen's compensation insurer, Highway Insurance Co. It was the imposition of liability upon that company’s re-insurer which Illinois claims was inappropriate under the uniform act. Review of the Michigan decision should have been sought in that case by means of a petition for writ of certiorari.
It is now too late for any such petition for certiorari to be filed. But original jurisdiction of the Court is not an alternative to the redress of grievances which could have been sought in the normal appellate process, if the remedy had been timely sought.
The problem presented is essentially one between private litigants and, though the point now raised may not have been presented in the Michigan litigation, these controversies áre recurring and essentially not state concerns.
While the complaint on its face is within our original, as well as our exclusive, jurisdiction, it seems apparent from the moving papers and the response that Illinois, though nominally a party, is here “in the vindication of the grievances of particular individuals.” Louisiana v. Texas, 176 U. S. 1, 16.
The motions to file briefs amici curiae by Jack Federoff, William F. Ewing, dba William Ewing Roofing Co., and John H. Shannon are granted.
The motion of the State of Illinois for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied.
See generally Frankfurter & Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution — a Study in Interstate Adjustments, 34 Yale L. J. 685 (1925); Engdahl, Characterization of Interstate Arrangements: When is a Compact not a Compact?, 64 Mich. L. Rev. 63 (1965); Note, At the Intersection of Jurisdiction and Choice of Law, 59 Calif. L. Rev. 1514 (1971).
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 Powell
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Rehnquist and Justice O’Connor joined.
In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974), we held that the First Amendment restricted the damages that a private individual could obtain from a publisher for a libel that involved a matter of public concern. More specifically, we held that in these circumstances the First Amendment prohibited awards of presumed and punitive damages for false and defamatory statements unless the plaintiff shows “actual malice,” that is, knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth. The question presented in this case is whether this rule of Gertz applies when the false and defamatory statements do not involve matters of public concern.
HH
Petitioner Dun & Bradstreet, a credit reporting agency, provides subscribers with financial and related information about businesses. All the information is confidential; under the terms of the subscription agreement the subscribers may not reveal it to anyone else. On July 26, 1976, petitioner sent a report to five subscribers indicating that respondent, a construction contractor, had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy. This report was false and grossly misrepresented respondent’s assets and liabilities. That same day, while discussing the possibility of future financing with its bank, respondent’s president was told that the bank had received the defamatory report. He immediately called petitioner’s regional office, explained the error, and asked for a correction. In addition, he requested the names of the firms that had received the false report in order to assure them that the company was solvent. Petitioner promised to look into the matter but refused to divulge the names of those who had received the report.
After determining that its report was indeed false, petitioner issued a corrective notice on or about August 3, 1976, to the five subscribers who had received the initial report. The notice stated that one of respondent’s former employees, not respondent itself, had filed for bankruptcy and that respondent “continued in business as usual.” Respondent told petitioner that it was dissatisfied with the notice, and it again asked for a list of subscribers who had seen the initial report. Again petitioner refused to divulge their names.
Respondent then brought this defamation action in Vermont state court. It alleged that the false report had injured its reputation and sought both compensatory and punitive damages. The trial established that the error in petitioner’s report had been caused when one of its employees, a 17-year-old high school student paid to review Vermont bankruptcy pleadings, had inadvertently attributed to respondent a bankruptcy petition filed by one of respondent’s former employees. Although petitioner’s representative testified that it was routine practice to check the accuracy of such reports with the businesses themselves, it did not try to verify the information about respondent before reporting it.
After trial, the jury returned a.verdiet in favor of respondent and awarded $50,000 in compensatory or presumed damages and $300,000 in punitive damages. Petitioner moved for a new trial. It argued that in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., supra, at 349, this Court had ruled broadly that “the States may not permit recovery of presumed or punitive damages, at least when liability is not based on a showing of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth,” and it argued that the judge’s instructions in this case permitted the jury to award such damages on a lesser showing. The trial court indicated some doubt as to whether Gertz applied to “non-media cases,” but granted a new trial “[bjecause of . . . dissatisfaction with its charge and . . . conviction that the interests of justice require[d]” it. App. 26.
The Vermont Supreme Court reversed. 143 Vt. 66, 461 A. 2d 414 (1983). Although recognizing that “in certain instances the distinction between media and nonmedia defendants may be difficult to draw,” the court stated that “no such difficulty is presented with credit reporting agencies, which are in the business of selling financial information to a limited number of subscribers who have paid substantial fees for their services.” Id., at 73, 461 A. 2d, at 417. Relying on this distinguishing characteristic of credit reporting firms, the court concluded that such firms are not “the type of media worthy of First Amendment protection as contemplated by New York Times [Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964),] and its progeny.” Id., at 73-74, 461 A. 2d, at 417-418. It held that the balance between a private plaintiff’s right to recover presumed and punitive damages without a showing of special fault and the First Amendment rights of “nonmedia” speakers “must be struck in favor of the private plaintiff defamed by a nonmedia defendant.” Id., at 75, 461 A. 2d, at 418. Accordingly, the court held “that as a matter of federal constitutional law, the media protections outlined in Gertz are inapplicable to nonmedia defamation actions.” Ibid.
Recognizing disagreement among the lower courts about when the protections of Gertz apply, we granted certiorari. 464 U. S. 959 (1983). We now affirm, although for reasons different from those relied upon by the Vermont Supreme Court.
II
As an initial matter, respondent contends that we need not determine whether Gertz applies in this case because the instructions, taken as a whole, required the jury to find “actual malice” before awarding presumed or punitive damages. The trial court instructed the jury that because the report was libelous per se, respondent was not required “to prove actual damages . . . since damage and loss [are] conclusively presumed.” App. 17; accord, id., at 19. It also instructed the jury that it could award punitive damages only if it found “actual malice.” Id., at 20. Its only other relevant instruction was that liability could not be established unless respondent showed “malice or lack of good faith on the part of the Defendant.” Id., at 18. Respondent contends that these references to “malice,” “lack of good faith,” and “actual malice” required the jury to find knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth — the “actual malice” of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964)—before it awarded presumed or punitive damages.
We reject this claim because the trial court failed to define any of these terms adequately. It did not, for example, provide the jury with any definition of the term “actual malice.” In fact, the only relevant term it defined was simple “malice.” And its definitions of this term included not only the New York Times formulation but also other concepts such as “bad faith” and “reckless disregard of the [statement’s] possible consequences.” App. 19. The instructions thus permitted the jury to award presumed and punitive damages on a lesser showing than “actúal malice.” Consequently, the trial court’s conclusion that the instructions did not satisfy Gertz was correct, and the Vermont Supreme Court’s determination that Gertz was inapplicable was necessary to its decision that the trial court erred in granting the motion for a new trial. We therefore must consider whether Gertz applies to the case before us.
“If you find that the Defendant acted in a bad faith towards the Plaintiff in publishing the Erroneous Report, or that Defendant intended to injure the Plaintiff in its business, or that it acted in a willful, wanton or reckless disregard of the rights and interests of the Plaintiff, the Defendant has acted maliciously and the privilege is destroyed. Further, if the Report was made with reckless disregard of the possible consequences, or if it was made with the knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity, it was made with malice.” App. 18-19 (emphasis added).
Ill
In New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra, the Court for the first time held that the First Amendment limits the reach of state defamation laws. That case concerned a public official’s recovery of damages for the publication of an advertisement criticizing police conduct in a civil rights demonstration. As the Court noted, the advertisement concerned “one of the major public issues of our time.” Id., at 271. Noting that “freedom of expression upon public questions is secured by the First Amendment,” id., at 269 (emphasis added), and that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open,” id., at 270 (emphasis added), the Court held that a public official cannot recover damages for defamatory falsehood unless he proves that the false 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,” id., at 280. In later cases, all involving public issues, the Court extended this same constitutional protection to libels of public figures, e. g., Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130 (1967), and in one case suggested in a plurality opinion that this constitutional rule should extend to libels of any individual so long as the defamatory statements involved a “matter of public or general interest,” Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 44 (1971) (opinion of Brennan, J.).
In Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323 (1974), we held that the protections of New York Times did not extend as far as Rosenbloom suggested. Gertz concerned a libelous article appearing in a magazine called American Opinion, the monthly outlet of the John Birch Society. The article in question discussed whether the prosecution of a policeman in Chicago was part of a Communist campaign to discredit local law enforcement agencies. The plaintiff, Gertz, neither a public official nor a public figure, was a lawyer tangentially involved in the prosecution. The magazine alleged that he was the chief architect of the “frame-up” of the police officer and linked him to Communist activity. Like every other case in which this Court has found constitutional limits to state defamation laws, Gertz involved expression on a matter of undoubted public concern.
In Gertz, we held that the fact that expression concerned a public issue did not by itself entitle the libel defendant to the constitutional protections of New York Times. These protections, we found, were not “justified solely by reference to the interest of the press and broadcast media in immunity from liability.” 418 U. S., at 343. Rather, they represented “an accommodation between [First Amendment] con-cernís] and the limited state interest present in the context of libel actions brought by public persons.” Ibid. In libel actions brought by private persons we found the competing interests different. Largely because private persons have not voluntarily exposed themselves to increased risk of injury from defamatory statements and because they generally lack effective opportunities for rebutting such statements, id., at 345, we found that the State possessed a “strong and legitimate . . . interest in compensating private individuals for injury to reputation.” Id., at 348-349. Balancing this stronger state interest against the same First Amendment interest at stake in New York Times, we held that a State could not allow recovery of presumed and punitive damages absent a showing of “actual malice.” Nothing in our opinion, however, indicated that this same balance would be struck regardless of the type of speech involved.
<
We have never considered whether the Gertz balance obtains when the defamatory statements involve no issue of public concern. To make this determination, we must employ the approach approved in Gertz and balance the State’s interest in compensating private individuals for injury to their reputation against the First Amendment interest in protecting this type of expression. This state interest is identical to the one weighed in Gertz. There we found that it was “strong and legitimate.” 418 U. S., at 348. A State should not lightly be required to abandon it,
“for, as Mr. Justice Stewart has reminded us, the individual’s right to the protection of his own good name ‘reflects no more than our basic concept of the essential dignity and worth of every human being — a concept at the root of any decent system of ordered liberty. The protection of private personality, like the protection of life itself, is left primarily to the individual States under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. . . .’ Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, 92 (1966) (concurring opinion).” Id., at 341.
The First Amendment interest, on the other hand, is less important than the one weighed in Gertz. We have long recognized that not all speech is of equal First Amendment importance. It is speech on “‘matters of public concern’” that is “at the heart of the First Amendment’s protection.” First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U. S. 765, 776 (1978), citing Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 101 (1940). As we stated in Connick v. Myers, 461 U. S. 138, 145 (1983), this “special concern [for speech on public issues] is no mystery”:
“The First Amendment ‘was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.’ Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 484 (1957); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 269 (1964). ‘[S]peech concerning public affairs is more than self-expression; it is the essence of self-government.’ Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74-75 (1964). Accordingly, the Court has frequently reaffirmed that speech on public issues occupies the ‘ “highest rung of the hierarchy of First Amendment values,”’ and is entitled to special protection. NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U. S. 886, 913 (1982); Carey v. Brown, 447 U. S. 455, 467 (1980).”
In contrast, speech on matters of purely private concern is of less First Amendment concern. Id., at 146-147. As a number of state courts, including the court below, have recognized, the role of the Constitution in regulating state libel law is far more limited when the concerns that activated New York Times and Gertz are absent. In such a case,
“[t]here is no threat to the free and robust debate of public issues; there is no potential interference with a meaningful dialogue of ideas concerning self-government; and there is no threat of liability causing a reaction of self-censorship by the press. The facts of the present case are wholly without the First Amendment concerns with which the Supreme Court of the United States has been struggling.” Harley-Davidson Motorsports, Inc. v. Markley, 279 Ore. 361, 366, 568 P. 2d 1359, 1363 (1977).
Accord, Rowe v. Metz, 195 Colo. 424, 426, 579 P. 2d 83, 84 (1978); Denny v. Mertz, 106 Wis. 2d 636, 661, 318 N. W. 2d 141, 153, cert. denied, 459 U. S. 883 (1982).
While such speech is not totally unprotected by the First Amendment, see Connick v. Myers, supra, at 147, its protections are less stringent. In Gertz, we found that the state interest in awarding presumed and punitive damages was not “substantial” in view of their effect on speech at the core of First Amendment concern. 418 U. S., at 349. This interest, however, is “substantial” relative to the incidental effect these remedies may have on speech of significantly less constitutional interest. The rationale of the common-law rules has been the experience and judgment of history that “proof of actual damage will be impossible in a great many cases where, from the character of the defamatory words and the circumstances of publication, it is all but certain that serious harm has resulted in fact.” W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 112, p. 765 (4th ed. 1971); accord, Rowe v. Metz, supra, at 425-426, 579 P. 2d, at 84; Note, Developments in the Law—Defamation, 69 Harv. L. Rev. 875, 891-892 (1956). As a result, courts for centuries have allowed juries to presume that some damage occurred from many defamatory utter-anees and publications. Restatement of Torts § 568, Comment b, p. 162 (1938) (noting that Hale announced that damages were to be presumed for libel as early as 1670). This rule furthers the state interest in providing remedies for defamation by ensuring that those remedies are effective. In light of the reduced constitutional value of speech involving no matters of public concern, we hold that the state interest adequately supports awards of presumed and punitive damages — even absent a showing of “actual malice.”
V
The only remaining issue is whether petitioner’s credit report involved a matter of public concern. In a related context, we have held that “[w]hether . . . speech addresses a matter of public concern must be determined by [the expression’s] content, form, and context ... as revealed by the whole record.” Connick v. Myers, supra, at 147-148. These factors indicate that petitioner’s credit report concerns no public issue. It was speech solely in the individual interest of the speaker and its specific business audience. Cf. Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York, 447 U. S. 557, 561 (1980). This particular interest warrants no special protection when — as in this case — the speech is wholly false and clearly damaging to the victim’s business reputation. Cf. id., at 566; Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748, 771-772 (1976). Moreover, since the credit report was made available to only five subscribers, who, under the terms of the subscription agreement, could not disseminate it further, it cannot be said that the report involves any “strong interest in the free flow of commercial information.” Id., at 764. There is simply no credible argument that this type of credit reporting requires special protection to ensure that “debate on public issues [will] be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 270.
In addition, the speech here, like advertising, is hardy and unlikely to be deterred by incidental state regulation. See Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S., at 771-772. It is solely motivated by the desire for profit, which, we have noted, is a force less likely to be deterred than others. Ibid. Arguably, the reporting here was also more objectively verifiable than speech deserving of greater protection. See ibid. In any case, the market provides a powerful incentive to a credit reporting agency to be accurate, since false credit reporting is of no use to creditors. Thus, any incremental “chilling” effect of libel suits would be of decreased significance.
I — i >
We conclude that permitting recovery of presumed and punitive damages in defamation cases absent a showing of “actual malice” does hot violate the First Amendment when the defamatory statements do not involve matters of public concern. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Vermont Supreme Court.
It is so ordered.
Compare Denny v. Mertz, 106 Wis. 2d 636, 318 N. W. 2d 141, cert. denied, 459 U. S. 883 (1982) (Gertz inapplicable to private figure suits against nonmedia defendants); Stuempges v. Parke, Davis & Co., 297 N. W. 2d 252 (Minn. 1980) (same); Rowe v. Metz, 195 Colo. 424, 579 P. 2d 83 (1978) (same); and Harley-Davidson Motorsports, Inc. v. Markley, 279 Ore. 361, 568 P. 2d 1359 (1977) (same), with Antwerp Diamond Exchange, Inc. v. Better Business Bureau, 130 Ariz. 523, 637 P. 2d 733 (1981) (Gertz applicable in such situations); and Jacron Sales Co. v. Sindorf, 276 Md. 580, 350 A. 2d 688 (1976) (same).
Respondent also argues that petitioner did not seek the protections outlined in Gertz before the jury instructions were given and that the issue therefore was not preserved for review. Since the Vermont Supreme Court considered the federal constitutional issue properly presented and decided it, there is no bar to our review. See Orr v. Orr, 440 U. S. 268, 274-275 (1979).
The full instruction on malice reads as follows:
The dissent states that “[a]t several points the Court in Gertz makes perfectly clear [that] the restrictions of presumed and punitive damages were to apply in all cases.” Post, at 785, n. 11. Given the context of Gertz, however, the Court could have made “perfectly clear” only that these restrictions applied in cases involving public speech. In fact, the dissent itself concedes that “Gertz . . . focused largely on defining the circumstances under which protection of the central First Amendment value of robust debate of public issues should mandate plaintiffs to show actual malice to obtain a judgment and actual damages ....” Post, at 777 (original emphasis).
The dissent also incorrectly states that Gertz “specifically held,” post, at 779, 793, both “that the award of presumed and punitive damages on less than a showing of actual malice is not a narrowly tailored means to achieve the legitimate state purpose of protecting the reputation of private persons . . .,” post, at 779, and that “unrestrained presumed and punitive damages were ‘unnecessarily’ broad ... in relation to the legitimate state interests,” post, at 793-794. Although the Court made both statements, it did so only within the context of public speech. Neither statement controls here. What was “not . . . narrowly tailored” or was “‘unnecessarily’ broad” with respect to public speech is not necessarily so with respect to the speech now at issue. Properly understood, Gertz is consistent with the result we reach today.
This Court on many occasions has recognized that certain kinds of speech are less central to the interests of the First Amendment than others. Obscene speech and “fighting words” long have been accorded no protection. Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 483 (1957); Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 571-572 (1942); cf. Harisiades v. Shaughnessy, 342 U. S. 580, 591-592 (1952) (advocating violent overthrow of the Government is unprotected speech); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U. S. 697, 716 (1931) (publication of troopship sailings during wartime may be enjoined). In the area of protected speech, the most prominent example of reduced protection for certain kinds of speech concerns commercial speech. Such speech, we have noted, occupies a “subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values.” Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U. S. 447, 456 (1978). It also is more easily verifiable and less likely to be deterred by proper regulation. Virginia Pharmacy Bd. v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U. S. 748, 771-772 (1976). Accordingly, it may be regulated in ways that might be impermissible in the realm of noncommercial expression. Ohralik, supra, at 456; Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Public Service Comm’n of New York, 447 U. S. 557, 562-563 (1980).
Other areas of the law provide further examples. In Ohralik we noted that there are “[njumerous examples ... of communications that are regulated without offending the First Amendment, such as the exchange of information about securities, corporate proxy statements, the exchange of price and production information among competitors, and employers’ threats of retaliation for the labor activities of employees.” 436 U. S., at 456 (citations omitted). Yet similar regulation of political speech is subject to the most rigorous scrutiny. See Brown v. Hartlage, 456 U. S. 45, 52-53 (1982); New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 279, n. 19 (1964); Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 14 (1976). Likewise, while the power of the State to license lawyers, psychiatrists, and public school teachers — all of whom speak for a living — is unquestioned, this Court has held that a law requiring licensing of union organizers is unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516 (1945); see also Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29, 44 (1971) (opinion of Brennan, J.) (“the determinant whether the First Amendment applies to state libel actions is whether the utterance involved concerns an issue of public or general concern”).
As one commentator has remarked with respect to “the case of a commercial supplier of credit information that defames a person applying for credit” — the case before us today — “If the first amendment requirements outlined in Gertz apply, there is something clearly wrong with the first amendment or with Gertz.” Shiffrin, The First Amendment and Economic Regulation: Away From a General Theory of the First Amendment, 78 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1212, 1268 (1983).
The dissent, purporting to apply the same balancing test that we do today, concludes that even speech on purely private matters is entitled to the protections of Gertz. Post, at 786. Its “balance,” however, rests on a misinterpretation. In particular, the dissent finds language in Gertz that, it believes, shows the State’s interest to be “irrelevant.” See post, at 794. It is then an easy step for the dissent to say that the State’s interest is outweighed by even the reduced First Amendment interest in private speech. Gertz, however, did not say that the state interest was “irrelevant” in absolute terms. Indeed, such a statement is belied by Gertz itself, for it held that presumed and punitive damages were available under some circumstances. 418 U. S., at 349. Rather, what the Gertz language indicates is that the State’s interest is not substantial relative to the First Amendment interest in public speech. This language is thus irrelevant to today’s decision.
The dissent’s “balance,” moreover, would lead to the protection of all libels — no matter how attenuated their constitutional interest. If the dissent were the law, a woman of impeccable character who was branded a “whore” by a jealous neighbor would have no effective recourse unless she could prove “actual malice” by clear and convincing evidence. This is not malice in the ordinary sense, but in the more demanding sense of New York Times. The dissent would, in effect, constitutionalize the entire common law of libel.
The dissent suggests that our holding today leaves all credit reporting subject to reduced First Amendment protection. This is incorrect. The protection to be accorded a particular credit report depends on whether the report’s “content, form, and context” indicate that it concerns a public matter. We also do not hold, as the dissent suggests we do, post, at 787, that the report is subject to reduced constitutional protection because it constitutes economic or commercial speech. We discuss such speech, along with advertising, only to show how many of the same concerns that argue in favor of reduced constitutional protection in those areas apply here as well.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has noted that, while most States provide a qualified privilege against libel suits for commercial credit reporting agencies, in those States that do not there is a thriving credit reporting business and commercial credit transactions are not inhibited. Hood v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 486 F. 2d 25, 32 (1973), cert. denied, 415 U. S. 985 (1974). The court cited an empirical study comparing credit transactions in Boise, Idaho, where there is no privilege, with those in Spokane, Washington, where there is one. 486 F. 2d, at 32, and n. 18.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this appeal the guardian (tutrix) of an illegitimate minor child attacks the constitutionality of Louisiana’s laws that bar an illegitimate child from sharing equally with legitimates in the estate of their father who had publicly acknowledged the child, but who died without a will. To understand appellant’s constitutional arguments and our decision, it is necessary briefly to review the facts giving rise to this dispute. On March 15, 1962, a baby girl, Rita Vincent, was born to Lou Bertha Patterson (now Lou Bertha Labine) in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana. On May 10, 1962, Lou Bertha Patterson and Ezra Vincent, as authorized by Louisiana law, jointly executed before a notary a Louisiana State Board of Health form acknowledging that Ezra Vincent was the “natural father” of Rita Vincent. This public acknowledgment of parentage did not, under Louisiana law, give the child a legal right to share equally with legitimate children in the parent’s estate but it did give her a right to claim support from her parents or their heirs. The acknowledgment also gave the child the capacity under Louisiana law to be a limited beneficiary under her father’s will in the event he left a will naming her, which he did not do here.
Ezra Vincent died intestate, that is, without a will, on September 16, 1968, in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, leaving substantial property within the State, but no will to direct its distribution. Appellant, as the guardian of Rita Vincent, petitioned in state court for the appointment of an administrator for the father’s estate; for a declaration that Rita Vincent is the sole heir of Ezra Vincent; and for an order directing the administrator to pay support and maintenance for the child. In the alternative, appellant sought a declaration that the child was entitled to support and maintenance of $150 per month under a Louisiana child support law.
The administrator of the succession of Ezra Vincent answered the petition claiming that Vincent’s relatives were entitled to the whole estate. He relied for the claim upon two articles of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1870: Art. 206, which provides:
“Illegitimate children, though duly acknowledged, can not claim the rights of legitimate children. . . .”
and Art. 919, which provides:
“Natural children are called to the inheritance of their natural father, who has duly acknowledged them, when he has left no descendants nor ascendants, nor collateral relations, nor surviving wife, and to the exclusion only of the State.”
The court ruled that the relatives of the father were his collateral relations and that under Louisiana’s laws of intestate succession took his property to the exclusion of acknowledged, but not legitimated, illegitimate children. The court, therefore, dismissed with costs the guardian mother’s petition to recognize the child as an heir. The court also ruled that in view of Social Security payments of $60 per month and Veterans Administration payments of $40 per month available for the support of the child, the guardian for the child was not entitled to support or maintenance from the succession of Ezra Vincent. The Louisiana Court of Appeal, Third Circuit, affirmed and the Supreme Court of Louisiana denied a petition for writ of certiorari. The child’s guardian appealed and we noted probable jurisdiction. 400 U. S. 817 (1970).
In this Court appellant argues that Louisiana’s statutory scheme for intestate succession that bars this illegitimate child from sharing in her father’s estate constitutes an invidious discrimination against illegitimate children that cannot stand under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution. Much reliance is placed upon the Court’s decisions in Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 68 (1968), and Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U. S. 73 (1968). For the reasons set out below, we find appellant’s reliance on those cases misplaced, and we decline to extend the rationale of those cases where it does not apply. Accordingly, we affirm the decision below.
In Levy the Court held that Louisiana could not consistently with the Equal Protection Clause bar an illegitimate child from recovering for the wrongful death of its mother when such recoveries by legitimate children were authorized. The cause of action alleged in Levy was in tort. It was undisputed that Louisiana had created a statutory tort and had provided for the survival of the deceased’s cause of action, so that a large class of persons injured by the tort could recover damages in compensation for their injury. Under those circumstances the Court held that the State could not totally exclude from the class of potential plaintiffs illegitimate children who were unquestionably injured by the tort that took their mother’s life. Levy did not say and cannot fairly be read to say that a State can never treat an illegitimate child differently from legitimate offspring.
The people of Louisiana, through their legislature have carefully regulated many of the property rights incident to family life. Louisiana law prescribes certain formalities requisite to the contracting of marriage. Once marriage is contracted there, husbands have obligations to their wives. Fathers have obligations to their children. Should the children prosper while the parents fall upon hard times, children have a statutory obligation to support their parents. To further strengthen and preserve family ties, Louisiana regulates the disposition of property upon the death of a family man. The surviving spouse is entitled to an interest in the deceased spouse’s estate. Legitimate children have a right of forced heir-ship in their father’s estate and can even retrieve property transferred by their father during his lifetime in reduction of their rightful interests.
Louisiana also has a complex set of rules regarding the rights of illegitimate children. Children born out of wedlock and who are never acknowledged by their parents apparently have no right to take property by intestate succession from their father’s estate. In some instances, their father may not even bequeath property to them by will. Illegitimate children acknowledged by their fathers are “natural children.” Natural children can take from their father by intestate succession “to the exclusion only of the State.” They may be bequeathed property by their father only to the extent of either one-third or one-fourth of his estate and then only if their father is not survived by legitimate children or their heirs. Finally, children born out of wedlock can be legitimated or adopted, in which case they may take by intestate succession or by will as any other child.
These rules for intestate succession may or may not reflect the intent of particular parents. Many will think that it is unfortunate that the rules are so rigid. Others will think differently. But the choices reflected by the intestate succession statute are choices which it is within the power of the State to make. The Federal Constitution does not give this Court the power to overturn the State’s choice under the guise of constitutional interpretation because the Justices of this Court believe that they can provide better rules. Of course, it may be said that the rules adopted by the Louisiana Legislature “discriminate” against illegitimates. But the rules also discriminate against collateral relations, as opposed to ascendants, and against ascendants, as opposed to descendants. Other rules determining property rights based on family status also “discriminate” in favor of wives and against “concubines.” The dissent attempts to distinguish these other “discriminations” on the ground that they have a biological or social basis. There is no biological difference between a wife and a concubine, nor does the Constitution require that there be such a difference before the State may assert its power to protect the wife and her children against the claims of a concubine and her children. The social difference between a wife and a concubine is analogous to the difference between a legitimate and an illegitimate child. One set of relationships is socially sanctioned, legally recognized, and gives rise to various rights and duties. The other set of relationships is illicit and beyond the recognition of the law. Similarly, the State does not need biological or social reasons for distinguishing between ascendants and descendants. Some of these discriminatory choices are perhaps more closely connected to our conceptions of social justice or the ways in which most dying men wish to dispose of their property than the Louisiana rules governing illegitimate children. It may be possible that some of these choices are more “rational” than the choices inherent in Louisiana's categories of illegitimates. But the power to make rules to establish, protect, and strengthen family life as well as to regulate the disposition of property left in Louisiana by a man dying there is committed by the Constitution of the United States and the people of Louisiana to the legislature of that State. Absent a specific constitutional guarantee, it is for that legislature, not the life-tenured judges of this Court, to select from among possible laws. We cannot say that Louisiana’s policy provides a perfect or even a desirable solution or the one we would have provided for the problem of the property rights of illegitimate children. Neither can we say that Louisiana does not have the power to make laws for distribution of property left within the State.
We emphasize that this is not a case, like Levy, where the State has created an insurmountable barrier to this illegitimate child. There is not the slightest suggestion in this case that Louisiana has barred this illegitimate from inheriting from her father. Ezra Vincent could have left one-third of his property to his illegitimate daughter had he bothered to follow the simple formalities of executing a will. He could, of course, have legitimated the child by marrying her mother in which case the child could have inherited his property either by intestate succession or by will as any other legitimate child. Finally, he could have awarded his child the benefit of Louisiana’s intestate succession statute on the same terms as legitimate children simply by stating in his acknowledgment of paternity his desire to legitimate the little girl. See Bergeron v. Miller, 230 So. 2d 417 (La. App. 1970).
In short, we conclude that in the circumstances presented in this case, there is nothing in the vague generalities of the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses which empowers this Court to nullify the deliberate choices of the elected representatives of the people of Louisiana.
Affirmed.
See App. 8.
La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 240, provides: “Fathers and mothers owe alimony to their illegitimate children, when they are in need . . . .” Art. 241 provides: “Illegitimate children have a right to claim this alimony, not only from their father and mother, but even from their heirs after their death.”
Rita Vincent qualifies as Ezra Vincent’s child for federal social security and veteran’s benefits by virtue of his acknowledgment of paternity, 42 U. S. C. §416 (h) (3) (A) (i) (I) (1964 ed„ Supp. V) and 38 U. S. C. § 101 (4) (1964 ed., Supp. V). No question has been raised concerning the legality under federal law of reliance upon such benefits to relieve parents or their estates from the state-imposed obligations of child support.
La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 2315 (1952).
Ibid.
Nor is Glona v. American Guarantee & Liability Insurance Co., 391 U. S. 73 (1968), analogous to this case. In Glona the majority relied on Louisiana’s “curious course” of sanctions against illegitimacy to demonstrate that there was no “rational basis” for prohibiting a mother from recovering for the wrongful death of her son. Id., at 74-75. Even if we were to apply the “rational basis” test to the Louisiana intestate succession statute, that statute clearly has a rational basis in view of Louisiana’s interest in promoting family life and of directing the disposition of property left within the State.
La. Civ. Code Ann., Arts. 90-98 (1952).
La. Civ. Code Ann., Arts. 119, 120 (1952).
“Fathers and mothers, by the very act of marrying, contract together the obligation of supporting, maintaining, and educating their children.” La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 227 (1952). See n. 2, supra.
La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 229 (1952).
La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 915 (1952).
La. Civ. Code Ann., Arts. 1493-1495 (1952).
“Natural fathers and mothers can, in no case, dispose of property in favor of their adulterine or incestuous children, unless to the mere amount of what is necessary to their sustenance, or to procure them an occupation or profession by which to support themselves.” La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 1488 (1952).
La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 1486 (1952).
“Those who have lived together in open concubinage are respectively incapable of making to each other, whether inter vivos or mortis causa, any donation of immovables; and if they make a donation of movables, it can not exceed one-tenth part of the whole value of their estate.
“Those who afterwards marry are excepted from this rule.” La. Civ. Code Ann., Art. 1481 (1952).
“Now the law in question is nothing more than an exercise of the power which every state and sovereignty possesses, of regulating the manner and term upon which property real or personal within its dominion may be transmitted by last will and testament, or by inheritance; and of prescribing who shall and who shall not be capable of taking it.” Mager v. Grima, 8 How. 490, 493 (1850). See Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U. S. 188, 193 (1938).
See Krause, Bringing the Bastard into the Great Society — A Proposed Uniform Act on Legitimacy, 44 Tex. L. Rev. 829 (1966).
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.
We address in this case whether 23 U. S. C. §409, which protects information “compiled or collected” in connection with certain federal highway safety programs from being discovered or admitted in certain federal or state trials, is a valid exercise of Congress’ authority under the Constitution.
I
A
Beginning with the Highway Safety Act of 1966, Congress has endeavored to improve the safety of our Nation’s highways by encouraging closer federal and state cooperation with respect to road improvement projects. To that end, Congress has adopted several programs to assist the States in identifying highways in need of improvements and in funding those improvements. See, e. g., 23 U. S. C. §§ 130 (Railway-Highway Crossings), 144 (Highway Bridge Replacement and Rehabilitation Program), and 152 (Hazard Elimination Program). Of relevance to this case is the Hazard Elimination Program (Program) which provides state and local governments with funding to improve the most dangerous sections of their roads. To be eligible for funds under the Program, a state or local government must undertake a thorough evaluation of its public roads. Specifically, § 152(a)(1) requires them to
“conduct and systematically maintain an engineering survey of all public roads to identify hazardous locations, sections, and elements, including roadside obstacles and unmarked or poorly marked roads, which may constitute a danger to motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians, assign priorities for the correction of such locations, sections, and elements, and establish and implement a schedule of projects for their improvement.”
Not long after the adoption of the Program, the Secretary of Transportation reported to Congress that the States objected to the absence of any confidentiality with respect to their compliance measures under §152. H. R. Doc. No. 94-366, p. 36 (1976). According to the Secretary’s report, the States feared that diligent efforts to identify roads eligible for aid under the Program would increase the risk of liability for accidents that took place at hazardous locations before improvements could be made. Ibid. In 1983, concerned that the States’ reluctance to be forthcoming and thorough in their data collection efforts undermined the Program’s effectiveness, the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) recommended the adoption of legislation prohibiting the disclosure of information compiled in connection with the Program. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae in Alabama Highway Dept. v. Boone, O. T. 1991, No. 90-1412, p. 10, cert. denied, 502 U. S. 937 (1991).
To address the concerns expressed by the States and the DOT, in 1987, Congress adopted 23 U. S. C. § 409, which provided:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, reports, surveys, schedules, lists, or data compiled for the purpose of identifying[,] evaluating, or planning the safety enhancement of potential accident sites, hazardous roadway conditions, or railway-highway crossings, pursuant to sections 130, 144, and 152 of this title or for the purpose of developing any highway safety construction improvement project which may be implemented utilizing Federal-aid highway funds shall not be admitted into evidence in Federal or State court or considered for other purposes in any action for damages arising from any occurrence at a location mentioned or addressed in such reports, surveys, schedules, lists, or data.” Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act of 1987, §132, 101 Stat. 170.
The proper scope of §409 became the subject of some dispute among the lower courts. Some state courts, for example, concluded that §409 addressed only the admissibility of relevant documents at trial and did not apply to pretrial discovery. According to these courts, although information compiled for § 152 purposes would be inadmissible at trial, it nevertheless remained subject to discovery. See, e. g., Ex parte Alabama Highway Dept., 572 So. 2d 389 (Ala. 1990), cert. denied sub nom. Alabama Highway Dept. v. Boone, 502 U. S. 937 (1991); Light v. New York, 149 Misc. 2d 75, 80, 560 N. Y. S. 2d 962, 965 (Ct. Cl. 1990); Indiana Dept. of Transp. v. Overton, 555 N. E. 2d 510, 512 (Ind. App. 1990). Other state courts reasoned that § 409 protected only materials actually generated by a governmental agency for § 152 purposes, and documents collected by that agency to prepare its § 152 funding application remained both admissible and discoverable. See, e. g., Wiedeman v. Dixie Elec. Membership Corp., 627 So. 2d 170, 173 (La. 1993), cert. denied, 511 U. S. 1127 (1994). See also, e. g., Southern Pacific Transp. Co. v. Yarnell, 181 Ariz. 316, 319-320, 890 P. 2d 611, 614-615, cert. denied, 516 U. S. 937 (1995) (applying the same rule in the context of the Railway-Highway Crossings program); Tardy v. Norfolk Southern Corp., 103 Ohio App. 3d 372, 378-379, 659 N. E. 2d 817, 820-821 (same), appeal not allowed, 74 Ohio St. 3d 1408, 655 N. E. 2d 187 (1995) (Table).
Responding to these developments, Congress amended §409 in two ways. In 1991, Congress expressly made the statute applicable to pretrial discovery, see Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991, § 1035(a), 105 Stat. 1978, and in 1995, Congress added the phrase “or collected” after the word “compiled,” National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, §323, 109 Stat. 591. As amended, § 409 now reads:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, reports, surveys, schedules, lists, or data compiled or collected for the purpose of identifying, evaluating, or planning the safety enhancement of potential accident sites, hazardous roadway conditions, or railway-highway crossings, pursuant to sections 130, 144, and 152 of this title or for the purpose of developing any highway safety con-struetion improvement project which may be implemented utilizing Federal-aid highway funds shall not be subject to discovery or admitted into evidence in a Federal or State court proceeding or considered for other purposes in any action for damages arising from any occurrence at a location mentioned or addressed in such reports, surveys, schedules, lists, or data.”
B
Ignacio Guillen’s wife, Clementina Guillen-Alejandre, died on July 5, 1996, in an automobile accident at the intersection of 168th Street East and B Street East (168/B intersection), in Pierce County, Washington. Several months before the accident, petitioner had requested § 152 funding for this intersection, but the request had been denied. Petitioner renewed its application for funding on April 3, 1996, and the second request was approved on July 26, 1996, only three weeks after the accident occurred.
Beginning on August 16, 1996, counsel for respondents sought to obtain from petitioner information about accidents that had occurred at the 168/B intersection. Petitioner declined to provide any responsive information, asserting that any relevant documents were protected by § 409. After informal efforts failed to resolve this discovery dispute, respondents turned to the Washington courts.
Respondents first filed an action alleging that petitioner’s refusal to disclose the relevant documents violated the State’s Public Disclosure Act (PDA). The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of respondents and ordered petitioner to disclose five documents and pay respondents’ attorney’s fees. Petitioner appealed.
While the appeal in the PDA action was pending, respondents filed a separate action, asserting that petitioner had been negligent in failing to install proper traffic controls at the 168/B intersection. In connection with the tort action, respondents served petitioner with interrogatories seeking information regarding accidents that had occurred at the 168/B intersection. Petitioner refused to comply with the discovery request, once again relying on §409. Respondents successfully sought an order to compel, and petitioner moved for discretionary appellate review of the trial judge’s interlocutory order. The Washington Court of Appeals granted the motion and consolidated the appeal in the tort case with the appeal in the PDA action.
On review, the Washington Court of Appeals in large part affirmed the decisions below. In interpreting §409, the court distinguished between an agency that collects or compiles information for purposes unrelated to § 152 and one that collects and compiles information pursuant to § 152. In the court’s view, documents held by the first agency would not be protected by §409, even if they subsequently were used for § 152 purposes, whereas documents held by the second agency would be protected, so long as their collection or compilation was the result of § 152 efforts. Applying these principles, the court concluded that only one of the documents at issue in the PDA case — the draft memorandum by the county’s public works director, see n. 3, supra — was protected by §409 because it had been prepared for §152 purposes. The rest were not protected because respondents “carefully requested reports in the hands of the sheriff or other law enforcement agencies, not reports or data ‘collected or compiled’ by the Public Works Department.” 96 Wash. App. 862, 873, 982 P. 2d 123, 129 (1999). The appellate court also expressed doubt about the constitutionality of §409 as applied in state courts, but decided not to resolve the question because it was not raised. Id., at 875, n. 26, 982 P. 2d, at 130, n. 26. Petitioner appealed once again.
The Washington Supreme Court’s decision followed a three-step analysis. The court first determined that disclosure of the information respondents sought under both the PDA and state discovery rules would be appropriate only if the materials requested by respondents were not protected by § 409.
Second, examining the scope of §409, the Washington Supreme Court rejected, as “unsound in principle and unworkable in practice,” 144 Wash. 2d 696, 727, 31 P. 3d 628, 646 (2001), the appellate court’s view that §409 drew a distinction between documents “as held by” the Public Works Department and documents “as held by” the county sheriff. Rather, it reasoned that §409, as amended in 1995, purported to protect from disclosure any documents prepared for state and local purposes, so long as those documents were also collected for § 152 purposes. In the court’s view, the statute did not turn on the identity of the custodian of the document at issue.
Having so construed § 409, the court proceeded to consider whether the adoption of the 1995 amendment to §409 was a proper exercise of Congress’ powers under the Spending, Commerce, and Necessary and Proper Clauses of Article I of the United States Constitution. With respect to the Spending Clause, the court found that “barring the admissibility and discovery in state court of accident reports and other traffic and accident materials and ‘raw data’ that were originally prepared for routine state and local purposes, simply because they are ‘collected’ for, among other reasons, federal purposes pursuant to a federal statute” did not reasonably serve any “valid federal interest in the operation of the federal safety enhancement program.” Id., at 737, 31 P. 3d, at 651. With respect to the Commerce Clause, the court concluded that § 409 was not an “integral part” of the regulation of the federal-aid highway system and, thus, could not be upheld under Hodel v. Indiana, 452 U. S. 314 (1981). 144 Wash. 2d, at 742, 31 P. 3d, at 654. Finally, with respect to the Necessary and Proper Clause, the court ruled that, although Congress could require state courts to enforce a federal privilege protecting materials “that would not have been created but-for federal mandates such as ... [§]152,” it was “neither ‘necessary’ nor ‘proper’ for Congress in 1995 to extend that privilege to traffic and accident materials and raw data created and collected for state and local purposes, simply because they are also collected and used for federal purposes.” Id., at 743, 31 P. 3d, at 654-655.
In light of its conclusion that the 1995 amendment to §409 exceeded Congress’ power under the Constitution, and, therefore, was not binding on the States, the court held that § 409 protected only information originally created for § 152 purposes. But, rather than determining whether the documents or data at issue in this case would be protected under its reading of § 409, the court vacated the lower court’s judgment and remanded the case for the lower courts to consider the record in the first instance.
Three justices concurred only in the result. They disagreed with the majority’s broad reading of the statute and would have held that § 409 precludes a potential plaintiff only from obtaining information from an agency that collected that information for § 152 purposes.
We granted certiorari to resolve the question of the constitutionality of this federal statute, 535 U. S. 1033 (2002), and now reverse.
II
Before addressing the merits of petitioner’s claims, we must first consider whether we have jurisdiction to hear the case. Under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(a), this Court has certiorari jurisdiction to review “[f]inal judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had . . . where the validity of a . . . statute of the United States is drawn in question ... on the ground of its being repugnant to the Constitution ... of the United States.” As a general matter, to be reviewed by this Court, a state-court judgment must be final “‘as an effective determination of the litigation and not of merely interlocutory or intermediate steps therein.’” Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U. S. 75, 81 (1997) (quoting Market Street R. Co. v. Railroad Comm’n of Cal., 324 U. S. 548, 551 (1945)). We have acknowledged, however, that certain state-court judgments can be treated as final for jurisdictional purposes, even though further proceedings are to take place in the state courts. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 477-483 (1975) (outlining four exceptions to the finality rule). See also, e.g., ASARCO Inc. v. Kadish, 490 U. S. 605, 611-612 (1989) (applying the Cox exceptions); Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U. S. 299, 306-307 (1989) (same).
Respondents contend the decision below did not result in a final judgment for purposes of § 1257(a) because the Washington Supreme Court remanded the case for further proceedings. They are only partially correct.
As we have already described, we have now before us a consolidated case consisting of two separate actions: an action under the State of Washington’s Public Disclosure Act and a tort action. Respondents are correct that the decision below does not constitute a final judgment with respect to the tort action. In that case, the Washington Supreme Court resolved only a discovery dispute; it did not determine the final outcome of the litigation. Nor do any of the exceptions outlined in Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, supra, apply to the tort action. Accordingly, we dismiss the writ of certiorari with respect to the tort action for want of jurisdiction.
We reach a different conclusion regarding the PDA action. In that suit, the Washington Supreme Court was asked to review only the appellate court’s ruling that four of the five documents requested by respondents were not protected under §409 and therefore should be disclosed under the PDA. Because the Washington Supreme Court held the 1995 amendment to §409 to be invalid — thus, limiting the privilege offered by the statute only to documents originally created for § 152 purposes — the court effectively interpreted §409 more narrowly than the Court of Appeals. Accordingly, the four documents at issue before the Washington Supreme Court remained unprotected under §409 and continued to be subject to disclosure under the PDA. As we read the decision below, all that remains to be decided on remand in the PDA action is the amount of attorney’s fees to which respondents are entitled. The PDA action, then, falls squarely under the first Cox exception because the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on the federal privilege issue is “conclusive” and “the outcome of further proceedings preordained.” Cox Broadcasting Corp., supra, at 479. Therefore, we have jurisdiction to hear the PDA portion of this case.
III
We turn now to the merits. Petitioner essentially agrees with the Washington Supreme Court’s expansive reading of § 409, but argues that the Washington Supreme Court erred in concluding that Congress was without power to enact the 1995 amendment to §409. Before addressing the constitutional question, however, we must determine the statute’s proper scope.
A
1
According to petitioner, a document initially prepared and then held by an agency (here the county sheriff) for purposes unrelated to §152 becomes protected under §409 when a copy of that document is collected by another agency (here the Public Works Department) for purposes of § 152. Under petitioner’s view, for example, an accident report prepared and held by the county sheriff for purposes unrelated to § 152 would become protected under § 409 as soon as a copy of that report is sent to the Public Works Department to be used in connection with petitioner’s § 152 funding application. Consequently, a person seeking a copy of the accident report either from the county sheriff or from the Public Works Department would not be able to obtain it. Brief for Petitioner 37-44.
Respondents contend that § 409 protects only materials actually created by the agency responsible for seeking federal funding for §152 purposes. Brief for Respondents 22-23, and n. 2. On their view, if the Public Works Department collects reports of all the accidents that have occurred at a given intersection to prepare its § 152 application, those reports would not be protected by §409, and a person seeking them from the Public Works Department would be entitled to obtain them.
The United States, as intervenor, proposes a third interpretation: § 409 protects all reports, surveys, schedules, lists, or data actually compiled or collected for § 152 purposes, but does not protect information that was originally compiled or collected for purposes unrelated to § 152 and that is currently held by the agencies that compiled or collected it, even if the information was at some point “collected” by another agency for §152 purposes. Brief for United States 28-36. Respondents concede that this is a defensible reading of the statute. Brief for Respondents 23-24, 25. Under this interpretation, an accident report collected only for law enforcement purposes and held by the county sheriff would not be protected under § 409 in the hands of the county sheriff, even though that same report would be protected in the hands of the Public Works Department, so long as the department first obtained the report for § 152 purposes. We agree with the Government’s interpretation of the statute.
2
We have often recognized that statutes establishing evidentiary privileges must be construed narrowly because privileges impede the search for the truth. Baldrige v. Sha piro, 455 U. S. 345, 360 (1982) (“A statute granting a privilege is to be strictly construed so as ‘to avoid a construction that would suppress otherwise competent evidence”’ (quoting St. Regis Paper Co. v. United States, 368 U. S. 208, 218 (1961)). See also, e. g., University of Pennsylvania v. EEOC, 493 U.S. 182, 189 (1990). See generally United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683 (1974). Here, § 409 establishes a privilege; accordingly, to the extent the text of the statute permits, we must construe it narrowly.
Of the three interpretations outlined above, respondents’ clearly gives the statute the narrowest application. Nevertheless, we decline to adopt it, as that reading would render the 1995 amendment to §409 (changing the language from “compiled” to “compiled or collected”) an exercise in futility. We have said before that, “[w]hen Congress acts to amend a statute, we presume it intends its amendment to have real and substantial effect.” Stone v. INS, 514 U. S. 386, 397 (1995). Yet, under respondents’ view, §409 as amended in 1995 would protect from disclosure only information that was already protected before the amendment, i. e., information generated for §152 purposes. That reading gives the amendment no “real and substantial effect” and, accordingly, cannot be the proper understanding of the statute.
Petitioner’s reading, by contrast, while permissible, gives the statute too broad of a reach given the language of the statute, thus conflicting with our rule that, when possible, privileges should be construed narrowly. See, e.g., Baldrige, supra, at 360.
The interpretation proposed by the Government, however, suffers neither of these faults. It gives effect to the 1995 amendment by making clear that § 409 protects not just the information an agency generates, i. e., compiles, for § 152 purposes, but also any information that an agency collects from other sources for § 152 purposes. And, it also takes a narrower view of the privilege by making it inapplicable to information compiled or collected for purposes unrelated to § 152 and held by agencies that are not pursuing § 152 objectives. We therefore adopt this interpretation.
Our conclusion is reinforced by the history of the 1995 amendment. As we have already noted, the phrase “or collected” was added to §409 to address confusion among the lower courts about the proper scope of § 409 and to overcome judicial reluctance to protect under § 409 raw data collected for §152 purposes. See supra, at 134-136. By amending the statute, Congress wished to make clear that §152 was not intended to be an effort-free tool in litigation against state and local governments. Compare, e.g., Robertson v. Union Pacific R. Co., 954 F. 2d 1433, 1435 (CA8 1992) (recognizing that § 409 was intended to “prohibit federally required record-keeping from being used as a ‘tool... in private litigation’ ” (quoting Light v. New York, 149 Misc. 2d 75, 80, 560 N. Y. S. 2d 962, 965 (Ct. Cl. 1990)), with authorities cited supra, at 134-135. However, the text of §409 evinces no intent to make plaintiffs worse off than they would have been had §152 funding never existed. Put differently, there is no reason to interpret §409 as prohibiting the disclosure of information compiled or collected for purposes unrelated to § 152, held by government agencies not involved in administering §152, if, before §152 was adopted, plaintiffs would have been free to obtain such information from those very agencies.
B
Having determined that §409 protects only information compiled or collected for § 152 purposes, and does not protect information compiled or collected for purposes unrelated to § 152, as held by the agencies that compiled or collected that information, we now consider whether § 409 is a proper exercise of Congress’ authority under the Constitution. We conclude that it is.
It is well established that the Commerce Clause gives Congress authority to “regulate the use of the channels of interstate commerce.” United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 558 (1995) (citing United States v. Darby, 312 U. S. 100, 114 (1941); Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 256 (1964)). In addition, under the Commerce Clause, Congress “is empowered to regulate and protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, or persons or things in interstate commerce, even though the threat may come only from intrastate activities.” Lopez, supra, at 558 (citing Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342 (1914); Southern R. Co. v. United States, 222 U. S. 20 (1911); Perez v. United States, 402 U. S. 146 (1971)).
As already discussed, supra, at 133, Congress adopted § 152 to assist state and local governments in reducing hazardous conditions in the Nation’s channels of commerce. That effort was impeded, however, by the States’ reluctance to comply fully with the requirements of § 152, as such compliance would make state and local governments easier targets for negligence actions by providing would-be plaintiffs a centralized location from which they could obtain much of the evidence necessary for such actions. In view of these circumstances, Congress could reasonably believe that adopting a measure eliminating an unforeseen side effect of the information-gathering requirement of § 152 would result in more diligent efforts to collect the relevant information, more candid discussions of hazardous locations, better informed decisionmaking, and, ultimately, greater safety on our Nation’s roads. Consequently, both the original §409 and the 1995 ámendment can be viewed as legislation aimed at improving safety in the channels of commerce and increasing protection for the instrumentalities of interstate commerce. As such, they fall within Congress’ Commerce Clause power. Accordingly, the judgment of the Washington Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In a letter dated October 28, 1996, respondents’ counsel clarified his request as follows: “T want to make the record clear that we are not seeking any reports that were specifically written for developing any safety construction improvement project at the intersection at issue.’” Quoted in 144 Wash. 2d 696, 703, 31 P. 3d 628, 633 (2001). The letter further explained, however, that respondents were seeking “ ‘a copy of all documents that record the accident history of the intersection that may have been used in the preparation of any such reports.’” Quoted in id., at 703-704, 31 P. 3d, at 633.
The relevant portion of the PDA provides:
“Upon the motion of any person having been denied an opportunity to inspect or copy a public record by an agency, the superior court in the county in which a record is maintained may require the responsible agency to show cause why it has refused to allow inspection or copying of a specific public record or class of records. The burden of proof shall be on the agency to establish that refusal to permit public inspection and copying is in accordance with a statute that exempts or prohibits disclosure in whole or in part of specific information or records.” Wash. Rev. Code §42.17.340(1) (2000).
The trial court’s judgment encompassed the following materials: (1) a list of accidents at the 168/B intersection from 1990 through 1996, prepared by the Washington State Patrol, showing the location, date, time, and nature of the accident, which petitioner subsequently obtained for the purpose of conducting a study of the safety of the intersection; (2) a collision diagram dated January 5, 1989, prepared by a county employee responsible for investigating accidents at the intersection; (3) another collision diagram dated July 18, 1988, prepared by the same county employee; (4) reports of accidents at the intersection prepared by law enforcement agencies investigating the accidents; and (5) a draft memorandum from petitioner’s public works director to a county council member, consisting of information used for petitioner’s application for § 152 funds for the 168/B intersection. See 144 Wash. 2d, at 704-705, and n. 1; 31 P. 3d, at 634, and n. 1.
The court also ruled that respondents were entitled to attorney’s fees in their PDA action. See 144 Wash. 2d, at 745, 31 P. 3d, at 655-656.
With respect to the first Cox exception, the Washington Supreme Court’s interpretation of §409 is not conclusive and does not foreordain the outcome of the proceedings below, as petitioner might well be able to prove that its actions regarding the 168/B intersection were not negligent. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 479 (1975). Moreover, petitioner’s victory on the merits would moot the discovery issue; accordingly, the second Cox exception is not implicated. Id., at 480. And, if petitioner does not prevail on the merits, it remains free to raise the discovery issue on appeal. Even if the Washington Supreme Court adheres to its interlocutory ruling as “law of the case,” we would still be able to review the discovery issue once a final judgment has been entered. Jefferson v. City of Tarrant, 522 U. S. 75, 82-83 (1997). In short, the third Cox exception does not help petitioner either. 420 U. S., at 481. Finally, this is not a case where “reversal of the state court on the federal issue would be preclusive of any further litigation,” id., at 482-483, because respondents remain free to try their tort case without the disputed documents. Rather, the decision below controls “merely . . . the nature and character of, or . .. the admissibility of evidence in, the state proceedings still to come.” Id., at 483. Thus, petitioner finds no refuge in the fourth Cox exception.
Respondents did not seek review of the Court of Appeals’ decision that one of the requested documents — a draft memorandum from the public works director to a county council member, see n. 3, supra — was in fact protected by §409 because it contained information derived from §152 activities. See 96 Wash. App. 862, 874, 982 P. 2d 123, 130 (1999). See also Reply to Brief in Opposition 2.
Our reading of the decision below is reinforced by the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling that respondents are entitled to attorney’s fees for the PDA action. See n. 4, supra. Under state law, attorney’s fees may not be awarded in a PDA action unless the prevailing party has “an affirmative judgment rendered in its favor at the conclusion of the entire case.” Overlake Fund v. Bellevue, 70 Wash. App. 789, 795, 855 P. 2d 706, 710 (1993); see also Tacoma News, Inc. v. Tacoma-Pierce County Health Dept., 55 Wash. App. 515, 525, 778 P. 2d 1066, 1071 (1989), review denied, 113 Wash. 2d 1037, 785 P. 2d 825 (1990) (Table). Thus, because the Washington Supreme Court held that respondents were entitled to attorney’s fees in the PDA action, it must have considered the merits of that action to have been conclusively determined.
Indeed, petitioner’s brief could be read as suggesting that §409 protects not only materials containing information collected for § 152 purposes but also any testimony regarding information contained in such materials. Brief for Petitioner 44. See also Brief for Respondents 20 (offering this reading as a possible interpretation of the statute). Under this view, an officer who witnessed an accident would not be permitted to testify about that accident, if the officer summarized what he saw in a report that was later “collected” for § 152 purposes. But see Brief for Petitioner 45-46 (asserting that testimony derived from sources apart from the protected documents is permitted under §409).
Because we conclude that Congress had authority under the Commerce Clause to enact both the original §409 and the 1995 amendment, we need not decide whether they could also be a proper exercise of Congress’ authority under the Spending Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause.
Respondents contend in passing that § 409 violates the principles of dual sovereignty embodied in the Tenth Amendment because it prohibits a State from exercising its sovereign powers to establish discovery and admissibility rules to be used in state court for a state cause of action. See Brief for Respondents 44-46. The court below did not address this precise argument, reasoning instead that the 1995 amendment to §409 was beyond Congress’ enumerated powers. We ordinarily do not decide in the first instance issues not resolved below and decline to do so here. See, e. g., National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Smith, 525 U. S. 459, 470 (1999). Moreover, in light of our disposition on this issue, we need not address the second question on which we granted certiorari: whether private plaintiffs have standing to assert “states’ rights” under the Tenth Amendment where their States’ legislative and executive branches expressly approve and accept the benefits and terms of the federal statute in question.
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
announced the judgment of the Court and an opinion in which Mr. Justice Black, Mr. Justice Murphy, and Mr. Justice Rutledge join.
Petitioner was convicted in an Ohio court of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Court of Appeals of Ohio sustained the judgment of conviction over the objection that the admission of petitioner’s confession at the trial violated the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. 79 Ohio App. 237. The Ohio Supreme Court, being of the view that no debatable constitutional question was presented, dismissed the appeal. 147 Ohio St. 340. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted because we had doubts whether the ruling of the court below could be squared with Chambers v. Florida, 309 U. S. 227, Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, and like cases in this Court.
A confectionery store was robbed near midnight on October 14,1945, and William Karam, its owner, was shot. It was the prosecutor’s theory, supported by some evidence which it is unnecessary for us to relate, that petitioner, a Negro boy aged 15, and two others, Willie Lowder, aged 16, and A1 Parks, aged 17, committed the crime, petitioner acting as a lookout. Five days later- — ■ around midnight October 19, 1945 — petitioner was arrested at his home and taken to police headquarters.
There is some contrariety in the testimony as to what then transpired. There is evidence that he was beaten. He took the stand and so testified. His mother testified that the clothes he wore when arrested, which were exchanged two days later for clean ones she brought to the jail, were torn and blood-stained. She also testified that when she first saw him five days after his arrest he was bruised and skinned. The police testified to the contrary on this entire line of testimony. So we put to one side the controverted evidence. Taking only the undisputed testimony (Malinski v. New York, supra, p. 404 and cases cited), we have the following sequence of events. Beginning shortly after midnight this 15-year-old lad was questioned by the police for about five hours. Five or six of the police questioned him in relays of one or two each. During this time no friend or counsel of the boy was present. Around 5 a. m. — after being shown alleged confessions of Lowder and Parks — the boy confessed. A confession was typed in question and answer form by the police. At no time was this boy advised of his right to counsel; but the written confession started off with the following statement:
“we want to inform you of your constitutional rights, the law gives you the right to make this statement or not as you see fit. It is made with the understanding that it may be used at a trial in court either for or against you or anyone else involved in this crime with you, of your own free will and accord, you are under no force or duress or compulsion and no promises are being made to you at this time whatsoever.
“Do you still desire to make this statement and tell the truth after having had the above clause read to you?
“A. Yes.”
He was put in jail about 6 or 6:30 a. m. on Saturday, the 20th, shortly after the confession was signed. Between then and Tuesday, the 23d, he was held incommunicado. A lawyer retained by his mother tried to see him twice but was refused admission by the police. His mother was not allowed to see him until Thursday, the 25th. But a newspaper photographer was allowed to see him and take his picture in the early morning hours of the 20th, right after he had confessed. He was not taken before a magistrate and formally charged with a crime until the 23d — three days after the confession was signed.
The trial court, after a preliminary hearing on the voluntary character of the confession, allowed it to be admitted in evidence over petitioner’s objection that it violated his rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court instructed the jury to disregard the confession if it found that he did not make the confession voluntarily and of his free will.
But the ruling of the trial court and the finding of the jury on the voluntary character of the confession do not foreclose the independent examination which it is our duty to make here. Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143, 147-148. If the undisputed evidence suggests that force or coercion was used to exact the confession, we will not permit the judgment of conviction to stand, even though without the confession there might have been sufficient evidence for submission to the jury. Malinski v. New York, supra, p. 404, and cases cited.
We do not think the methods used in obtaining this confession can be squared with that due process of law which the Fourteenth Amendment commands.
What transpired would make us pause for careful inquiry if a mature man were involved. And when, as here, a mere child — an easy victim of the law — is before us, special care in scrutinizing the record must be used. Age 15 is a tender and difficult age for a boy of any race. He cannot be judged by the more exacting standards of maturity. That which would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens. This is the period of great instability which the crisis of adolescence produces. A 15-year-old lad, questioned through the dead of night by relays of police, is a ready victim of the inquisition. Mature men possibly might stand the ordeal from midnight to 5 a. m. But we cannot believe that a lad of tender years is a match for the police in such a contest. He needs counsel and support if he is not to become the victim first of fear, then of panic. He needs someone on whom to lean lest the overpowering presence of the law, as he knows it, crush him. No friend stood at the side of this 15-year-old boy as the police, working in relays, questioned him hour after hour, from midnight until dawn. No lawyer stood guard to make sure that the police went so far and no farther, to see to it that they stopped short of the point where he became the victim of coercion. No counsel or friend was called during the critical hours of questioning. A photographer was admitted once this lad broke and confessed. But not even a gesture towards getting a lawyer for him was ever made.
This disregard of the standards of decency is underlined by the fact that he was kept incommunicado for over three days during which the lawyer retained to represent him twice tried to see him and twice was refused admission. A photographer was admitted at once; but his closest friend — his mother — was not allowed to see him for over five days after his arrest. It is said that tl/ese events are not germane to the present problem because they happened after the confession was made. But they show such a callous attitude of the police towards the safeguards which respect for ordinary standards of human relationships compels that we take with a grain of salt their present apologia that the five-hour grilling of this boy was conducted in a fair and dispassionate manner. When the police are so unmindful of these basic standards of conduct in their public dealings, their secret treatment of a 15-year-old boy behind closed doors in the dead of night becomes darkly suspicious.
The age of petitioner, the hours when he was grilled, the duration of his quizzing, the fact that he had no friend or counsel to advise him, the callous attitude of the police towards his rights combine to convince us that this was a confession wrung from a child by means which the law should not sanction. Neither man nor child can be allowed to stand condemned by methods which flout constitutional requirements of due process of law.
But we are told that this boy was advised of his constitutional rights before he signed the confession and that, knowing them, he nevertheless confessed. That assumes, however, that a boy of fifteen, without aid of counsel, would have a full appreciation of that advice and that on the facts of this record he had a freedom of choice. We cannot indulge those assumptions. Moreover, we cannot give any weight to recitals which merely formalize constitutional requirements. Formulas of respect for constitutional safeguards cannot prevail over the facts of life which contradict them. They may not become a cloak for inquisitorial practices and make an empty form of the due process of law for which free men fought and died to obtain.
The course we followed in Chambers v. Florida, supra, White v. Texas, 310 U. S. 530, Ashcraft v. Tennessee, supra, and Malinski v. New York, supra, must be followed here. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the police from using the private, secret custody of either man or child as a device for wringing confessions from them.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter, joining in reversal of judgment.
In a recent series of cases, beginning with Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, the Court has set aside convictions coming here from State courts because they were based on confessions admitted under circumstances that offended the requirements of the “due process” exacted from the States by the Fourteenth Amendment. If the rationale of those cases ruled this, we would dispose of it per curiam with the mere citation of the cases. They do not rule it. Since at best this Court’s reversal of a State court’s conviction for want of due process always involves a delicate exercise of power and since there is a sharp division as to the propriety of its exercise in this case, I deem it appropriate to state as explicitly as possible why, although I have doubts and difficulties, I cannot support affirmance of the conviction.
The doubts and difficulties derive from the very nature of the problem before us. They arise frequently when this Court is obliged to give definiteness to “the vague contours” of Due Process or, to change the figure, to spin judgment upon State action out of that gossamer concept. Subtle and even elusive as its criteria are, we cannot escape that duty of judicial review. The nature of the duty, however, makes it especially important to be humble in exercising it. Humility in this context means an alert self-scrutiny so as to avoid infusing into the vagueness of a Constitutional command one’s merely private notions. Like other mortals, judges, though unaware, may be in the grip of prepossessions. The only way to relax such a grip, the only way to avoid finding in the Constitution the personal bias one has placed in it, is to explore the influences that have shaped one’s unanalyzed views in order to lay bare prepossessions.
A lifetime’s preoccupation with criminal justice, as prosecutor, defender of civil liberties, and scientific student, naturally leaves one with views. Thus, I disbelieve in capital punishment. But as a judge I could not impose the views of the very few States who through bitter experience have abolished capital punishment upon all the other States, by finding that “due process” proscribes it. Again, I do not believe that even capital offenses by boys of fifteen should be dealt with according to the conventional criminal procedure. It would, however, be bald judicial usurpation to hold that States violate the Constitution in subjecting minors like Haley to such a procedure. If a State, consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment, may try a boy of fifteen charged with murder by the ordinary criminal procedure, I cannot say that such a youth is never capable of that free choice of action which, in the eyes of the law, makes a confession “voluntary.” Again, it would hardly be a justifiable exercise of judicial power to dispose of this case by finding in the Due Process Clause Constitutional outlawry of the admissibility of all private statements made by an accused to a police officer, however much legislation to that effect might seem to me wise. See The Indian Evidence Act of 1872, § 25; cf. § 26.
But whether a confession of a lad of fifteen is “voluntary” and as such admissible, or “coerced” and thus wanting in due process, is not a matter of mathematical determination. Essentially it invites psychological judgment — a psychological judgment that reflects deep, even if inarticulate, feelings of our society. Judges must divine that feeling as best they can from all the relevant evidence and light which they can bring to bear for a confident judgment of such an issue, and with every endeavor to detach themselves from their merely private views. (It is noteworthy that while American experience has been drawn upon in the framing of constitutions for other democratic countries, the Due Process Clause has not been copied. See, also, the illuminating debate on the proposal to amend the Irish Home Rule Bill by incorporating our Due Process Clause. 42 H. C. Deb. 2082-2091, 2215-2267 (5th ser., Oct. 22, 23, 1912).)
While the issue thus formulated appears vague and impalpable, it cannot be too often repeated that the limitations which the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment placed upon the methods by which the States may prosecute for crime cannot be more narrowly conceived. This Court must give the freest possible scope to States in the choice of their methods of criminal procedure. But these procedures cannot include methods that may fairly be deemed to be in conflict with deeply rooted feelings of the community. See concurring opinions in Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, 412, and Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber, 329 U. S. 459, 466. Of course this is a most difficult test to apply, but apply it we must, warily, and from case to case.
This brings me to the precise issue on the record before us. Suspecting a fifteen-year-old boy of complicity in murder resulting from attempted robbery, at about midnight the police took him from his home to police headquarters. There he was questioned for about five hours by at least five police officers who interrogated in relays of two or more. About five o’clock in the morning this procedure culminated in what the police regarded as a confession, whereupon it was formally reduced to writing. During the course of the interrogation the boy was not advised that he was not obliged to talk, that it was his right if he chose to say not a word, nor that he was entitled to have the benefit of counsel or the help of his family. Bearing upon the safeguards of these rights, the Chief of Police admitted that while he knew that the boy “had a right to remain mute and not answer any questions” he did not know that it was the duty of the police to apprise him of that fact. Unquestionably, during this whole period he was held incommunicado. Only after the nightlong questioning had resulted in disclosures satisfactory to the police and as such to be documented, was there read to the boy a clause giving the conventional formula about his constitutional right to make or withhold a statement and stating that if he makes it, he makes it of his “own free will.” Do these uncontested facts justify a State court in finding that the boy’s confession was “voluntary,” or do the circumstances by their very nature preclude a finding that a deliberate and responsible choice was exercised by the boy in the confession that came at the end of five hours questioning?
The answer, as has already been intimated, depends on an evaluation of psychological factors, or, more accurately stated, upon the pervasive feeling of society regarding such psychological factors. Unfortunately, we cannot draw upon any formulated expression of the existence of such feeling. Nor are there available experts on such matters to guide the judicial judgment. Our Constitutional system makes it the Court’s duty to interpret those feelings of society to which the Due Process Clause gives legal protection. Because of their inherent vagueness the tests by which we are to be guided are most unsatisfactory, but such as they are we must apply them.
The Ohio courts have in effect denied that the very nature of the circumstances of the boy’s confession precludes a finding that it was voluntary. Their denial carries great weight, of course. It requires much to be overborne. But it does not end the matter. Against it we have the judgment that comes from judicial experience with the conduct of criminal trials as they pass in review before this Court. An impressive series of cases in this and other courts admonishes of the temptations to abuse of police endeavors to secure confessions from suspects, through protracted questioning, carried on in secrecy, with the inevitable disquietude and fears police interrogations naturally engender in individuals questioned while held incommunicado, without the aid of counsel and unprotected by the safeguards of a judicial inquiry. Disinterested zeal for the public good does not assure either wisdom or right in the methods it pursues. A report of President Hoover’s National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement gave proof of the fact, unfortunately, that these potentialities of abuse were not the imaginings of mawkish sentimentality, nor their tolerance desirable or necessary for a stern policy against crime. Legislation throughout the country reflects a similar belief that detention for purposes of eliciting confessions through secret, persistent, long-continued interrogation violates sentiments deeply embedded in the feelings of our people. See McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 342-43.
It is suggested that Haley’s guilt could easily have been established without the confession elicited by the sweating process of the night’s secret interrogation. But this only affords one more proof that in guarding against misuse of the law enforcement process the effective detection of crime and the prosecution of criminals are furthered and not hampered. Such constitutional restraints of decency derive from reliance upon the resources of intelligence in dealing with crime and discourage the too easy temptations of unimaginative crude force, even when such force is not brutally employed.
It would disregard standards that we cherish as part of our faith in the strength and well-being of a rational, civilized society to hold that a confession is “voluntary” simply because the confession is the product of a sentient choice. “Conduct under duress involves a choice,” Union Pacific R. Co. v. Public Service Commission, 248 U. S. 67, 70, and conduct devoid of physical pressure but not leaving a free exercise of choice is the product of duress as much so as choice reflecting physical constraint.
Unhappily we have neither physical nor intellectual weights and measures by which judicial judgment can determine when pressures in securing a confession reach the coercive intensity that calls for the exclusion of a statement so secured. Of course, the police meant to exercise pressures upon Haley to make him talk. That was the very purpose of their procedure. In concluding that a statement is not voluntary which results from pressures such as were exerted in this case to make a lad of fifteen talk when the Constitution gave him the right to keep silent and when the situation was so contrived that appreciation of his rights and thereby the means of asserting them were effectively withheld from him by the police, I do not believe I express a merely personal bias against such a procedure. Such a finding, I believe, reflects those fundamental notions of fairness and justice in the determination of guilt or innocence which lie embedded in the feelings of the American people and are enshrined in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To remove the inducement to resort to such methods this Court has repeatedly denied use of the fruits of illicit methods.
Accordingly, I think Haley’s confession should have been excluded and the conviction based upon it should not stand.
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 Ginsbueg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner Remon Lee asserts that a Missouri trial court deprived him of due process when the court refused to grant an overnight continuance of his trial. Lee sought the continuance to locate subpoenaed, previously present, but suddenly missing witnesses key to his defense against felony charges. On direct review, the Missouri Court of Appeals disposed of the case on a state procedural ground. That court found the continuance motion defective under the State’s rules. It therefore declined to consider the merits of Lee’s plea that the trial court had denied him a fair opportunity to present a defense. Whether the state ground dis-positive in the Missouri Court of Appeals is adequate to preclude federal habeas corpus review is the question we here consider and decide.
On the third day of his trial, Lee was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action. His sole affirmative defense was an alibi; Lee maintained he was in California, staying with his family, when the Kansas City crimes for which he was indicted occurred. Lee’s mother, stepfather, and sister voluntarily came to Missouri to testify on his behalf. They were sequestered in the courthouse at the start of the trial’s third day. For reasons then unknown, they were not in the courthouse later in the day when defense counsel sought to present their testimony. Discovering their absence, defense counsel moved for a continuance until the next morning so that he could endeavor to locate the three witnesses and bring them back to court.
The trial judge denied the motion, stating that it looked to him as though the witnesses had “in effect abandoned the defendant” and that, for personal reasons, he would “not be able to be [in court the next day] to try the case.” Furthermore, he had “another ease set for trial” the next weekday. App. 22. The trial resumed without pause, no alibi witnesses testified, and the jury found Lee guilty as charged.
Neither the trial judge nor the prosecutor identified any procedural flaw in the presentation or content of Lee’s motion for a continuance. The Missouri Court of Appeals, however, held the denial of the motion proper because Lee’s counsel had failed to comply with Missouri Supreme Court Rules not relied upon or even mentioned in the trial court: Rule 24.09, which requires that continuance motions be in written form, accompanied by an affidavit; and Rule 24.10, which sets out the showings a movant must make to gain a continuance grounded on the absence of witnesses.
We hold that the Missouri Rules, as injected into this case by the state appellate court, did not constitute a state ground adequate to bar federal habeas review. Caught in the midst of a murder trial and unalerted to any procedural defect in his presentation, defense counsel could hardly be expected to divert his attention from the proceedings rapidly unfolding in the courtroom and train, instead, on preparation of a written motion and affidavit. Furthermore, the trial court, at the time Lee moved for a continuance, had in clear view the information needed to rule intelligently on the merits of the motion. Beyond doubt, Rule 24.10 serves the State’s important interest in regulating motions for a continuance— motions readily susceptible to use as a delaying tactic. But under the circumstances of this case, we hold that petitioner Lee, having substantially, if imperfectly, made the basic showings Rule 24.10 prescribes, qualifies for adjudication of his federal, due process claim. His asserted right to defend should not depend on a formal “ritual... [that] would further no perceivable state interest.” Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103, 124 (1990) (quoting James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S. 341, 349 (1984) (in turn quoting Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 320 (1958))) (internal quotation marks omitted).
I
On August 27, 1992, Reginald Rhodes shot and killed Steven Shelby on a public street in Kansas City, Missouri. He then jumped into the passenger side of a waiting truck, which sped away. Rhodes pleaded guilty, and Remon Lee, the alleged getaway driver, was tried for first-degree murder and armed criminal action.
Lee’s trial took place within the span of three days in February 1994. His planned alibi defense—that he was in California with his family at the time of the murder—surfaced at each stage of the proceedings. During voir dire on the first day of trial, Lee’s court-appointed defense attorney informed prospective jurors that “[tjhere will be a defense in this case, which is a defense of alibi.” App. 10; see also ibid. (“And we’ll put on evidence—I can’t go into it now—that he was somewhere else, he couldn’t commit the crime and I believe the judge will give an instruction on alibi at the conclusion of my case.”). Later in the voir dire, defense counsel identified the three alibi witnesses as Lee’s mother, Gladys Edwards, Lee’s sister, Laura Lee, and Lee’s stepfather, James Edwards, a minister. Id., at 11-13.
The planned alibi defense figured prominently in counsels’ opening statements on day two of Lee’s trial. The prosecutor, at the close of her statement, said she expected an alibi defense from Lee and would present testimony to disprove it. Tr. 187. Defense counsel, in his opening statement, described the alibi defense in detail, telling the jury that the evidence would show Lee was not in Kansas City, and therefore could not have engaged in crime there, in August 1992. App. 12-13. Specifically, defense counsel said three close family members would testify that Lee came to visit them in Ventura, California, in July 1992 and stayed through the end of October. Lee’s mother and stepfather would say they picked him up from the airport at the start of his visit and returned him there at the end. Lee’s sister would testify that Lee resided with her and her four children during this time. All three would affirm that they saw Lee regularly throughout his unbroken sojourn. Ibid.
During the prosecution case, two eyewitnesses to the shooting identified Lee as the driver. The first, Reginald Williams, admitted during cross-examination that he had told Lee’s first defense counsel in a taped interview that Rhodes, not Lee, was the driver. Tr. 285. Williams said he had given that response because he misunderstood the question and did not want to be “bothered” by the interviewer. Id., at 283, 287. The second eyewitness, William Sanders, was unable to pick Lee out of a photographic array on the day of the shooting; Sanders identified Lee as the driver for the first time 18 months after the murder. Id., at 413-414.
Two other witnesses, Rhonda Shelby and Lynne Bryant, were called by the prosecutor. Each testified that she knew Lee and had seen him in Kansas City the night before the murder. Both said Lee was with Rhodes, who had asked where Steven Shelby (the murder victim) was. Id., at 443-487. The State offered no physical evidence connecting Lee to the murder and did not suggest a motive.
The defense case began at 10:25 a.m. on the third and final day of trial. Two impeachment witnesses testified that morning. Just after noon, counsel met with the trial judge in chambers for a charge conference. At that meeting, the judge apparently agreed to give an alibi instruction submitted by Lee. Id., at 571.
At some point in the late morning or early afternoon, the alibi witnesses left the courthouse. Just after one o’clock, Lee took the stand outside the presence of the jury and, for the record, responded to his counsel’s questions concerning his knowledge of the witnesses’ unanticipated absence. App. 15. Lee, under oath, stated that Gladys and James Edwards and Laura Lee had voluntarily traveled from California to testify on his behalf. Id., at 16. He affirmed his counsel’s representations that the three witnesses, then staying with Lee’s uncle in Kansas City, had met with Lee’s counsel and received subpoenas from him; he similarly affirmed that the witnesses had met with a Kansas City police officer, who interviewed them on behalf of the prosecutor. Id., at 16-18. Lee said he had seen his sister, mother, and stepfather in the courthouse that morning at 8:30 and later during a recess.
On discovering the witnesses’ absence, Lee could not call them at his uncle’s house because there was no phone on the premises. He asked his girlfriend to try to find the witnesses, but she was unable to do so. Id., at 17. Although Lee did not know the witnesses’ whereabouts at that moment, he said he knew “in fact they didn’t go back to California” because “they [had] some ministering... to do” in Kansas City both Thursday and Friday evenings. Id., at 18. He asked for “a couple hours’ continuance [to] try to locate them, because it’s very valuable to my case.” Ibid. Defense counsel subsequently moved for a continuance until the next morning, to gain time to enforce the subpoenas he had served on the witnesses. Id., at 20. The trial judge responded that he could not hold court the next day because “my daughter is going to be in the hospital all day... [s]o I’ve got to stay with her.” Ibid.
After a brief further exchange between court and counsel, the judge denied the continuance request. The judge observed:
“It looks to me as though the folks were here and then in effect abandoned the defendant. And that, of course, we can’t — we can’t blame that on the State. The State had absolutely nothing to do with that. That’s — it’s too bad. The Court will not be able to be here tomorrow to try the case.” Id., at 22.
Counsel then asked for a postponement until Monday (the next business day after the Friday the judge was to spend with his daughter in the hospital). The judge denied that request too, noting that he had another case set for trial that day. Ibid.
In a final colloquy before the jury returned to the courtroom, defense counsel told the court he would be making a motion for judgment of acquittal. The judge asked, “You’re going to give that to me... orally and you’ll supplement that with a written motion?” Counsel agreed. Id., at 23.
When the jurors returned, defense counsel informed them that the three witnesses from California he had planned to call “were here and have gone”; further, counsel did not “know why they’ve gone.” Id., at 25. The defense then rested. In closing argument, Lee’s counsel returned to the alibi defense he was unable to present. “I do apologize,” he said, “I don’t know what happened to my witnesses. They’re not here. Couldn’t put them on on the question of alibi.” Id., at 26. The prosecutor commented on the same gap: “Where are those alibi witnesses that [defense counsel] promised you from opening[?] They’re not here.” Id., at 27.
After deliberating for three hours, the jury convicted Lee on both counts. He was subsequently sentenced to prison for life without possibility of parole. Id., at 43.
The trial court later denied Lee’s new trial motion, which Lee grounded, in part, on the denial of the continuance motion. Id., at 31-32, 42. Lee, at first pro se but later represented by appointed counsel, next filed a motion for state postconviction relief. Lee argued, inter alia, that the refusal to grant his request for an overnight continuance deprived him of his federal constitutional right to a defense. Id., at 56-59. In his postconviction motion, Lee asserted that the three witnesses had left the courthouse because “an unknown person,” whom he later identified as an employee of the prosecutor’s office, had told them “they were not needed to testify.” Id., at 56-58. The postconviction court denied the motion, stating that under Missouri law, an allegedly improper denial of a continuance fits within the category “trial error,” a matter to be raised on direct appeal, not in a collateral challenge to a conviction. Id., at 70.
Lee’s direct appeal and his appeal from the denial of post-conviction relief were consolidated before the Missouri Court of Appeals. See Mo. Sup. Ct. Rule 29.15(0 (1994). There, Lee again urged that the trial court’s refusal to continue the case overnight denied him due process and the right to put on a defense. App. 90-95. In response, the State argued for the first time that Lee’s continuance request had a fatal procedural flaw. Id., at 110-115. In particular, the State contended that Lee’s application failed to comply with Missouri Supreme Court Rule 24.10 (Rule 24.10), which lists the showings required in a continuance request based on the absence of witnesses. By the State’s reckoning, Lee’s request did not show the materiality of the California witnesses’ testimony or the grounds for believing that the witnesses could be found within a reasonable time; in addition, the prosecution urged, Lee failed to “testify that the witnessed’] absence was not due to his own procurement.” App. 113.
The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed Lee’s conviction and the denial of postconviction relief. State v. Lee, 935 S. W. 2d 689 (1996); App. 123-131. The appellate court first noted that Lee’s continuance motion was oral and therefore did not comply with Missouri Supreme Court Rule 24.09 (Rule 24.09), which provides that such applications shall be in written form, accompanied by an affidavit. App. 126-127. “Thus,” the Court of Appeals said, “the trial court could have properly denied the motion for a failure to comply with Rule 24.09.” Id., at 127. Even assuming the adequacy of Lee’s oral motion, the court continued, the application “was made without the factual showing required by Rule 24.10.” Ibid. The court did not say which components of Rule 24.10 were unsatisfied. “When a denial to grant a motion for continuance is based on a deficient application,” the Court of Appeals next said, “it does not constitute an abuse of discretion.” Ibid. Lee’s subsequent motions for rehearing and transfer to the Missouri Supreme Court were denied.
In January 1998, Lee, proceeding pro se, filed an application for writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. Id., at 132. Lee once again challenged the denial of his continuance motion. Id., at 147-152. He appended affidavits from the three witnesses, each of whom swore to Lee’s alibi; sister, mother, and stepfather alike stated that they had left the courthouse while the trial was underway because a court officer told them their testimony would not be needed that day. Id., at 168-174. Lee maintained that the State had engineered the witnesses’ departure; accordingly, he asserted that prosecutorial misconduct, not anything over which he had control, prompted the need for a continuance. Id., at 148,155-156.
The District Court denied the writ. No. 98-0074-CV-W-6-P (WD Mo., Apr. 19,1999), App. 212-218. The witnesses’ affidavits were not cognizable in federal habeas proceedings, the court held, because Lee could have offered them to the state courts but failed to do so. Id., at 215 (citing 28 U. S. C. § 2254(e) (1994 ed., Supp. V)). The Federal District Court went on to reject Lee’s continuance claim, finding in the Missouri Court of Appeals’ invocation of Rule 24.10 an adequate and independent state-law ground barring further review. App. 217.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit granted a certificate of appealability, limited to the question whether Lee’s “due process rights were violated by the state trial court’s failure to allow him a continuance,” id., at 232, and affirmed the denial of Lee’s habeas petition. 213 F. 3d 1037 (2000) (per curiam). Federal review of Lee’s due process claim would be unavailable, the court correctly observed, if the state court’s rejection of that claim “ ‘rest[ed]... on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment,’ regardless of ‘whether the state law ground is substantive or procedural.’ ” Id., at 1038 (quoting Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 729 (1991)). “The Missouri Court of Appeals rejected Lee’s claim because his motion for a continuance did not comply with [Rules] 24.09 and 24.10,” the Eighth Circuit next stated. Thus, that court concluded, “the claim was proeedurally defaulted.” 213 F. 3d, at 1038.
Chief District Judge Bennett, sitting by designation from the District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, dissented. In his view, Rules 24.09 and 24.10 did not supply state-law grounds “adequate” to preclude federal review in the particular circumstances of this case. Id., at 1041-1049.
We granted Lee’s pro se petition for a writ of certiorari, 531 U. S. 1189 (2001), and appointed counsel, 532 U. S. 956 (2001). We now vacate the Court of Appeals judgment.
h — I HH
This Court will not take up a question of federal law presented in a case “if the decision of [the state] court rests on a state law ground that is independent of the federal question and adequate to support the judgment.” Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 729 (1991) (emphases added). The rule applies with equal force whether the state-law ground is substantive or procedural. Ibid. We first developed the independent and adequate state ground doctrine in cases on direct review from state courts, and later applied it as well “in deciding whether federal district courts should address the claims of state prisoners in habeas corpus actions.” Ibid. “[T]he adequacy of state procedural bars to the assertion of federal questions,” we have recognized, is not within the State’s prerogative finally to decide; rather, adequacy “is itself a federal question.” Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415, 422 (1965).
Lee does not suggest that Rules 24.09 and 24.10, as brought to bear on this case by the Missouri Court of Appeals, depended in any way on federal law. Nor does he question the general applicability of the two codified Rules. He does maintain that both Rules — addressed initially to Missouri trial courts, but in his case invoked only at the appellate stage — are inadequate, under the extraordinary circumstances of this case, to close out his federal, fair-opportunity-to-defend claim. We now turn to that disposi-tive issue.
Ordinarily, violation of “firmly established and regularly followed” state rules — for example, those involved in this case — will be adequate to foreclose review of a federal claim. James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S. 341, 348 (1984); see Ford v. Georgia, 498 U. S. 411, 422-424 (1991). There are, however, exceptional cases in which exorbitant application of a generally sound rule renders the state ground inadequate to stop consideration of a federal question. See Davis v. Wechsler, 263 U. S. 22, 24 (1923) (Holmes, J.) (“Whatever springes the State may set for those who are endeavoring to assert rights that the State confers, the assertion of federal rights, when plainly and reasonably made, is not to be defeated under the name of local practice.”). This case fits within that limited category.
Our analysis and conclusion are informed and controlled by Osborne v. Ohio, 495 U. S. 103 (1990). There, the Court considered Osborne’s objections that his child pornography conviction violated due process because the trial judge had not required the government to prove two elements of the alleged crime: lewd exhibition and scienter. Id., at 107,122-125. The Ohio Supreme Court held the constitutional objections proeedurally barred because Osborne had failed to object contemporaneously to the judge’s charge, which did not instruct the jury that it could convict only for conduct that satisfied both the scienter and the lewdness elements. Id., at 107-108,123; see Ohio Rule Grim. Proc. 30(A) (1989) (“A party may not assign as error the giving or the failure to give any instructions unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating specifically the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection.”).
We agreed with the State that Osborne’s failure to urge the trial court to instruct the jury on scienter qualified as an “adequate state-law ground [to] preven[t] us from reaching Osborne’s due process contention on that point.” 495 U. S., at 123. Ohio law, which was not in doubt, required proof of scienter unless the applicable statute specified otherwise. Id., at 112-113, n. 9,123. The State’s contemporaneous objection rule, we observed, “serves the State’s important interest in ensuring that counsel do their part in preventing trial courts from providing juries with erroneous instructions.” Id., at 123.
“With respect to the trial court’s failure to instruct on lewdness, however, we reach[ed] a different conclusion.” Ibid. Counsel for Osborne had made his position on that essential element clear in a motion to dismiss overruled just before trial, and the trial judge, “in no uncertain terms,” id., at 124, had rejected counsel’s argument. After a brief trial, the judge charged the jury in line with his ruling against Osborne on the pretrial motion to dismiss. Counsel’s failure to object to the charge by reasserting the argument hie had made unsuccessfully on the motion to dismiss, we held, did not deter our disposition of the constitutional question. “Given this sequence of events,” we explained, it was proper to “reach Osborne’s [second] due process claim,” for Osborne’s attorney had “pressed the issue of the State’s failure of proof on lewdness before the trial court and... nothing would be gained by requiring Osborne’s lawyer to object a second time, specifically to the jury instructions.” Ibid. In other words, although we did not doubt the general applicability of the Ohio Rule of Criminal Procedure requiring contemporaneous objection to jury charges, we nevertheless concluded that, in this atypical instance, the Rule would serve “no perceivable state interest.” Ibid, (internal quotation marks omitted).
Our decision, we added in Osborne, followed from “the general principle that an objection which is ample and timely to bring the alleged federal error to the attention of the trial court and enable it to take appropriate corrective action is sufficient to serve legitimate state interests, and therefore sufficient to preserve the claim for review here.” Id., at 125 (quoting Douglas, 380 U. S., at 422 (internal quotation marks omitted)). This general principle, and the unusual “sequence of events” before us — rapidly unfolding events that Lee and his counsel could not have foreseen, and for which they were not at all responsible — similarly guide our judgment in this case.
The dissent strives mightily to distinguish Osborne, an opinion Justices Kennedy and Scalia joined, but cannot do so convincingly. In an intricate discussion of Osborne longer than the relevant section of Osborne itself, the dissent crafts its own rationales for the decision and sweeps away language its design cannot accommodate as “unnecessary” and “in tension” with the rest of the Court’s analysis, post, at 399.
As attentive reading of the relevant pages of Osborne will confirm, 495 U. S., at 123-125, we here rely not on “isolated statements” from the opinion, post, at 396, but solidly on its analysis and holding on “the adequacy of state procedural bars to the assertion of federal questions.” 495 U. S., at 125 (quoting Douglas, 380 U. S., at 422 (internal quotation marks omitted)).
According to the dissent in this case, Osborne’s discrete section trained on the adequacy of state-law grounds to bar federal review had two bases. First, the dissent views as central to Osborne the “unforeseeab[ilityj” of the Ohio Supreme Court’s limiting construction of the child pornography statute at issue there, i. e., that court’s addition of the “lewdness” element on which Osborne failed to request a jury charge. Post, at 397-398; see also post, at 399. The dissent here is characteristically inventive. Osborne spoke not of the predictability vel non of the Ohio Supreme Court’s construction; instead, this Court asked whether anything “would be gained by requiring Osborne’s lawyer to object a second time” on the question of lewdness, 495 U. S., at 124, and answered that question with a firm “no.” Tellingly, Osborne noted, without criticism, the Ohio Supreme Court’s own indication that the limiting construction of the child pornography statute was not unpredictable, for it flowed from the “proper purposes” exceptions set out by the Legislature. Id., at 113, n. 10.
Second, the dissent suggests that Osborne is enlightening only as to “Ohio’s treatment of overbreadth objections.” Post, at 398. Osborne, the dissent contends, “stands for the proposition that once a trial court rejects an overbreadth challenge, the defendant cannot be expected... to lodge a foreclosed objection to the jury instructions.” Post, at 399. In truth, Ohio had no special-to-the-First Amendment “requirement.” Ibid. Rather, Ohio’s firmly established, generally applicable practice was a standard contemporaneous objection rule for challenges to jury charges. See Ohio Rule Crim. Proc. 30(A) (1989). As Osborne paradigmatically illustrates, that Rule is unassailable in most instances, i. e., it ordinarily serves a legitimate governmental interest; in rare circumstances, however, unyielding application of the general rule would disserve any perceivable interest.
The asserted procedural oversights in Lee’s case, his alleged failures fully to comply with Rules 24.09 and 24.10, were first raised more than two and a half years after Lee’s trial. The two Rules, Missouri maintains, “work together to enhance the reliability of a trial court's determination of whether to delay a scheduled criminal trial due to the absence of a witness.” Brief for Respondent 29 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added). Nevertheless, neither the prosecutor nor the trial judge so much as mentioned the Rules as a reason for denying Lee’s continuance motion. If either prosecutor or judge considered supplementation of Lee’s motion necessary, they likely would have alerted the defense at the appropriate time, and Lee would have had an opportunity to perfect his plea to hold the case over until the next day. Rule 24.10, we note, after listing the components of a continuance motion, contemplates subsequent perfection: “If the court shall be of the opinion that the affidavit is insufficient it shall permit it to be amended.”
The State, once content that the continuance motion was ripe for trial court disposition on the merits, had a second thought on appeal. It raised Rule 24.10 as a new argument in its brief to the Missouri Court of Appeals; even then, the State did not object to the motion’s oral form. App. 107-108, 110-115. The Missouri Court of Appeals, it seems, raised Rule 24.09’s writing requirements (“a written motion accompanied by [an] affidavit”) on its own motion.
Three considerations, in combination, lead us to conclude that this case falls within the small category of cases in which asserted state grounds are inadequate to block adjudication of a federal claim. First, when the trial judge denied Lee’s motion, he stated a reason that could not have been countered by a perfect motion for continuance. The judge said he could not carry the trial over until the next day because he had to be with his daughter in the hospital; the judge further informed counsel that another scheduled trial prevented him from concluding Lee’s case on the following business day. Although the judge hypothesized that the witnesses had “abandoned” Lee, id., at 22, he had not “a scintilla of evidence or a shred of information” on which to base this supposition, 213 F. 3d, at 1040 (Bennett, C. J., dissenting).
Second, no published Missouri decision directs flawless compliance with Rules 24.09 and 24.10 in the unique circumstances this case presents — the sudden, unanticipated, and at the time unexplained disappearance of critical, subpoenaed witnesses on what became the trial’s last day. Lee’s predicament, from all that appears, was one Missouri courts had not confronted before. “[Although [the rúles themselves] may not [have been] novel,... [their] application to the facts here was.” Sullivan v. Little Hunting Park, Inc., 396 U. S. 229, 245 (1969) (Harlan, J., dissenting).
. Third and most important, given “the realities of trial,” post, at 400, Lee substantially complied with Missouri’s key Rule. As to the “written motion” requirement, Missouri’s brief in this Court asserted: “Nothing would have prevented counsel from drafting a brief motion and affidavit complying with Rul[e] 24.09 in longhand while seated in the courtroom.” Brief for Respondent 30. At oral argument, however, Missouri’s counsel edged away from this position. Counsel stated: “I’m not going to stand on the formality... of a writing or even the formality of an affidavit.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 48. This concession was well advised. Missouri does not rule out oral continuance motions; they are expressly authorized, upon consent of the adverse party, by Rule 24.09. And the written transcript of the brief trial court proceedings, see supra, at 367, enabled an appellate court to comprehend the situation quickly. In sum, we are drawn to the conclusion reached by the Eighth Circuit dissenter: “[A]ny seasoned trial lawyer would agree” that insistence on a written continuance application, supported by an affidavit, “in the midst of trial upon the discovery that subpoenaed witnesses are suddenly absent, would be so bizarre as to inject an Alice-in-Wonderland quality into the proceedings.” 213 F. 3d, at 1047.
Regarding Rule 24.10, the only Rule raised on appeal by the prosecution, see supra, at 371-372, the Missouri Court of Appeals’ decision was summary. Although that court did not specify the particular components of the Rule neglected by Lee, the State here stresses two: “Lee’s counsel never mentioned during his oral motion for continuance the testimony he expected the missing witnesses to give”; further, he “gave the trial court no reason to believe that the missing witnesses could be located within a reasonable time.” Brief for Respondent 31.
These matters, however, were either covered by the oral continuance motion or otherwise conspicuously apparent on the record. The testimony that the alibi witnesses were expected to give had been previewed during voir dire at the outset of the three-day trial, then detailed in defense counsel’s opening statement delivered just one day before the continuance motion. App. 10-13; see Osborne, 495 U. S., at 123 (defense counsel’s failure to object to jury charge did not bar consideration of federal claim where counsel had pressed the basic objection in a motion to dismiss made immediately before “brief” trial). Two of the prosecution’s witnesses testified in part to anticipate and rebut the alibi. Tr. 443-487. An alibi instruction was apparently taken up at the charge conference held less than an hour before the trial court denied the continuance motion. See supra, at 368-369, n. 1. When defense counsel moved for a continuance, the judge asked a question indicating his recognition that alibi witness Gladys Edwards was Lee’s mother. See supra, at 370, n. 2.
Given the repeated references to the anticipated alibi witness testimony each day of trial, it is inconceivable that anyone in the courtroom harbored a doubt about what the witnesses had traveled from California to Missouri to say on the stand or why their testimony was material, indeed indispensable, to the defense. It was also evident that no witness then in the Kansas City vicinity could effectively substitute for the family members with whom Lee allegedly stayed in Ventura, California. See Rule 24.10(a) and (c) (movant shall show “the materiality of the evidence sought,” “[w]hat particular facts the affiant believes the witness will prove,” and that “no other person” available to the movant could “so fully prove the same facts”).
Moreover, Lee showed “reasonable grounds for belief” that the continuance would serve its purpose. See Rule 24.10(b). He said he knew the witnesses had not left Kansas City because they were to “ministe[r]” there the next two evenings; he provided their local address; and he sought less than a day’s continuance to enforce the subpoenas for their attendance. App. 16-18.
Concerning his “diligence... to obtain” the alibi testimony, see Rule 24.10(a), Lee and his counsel showed: the witnesses had voluntarily traveled from California to appear at the trial; counsel had subpoenaed the witnesses when he interviewed them in Kansas City; the witnesses had telephoned counsel the evening before the third trial day and had agreed to come to court that next day; the witnesses in fact were in court at 8:30 in the morning waiting in a witness room; and Lee saw them during a recess. App. 16-18. Countering “procurement” of. the witnesses’ absence by the defense, see Rule 24.10(d), Lee affirmed that he did not know “why they left” or “where they went,” and asked for just “a couple hours’ continuance [to] try to locate them.” App. 17-18.
Rule 24.10, like other state and federal rules of its genre, serves a governmental interest of undoubted legitimacy. It is designed to arm trial judges with the information needed to rule reliably on a motion to delay a scheduled criminal trial. The Rule’s essential requirements, however, were substantially met in this case. Few transcript pages need be read to reveal the information called for by Rule 24.10. “[Njothing would [have] be[en] gained by requiring” Lee’s counsel to recapitulate in (a), (b), (c), (d) order the showings the Rule requires. See Osborne, 495 U. S., at 124; cf. Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313, 319-320 (1958) (failure to challenge “specific sections” of an ordinance not an adequate state ground barring review of federal claim when party challenged constitutionality of entire ordinance and all sections were “interdependent”). “Where it is inescapable that the defendant sought to invoke the substance of his federal right, the asserted state-law defect in form must be more evident than it is here.” James v. Kentucky, 466 U. S., at 351.
The dissent critiques at great length Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443 (1965), a case on which we do not rely in reaching our decision. See post, at 393-395, 406. This protracted exercise is
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.
Jury service is an exercise of responsible citizenship by all members of the community, including those who otherwise might not have the opportunity to contribute to our civic life. Congress recognized this over a century ago in the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which made it a criminal offense to exclude persons from jury service on account of their race. See 18 U. S. C. §243. In a trilogy of cases decided soon after enactment of this prohibition, our Court confirmed the validity of the statute, as well as the broader constitutional imperative of race neutrality in jury selection. See Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U. S. 303 (1880); Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313 (1880); Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339 (1880). In the many times we have confronted the issue since those cases, we have not questioned the premise that racial discrimination in the qualification or selection of jurors offends the dignity of persons and the integrity of the courts. Despite the clarity of these commands to eliminate the taint of racial discrimination in the administration of justice, allegations of bias in the jury selection process persist. In this case, petitioner alleges race discrimination in the prosecution’s use of peremptory challenges. Invoking the Equal Protection Clause and federal statutory law, and relying upon well-established principles of standing, we hold that a criminal defendant may object to race-based exclusions of jurors effected through peremptory challenges whether or not the defendant and the excluded jurors share the same race.
HH
Petitioner Larry Joe Powers, a white man, was indicted in Franklin County, Ohio, on two counts of aggravated murder and one count of attempted aggravated murder. Each count also included a separate allegation that petitioner had a firearm while committing the offense. Powers pleaded not guilty and invoked his right to a jury trial.
In the jury selection process, Powers objected when the prosecutor exercised his first peremptory challenge to remove a black venireperson. Powers requested the trial court to compel the prosecutor to explain, on the record, his reasons for excluding a black person. The trial court denied the request and excused the juror. The State proceeded to use nine more peremptory challenges, six of which removed black venirepersons from the jury. Each time the prosecution challenged a black prospective juror, Powers renewed his objections, citing our decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). His objections were overruled. The record does not indicate that race was somehow implicated in the crime or the trial; nor does it reveal whether any black persons sat on petitioner’s petit jury or if any of the nine jurors petitioner excused by peremptory challenges were black persons.
The empaneled jury convicted Powers on counts of murder, aggravated murder, and attempted aggravated murder, each with the firearm specifications, and the trial court sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of 53 years to life. Powers appealed his conviction to the Ohio Court of Appeals, contending that the prosecutor’s discriminatory use of pe-remptories violated the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee of a fair cross section in his petit jury, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and Article I, §§10 and 16, of the Ohio Constitution. Powers contended that his own race was irrelevant to the right to object to the prosecution’s peremptory challenges. The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, and the Supreme Court of Ohio dismissed Powers’ appeal on the ground that it presented no substantial constitutional question.
Petitioner sought review before us, renewing his Sixth Amendment fair cross section and Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claims. While the petition for certiorari was pending, we decided Holland v. Illinois, 493 U. S. 474 (1990). In Holland it was alleged the prosecution had used its peremptory challenges to exclude from the jury members of a race other than the defendant’s. We held the Sixth Amendment did not restrict the exclusion of a racial group at the peremptory challenge stage. Five members of the Court there said a defendant might be able to make the objection on equal protection grounds. See id., at 488 (Kennedy, J., concurring); id., at 490 (Marshall, J., joined by Brennan and Blackmun, JJ., dissenting); id., at 504 (Stevens, J., dissenting). After our decision in Holland, we granted Powers’ petition for certiorari limited to the question whether, based on the Equal Protection Clause, a white defendant may object to the prosecution’s peremptory challenges of black venirepersons. 493 U. S. 1068 (1990). We now reverse and remand.
II
For over a century, this Court has been unyielding in its position that a defendant is denied equal protection of the laws when tried before a jury from which members of his or her race have been excluded by the State’s purposeful conduct. “The Equal Protection Clause guarantees the defendant that the State will not exclude members of his race from the jury venire on account of race, Strauder, [100 U. S.,] at 305, or on the false assumption that members of his race as a group are not qualified to serve as jurors, see Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 599 (1935); Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 397 (1881).” Batson, supra, at 86 (footnote omitted). Although a defendant has no right to a “petit jury composed in whole or in part of persons of [the defendant’s] own race,” Strauder, 100 U. S., at 305, he or she does have the right to be tried by a jury whose members are selected by nondiscriminatory criteria.
We confronted the use of peremptory challenges as a device to exclude jurors because of their race for the first time in Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202 (1965). Swain involved a challenge to the so-called struck jury system, a procedure designed to allow both the prosecution and the defense a maximum number of peremptory challenges. The venire in noncapital cases started with about 35 potential jurors, from which the defense and the prosecution alternated with strikes until a petit panel of 12 jurors remained. The defendant in Swain, who was himself black, alleged that the prosecutor had used the struck jury system and its numerous peremptory challenges for the purpose of excluding black persons from his petit jury. In finding that no constitutional harm was alleged, the Court in Swain sought to reconcile the command of racial neutrality in jury selection with the utility, and the tradition, of peremptory challenges. The Court declined to permit an equal protection claim premised on a pattern of jury strikes in a particular case, but acknowledged that proof of systematic exclusion of black persons through the use of peremptories over a period of time might establish an equal protection violation. Id., at 222-228.
We returned to the problem of a prosecutor’s discriminatory use of peremptory challenges in Batson v. Kentucky. There, we considered a situation similar to the one before us today, but with one exception: Batson, the defendant who complained that black persons were being excluded from his petit jury, was himself black. During the voir dire examination of the venire for Batson’s trial, the prosecutor used his peremptory challenges to strike all four black persons on the venire, resulting in a petit jury composed only of white persons. Batson’s counsel moved without success to discharge the jury before it was empaneled on the ground that the prosecutor’s removal of black venirepersons violated his rights under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Relying upon the Equal Protection Clause alone, we overruled Swain to the extent it foreclosed objections to the discriminatory use of peremptories in the course of a specific trial. 476 U. S., at 90-93. In Batson we held that a defendant can raise an equal protection challenge to the use of peremptories at his own trial by showing that the prosecutor used them for the purpose of excluding members of the defendant’s race. Id., at 96.
The State contends that our holding in the case now before us must be limited to the circumstances prevailing in Batson and that in equal protection analysis the race of the objecting defendant constitutes a relevant precondition for a Batson challenge. Because Powers is white, the State argues, he cannot object to the exclusion of black prospective jurors. This limitation on a defendant’s right to object conforms neither with our accepted rules of standing to raise a constitutional claim nor with the substantive guarantees of the Equal Protection Clause and the policies underlying federal statutory law.
In Batson, we spoke of the harm caused when a defendant is tried by a tribunal from which members of his own race have been excluded. But we did not limit our discussion in Batson to that one aspect of the harm caused by the violation. Batson “was designed ‘to serve multiple ends,’” only one of which was to protect individual defendants from discrimination in the selection of jurors. Allen v. Hardy, 478 U. S. 255, 259 (1986) (per curiam) (quoting Brown v. Louisiana, 447 U. S. 323, 329 (1980)). Batson recognized that a prosecutor’s discriminatory use of peremptory challenges harms the excluded jurors and the community at large. 476 U. S., at 87.
The opportunity for ordinary citizens to participate in the administration of justice has long been recognized as one of the principal justifications for retaining the jury system. See Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 147-158 (1968). In Balzac v. Porto Rico, 258 U. S. 298 (1922), Chief Justice Taft wrote for the Court:
“The jury system postulates a conscious duty of participation in the machinery of justice. . . . One of its greatest benefits is in the security it gives the people that they, as jurors actual or possible, being part of the judicial system of the country can prevent its arbitrary use or abuse.” Id., at 310.
And, over 150 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville remarked:
“[T]he institution of the jury raises the people itself, or at least a class of citizens, to the bench of judicial authority [and] invests the people, or that class of citizens, with the direction of society.
. . The jury . . . invests each citizen with a kind of magistracy; it makes them all feel the duties which they are bound to discharge towards society; and the part which they take in the Government. By obliging men to turn their attention to affairs which are not exclusively their own, it rubs off that individual egotism which is the rust of society.
“I do not know whether the jury is useful to those who are in litigation; but I am certain it is highly beneficial to ■ those who decide the litigation; and I look upon it as one of the most efficacious means for the education of the people which society can employ.” 1 Democracy in America 334-337 (Schocken 1st ed. 1961).
Jury service preserves the democratic element of the law, as it guards the rights of the parties and ensures continued acceptance of the laws by all of the people. See Green v. United States, 356 U. S. 165, 215 (1958) (Black, J., dissenting). It “affords ordinary citizens a valuable opportunity to participate in a process of government, an experience fostering, one hopes, a respect for law.” Duncan, supra, at 187 (Harlan, J., dissenting). Indeed, with the exception of voting, for most citizens the honor and privilege of jury duty is their most significant opportunity to participate in the democratic process.
While States may prescribe relevant qualifications for their jurors, see Carter v. Jury Comm’n of Greene County, 396 U. S. 320, 332 (1970), a member of the community may not be excluded from jury service on account of his or her race. See Batson, supra, at 84; Swain, 380 U. S., at 203-204; Carter, supra, at 329-330; Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220-221 (1946); Neal v. Delaware, 103 U. S. 370, 386 (1881); Strauder, 100 U. S., at 308. “Whether jury service be deemed a right, a privilege, or a duty, the State may no more extend it to some of its citizens and deny it to others on racial grounds than it may invidiously discriminate in the offering and withholding of the elective franchise.” Carter, supra, at 330. Over a century ago, we recognized that:
“The very fact that [members of a particular race] are singled out and expressly denied ... all right to participate in the administration of the law, as jurors, because of their color, though they are citizens, and may be in other respects fully qualified, is practically a brand upon them, affixed by the law, an assertion of their inferiority, and a stimulant to that race prejudice which is an impediment to securing to individuals of the race that equal justice which the law aims to secure to all others.” Strauder, supra, at 308.
Discrimination in the jury selection process is the subject of a federal criminal prohibition, and has been since Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1876. The prohibition has been codified at 18 U. S. C. § 243, which provides:
“No citizen possessing all other qualifications which are or may be prescribed by law shall be disqualified for service as grand or petit juror in any court of the United States, or of any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and whoever, being an officer or other person charged with any duty in the selection or summoning of jurors, excludes or fails to summon any citizen for such cause, shall be fined not more than $6,000.”
In Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S. 493 (1972), Justice White spoke of “the strong statutory policy of § 243, which reflects the central concern of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id., at 507 (opinion concurring in judgment). The Court permitted a white defendant to challenge the systematic exclusion of black persons from grand and petit juries. While Peters did not produce a single majority opinion, six of the Justices agreed that racial discrimination in the jury selection process cannot be tolerated and that the race of the defendant has no relevance to his or her standing to raise the claim. See id., at 504-505 (opinion of Marshall, J.); id., at 506-507 (White, J., concurring in judgment).
Racial discrimination in the selection of jurors in the context of an individual trial violates these same prohibitions. A State “may not draw up its jury lists pursuant to neutral procedures but then resort to discrimination at ‘other stages in the selection process.’” Batson, 476 U. S., at 88 (quoting Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559, 562 (1953)). We so held in Batson, and reaffirmed that holding in Holland. See 493 U. S., at 479. In Holland, the Court held that a defendant could not rely on the Sixth Amendment to object to the exclusion of members of any distinctive group at the peremptory challenge stage. We noted that the peremptory challenge procedure has acceptance in our legal tradition. See id., at 481. On this reasoning we declined to permit an objection to the peremptory challenge of a juror on racial grounds as a Sixth Amendment matter. As the Holland Court made explicit, however, racial exclusion of prospective jurors violates the overriding command of the Equal Protection Clause, and “race-based exclusion is no more permissible at the individual petit jury stage than at the venire stage.” Id., at 479.
We hold that the Equal Protection Clause prohibits a prosecutor from using the State’s peremptory challenges to exclude otherwise qualified and unbiased persons from the petit jury solely by reason of their race, a practice that forecloses a significant opportunity to participate in civic life. An individual juror does not have a right to sit on any particular petit jury, but he or she does possess the right not to be excluded from one on account of race.
It is suggested that no particular stigma or dishonor results if a prosecutor uses the raw fact of skin color to determine the objectivity or qualifications of a juror. We do not believe a victim of the classification would endorse this view; the assumption that no stigma or dishonor attaches contravenes accepted equal protection principles. Race cannot be a proxy for determining juror bias or competence. “A person’s race simply ‘is unrelated to his fitness as a juror.’” Batson, supra, at 87 (quoting Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., supra, at 227 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting)). We may not accept as a defense to racial discrimination the very stereotype the law condemns.
We reject as well the view that race-based peremptory challenges survive equal protection scrutiny because members of all races are subject to like treatment, which is to say that white jurors are subject to the same risk of peremptory challenges based on race as are all other jurors. The suggestion that racial classifications may survive when visited upon all persons is no more authoritative today than the case which advanced the theorem, Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U. S. 537 (1896). This idea has no place in our modern equal protection jurisprudence. It is axiomatic that racial classifications do not become legitimate on the assumption that all persons suffer them in equal degree. Loving v. Virginia, 388 U. S. 1 (1967).
Ill
We must consider whether a criminal defendant has standing to raise the equal protection rights of a juror excluded from service in violation of these principles. In the ordinary course, a litigant must assert his or her own legal rights and interests, and cannot rest a claim to relief on the legal rights or interests of third parties. Department of Labor v. Triplett, 494 U. S. 715, 720 (1990); Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106 (1976). This fundamental restriction on our authority admits of certain, limited exceptions. We have recognized the right of litigants to bring actions on behalf of third parties, provided three important criteria are satisfied: The litigant must have suffered an “injury in fact,” thus giving him or her a “sufficiently concrete interest” in the outcome of the issue in dispute, id., at 112; the litigant must have a close relation to the third party, id., at 113-114; and there must exist some hindrance to the third party’s ability to protect his or her own interests. Id., at 115-116. See also Craig v. Boren, 429 U. S. 190 (1976). These criteria have been satisfied in cases where we have permitted criminal defendants to challenge their convictions by raising the rights of third parties. See, e. g., Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U. S. 438 (1972); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479 (1965); see also McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420 (1961). By similar reasoning, we have permitted litigants to raise third-party rights in order to prevent possible future prosecution. See, e. g., Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973).
The discriminatory use of peremptory challenges by the prosecution causes a criminal defendant cognizable injury, and the defendant has a concrete interest in challenging the practice. See Allen v. Hardy, 478 U. S., at 259 (recognizing a defendant’s interest in “neutral jury selection procedures”). This is not because the individual jurors dismissed by the prosecution may have been predisposed to favor the defendant; if that were true, the jurors might have been excused for cause. Rather, it is because racial discrimination in the selection of jurors “casts doubt on the integrity of the judicial process,” Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S. 545, 556 (1979), and places the fairness of a criminal proceeding in doubt.
The jury acts as a vital check against the wrongful exercise of power by the State and its prosecutors. Batson, 476 U. S., at 86. The intrusion of racial discrimination into the jury selection process damages both the fact and the perception of this guarantee. “Jury selection is the primary means by which a court may enforce a defendant’s right to be tried by a jury free from ethnic, racial, or political prejudice, Rosales-Lopez v. United States, 451 U. S. 182, 188 (1981); Ham v. South Carolina, 409 U. S. 524 (1973); Dennis v. United States, 339 U. S. 162 (1950), or predisposition about the defendant’s culpability, Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717 (1961).” Gomez v. United States, 490 U. S. 858, 873 (1989). Active discrimination by a prosecutor during this process condones violations of the United States Constitution within the very institution entrusted with its enforcement, and so invites cynicism respecting the jury’s neutrality and its obligation to adhere to the law. The cynicism may be aggravated if race is implicated in the trial, either in a direct way as with an alleged racial motivation of the defendant or a victim, or in some more subtle manner as by casting doubt upon the credibility or dignity of a witness, or even upon the standing or due regard of an attorney who appears in the cause.
Unlike the instances where a defendant seeks to object to the introduction of evidence obtained illegally from a third party, see, e. g., United States v. Payner, 447 U. S. 727 (1980), here petitioner alleges that the primary constitutional violation occurred during the trial itself. A prosecutor’s wrongful exclusion of a juror by a race-based peremptory challenge is a constitutional violation committed in open court at the outset of the proceedings. The overt wrong, often apparent to the entire jury panel, casts doubt over the obligation of the parties, the jury, and indeed the court to adhere to the law throughout the trial of the cause. The voir dire phase of the trial represents the “jurors’ first introduction to the substantive factual and legal issues in a case.” Gomez, supra, at 874. The influence of the voir dire process may persist through the whole course of the trial proceedings. Ibid. If the defendant has no right to object to the prosecutor’s improper exclusion of jurors, and if the trial court has no duty to make a prompt inquiry when the defendant shows, by adequate grounds, a likelihood of impropriety in the exercise of a challenge, there arise legitimate doubts that the jury has been chosen by proper means. The composition of the trier of fact itself is called in question, and the irregularity may pervade all the proceedings that follow.
The purpose of the jury system is to impress upon the criminal defendant and the community as a whole that a verdict of conviction or acquittal is given in accordance with the law by persons who are fair. The verdict will not be accepted or understood in these terms if the jury is chosen by unlawful means at the outset. Upon these considerations, we find that a criminal defendant suffers a real injury when the prosecutor excludes jurors at his or her own trial on account of race.
We noted in Singleton that in certain circumstances “the relationship between the litigant and the third party may be such that the former is fully, or very nearly, as effective a proponent of the right as the latter.” 428 U. S., at 115. Here, the relation between petitioner and the excluded jurors is as close as, if not closer than, those we have recognized to convey third-party standing in our prior cases. See, e. g., Griswold v. Connecticut, supra (Planned Parenthood official and a licensed physician can raise the constitutional rights of contraceptive users with whom they had professional relationships); Craig, supra (licensed beer vendor has standing to raise the equal protection claim of a male customer challenging a statutory scheme prohibiting the sale of beer to males under the age of 21 and to females under the age of 18); Department of Labor v. Triplett, 494 U. S. 715 (1990) (attorney may challenge an attorney’s fees restriction by asserting the due process rights of the client). Voir dire permits a party to establish a relation, if not a bond of trust, with the jurors. This relation continues throughout the entire trial and may in some cases extend to the sentencing as well.
Both the excluded juror and the criminal defendant have a common interest in eliminating racial discrimination from the courtroom. A venireperson excluded from jury service because of race suffers a profound personal humiliation heightened by its public character. The rejected juror may lose confidence in the court and its verdicts, as may the defendant if his or her objections cannot be heard. This congruence of interests makes it necessary and appropriate for the defendant to raise the rights of the juror. And, there can be no doubt that petitioner will be a motivated, effective advocate for the excluded venirepersons’ rights. Petitioner has much at stake in proving that his jury was improperly constituted due to an equal protection violation, for we have recognized that discrimination in the jury selection process may lead to the reversal of a conviction. See Batson, 476 U. S., at 100; Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U. S. 254, 264 (1986); Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U. S., at 551; Cassell v. Texas, 339 U. S. 282 (1950). Thus, “‘there seems little loss in terms of effective advocacy from allowing [the assertion of this claim] by’ the presentas tertii champion.” Craig, 429 U. S., at 194 (quoting Singleton, supra, at 118).
The final inquiry in our third-party standing analysis involves the likelihood and ability of the third parties, the excluded venirepersons, to assert their own rights. See Singleton, supra, at 115-116. We have held that individual jurors subjected to racial exclusion have the legal right to bring suit on their own behalf. Carter, 396 U. S., at 329-330. As a practical matter, however, these challenges are rare. See Alschuler, The Supreme Court and the Jury: Voir Dire, Peremptory Challenges, and the Review of Jury Verdicts, 56 U. Chi. L. Rev. 153, 193-195 (1989). Indeed, it took nearly a century after the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 came into being for the first such case to reach this Court. See Carter, supra, at 320.
The barriers to a suit by an excluded juror are daunting. Potential jurors are not parties to the jury selection process and have no opportunity to be heard at the time of their exclusion. Nor can excluded jurors easily obtain declaratory or injunctive relief when discrimination occurs through an individual prosecutor’s exercise of peremptory challenges. Unlike a challenge to systematic practices of the jury clerk and commissioners such as we considered in Carter, it would be difficult for an individual juror to show a likelihood that discrimination against him at the voir dire stage will recur. See Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 105-110 (1983). And, there exist considerable practical barriers to suit by the excluded juror because of the small financial stake involved and the economic burdens of litigation. See Vasquez, supra, at 262, n. 5; Rose v. Mitchell, supra, at 558. The reality is that a juror dismissed because of race probably will leave the courtroom possessing little incentive to set in motion the arduous process needed to vindicate his own rights. See Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U. S. 249, 257 (1953).
We conclude that a defendant in a criminal case can raise the third-party equal protection claims of jurors excluded by the prosecution because of their race. In so doing, we once again decline “to reverse a course of decisions of long standing directed against racial discrimination in the administration of justice.” Cassell v. Texas, supra, at 290 (Frankfurter, J., concurring in judgment). To bar petitioner’s claim because his race differs from that of the excluded jurors would be to condone the arbitrary exclusion of citizens from the duty, honor, and privilege of jury service. In Holland and Batson, we spoke of the significant role peremptory challenges play in our trial procedures, but we noted also that the utility of the peremptory challenge system must be accommodated to the command of racial neutrality. Holland, 493 U. S., at 486-487; Batson, supra, at 98-99.
The Fourteenth Amendment’s mandate that race discrimination be eliminated from all official acts and proceedings of the State is most compelling in the judicial system. Rose v. Mitchell, supra, at 555. We have held, for example, that prosecutorial discretion cannot be exercised on the basis of race, Wayte v. United States, 470 U. S. 598, 608 (1985), and that, where racial bias is likely to influence a jury, an inquiry must be made into such bias. Ristaino v. Ross, 424 U. S. 589, 596 (1976); see also Turner v. Murray, 476 U. S. 28 (1986). The statutory prohibition on discrimination in the selection of jurors, 18 U. S. C. § 243, enacted pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Enabling Clause, makes race neutrality in jury selection a visible, and inevitable, measure of the judicial system’s own commitment to the commands of the Constitution. The courts are under an affirmative duty to enforce the strong statutory and constitutional policies embodied in that prohibition. See Peters v. Kiff, 407 U. S., at 507 (White, J., concurring in judgment); see also id., at 505 (opinion of Marshall, J.).
The emphasis in Batson on racial identity between the defendant and the excused prospective juror is not inconsistent with our holding today that race is irrelevant to a defendant’s standing to object to the discriminatory use of peremptory challenges. Racial identity between the defendant and the excused person might in some cases be the explanation for the prosecution’s adoption of the forbidden stereotype, and if the alleged race bias takes this form, it may provide one of the easier cases to establish both a prima facie case and a conclusive showing that wrongful discrimination has occurred. But to say that the race of the defendant may be relevant to discerning bias in some cases does not mean that it will be a factor in others, for race prejudice, stems from various causes and may manifest itself in different forms.
It remains for the trial courts to develop rules, without unnecessary disruption of the jury selection process, to permit legitimate and well-founded objections to the use of peremptory challenges as a mask for race prejudice. In this case, the State concedes that, if we find the petitioner has standing to object to the prosecution’s use of the peremptory challenges, the case should be remanded. We find that petitioner does have standing. The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with our 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: | 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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These six appeals involve, the validity of an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission permitting the merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and the New York Central Railroad Company (Penii-Central) pursuant to § 5 (2) of the Interstate Commerce Act, as amended, 41 Stat. 481, 49 U. S. C. § 5 (2). In its original order of April 6, 1966, the Commission found that the merger might divert a substantial amount of traffic from the Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Company (E-L), the Delaware and Hudson Railroad Company (D «fe H) and the Boston and Maine Corporation (B «fe M), three smaller competing carriers designated as the “protected railroads” by the Commission. These protected railroads had filéd under § 5 (2) (d) of the Act applications for inclusion in both this merger and in Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. and New York, C. & St. L. R. Co.—Merger, 324 I. C. C. 1. In the latter case inclusion of E-L and D «fe H has been recommended and, together with B «fe M, is pending before the Commission. The applications of the protected roads in the Penn-Central proceeding have been held in abeyance pending decision in the Norfolk proceeding.
On the merits of the Penn-Central merger, the Commission found that the service the protected railroads “render their shippers is essential and the public interest dictates that [such service] be.preserved.” The Commission concluded “that immediate consummation of the proposed merger would be consistent with the public interest, if conditions are imposed to obviate impairment or serious weakening” of the three lines. Without such conditions or the inclusion of the protected roads in a major system, the Commission further found, it would be doubtful if the “three carriers could withstand the competition of the applicants merged, and, unless they are protected during, the period necessary to determine their future, we would not authorize consummation at this time, even though approving the merger.” 327 I. C. C. 475, 532. It, therefore, applied, sua sponte, certain conditions to the immediate consummation of the merger which were “designed to prevent any loss of revenue over the three railroads [the protected railroads] as a direct result of immediate consummation of this merger.” Its “approval of the merger for undelayéd consummation” was made “subject... to the conditions specifically described in appendix G,” ibid., which was attached as an appendix to the April 6, 1966, order, and which we likewise attach as an Appendix here. The Commission, apparently because of the necessity for the conditions and the urgency of the merger, required compliance with Appendix G even though it had neither the bénefit of a report from a Hearing Examiner thereon, nor the advantage of a hearing before the Commission itself. These conditions detailed the protection which must be given the protected railroads and made them a prerequisite to the consummation of the merger.
The Commission, therefore, not only found that protection of the three railroads was necessary, but fixed the terms thereof and required compliance prior to permitting the' merger. There was nothing tentative about Appendix G. The conditions were divided into two general categories and provided that: (1) On traffic for which the protected railroads are “competitive factors” the merged company shall not, pending final determination of the inclusion proceedings, provide any new or changed routing practice,, freight rates, or service which would divert or tend to divert traffic from routes in which the protected railroads, or any of them, participate or participated at the time of the merger. And (2) the protected railroads would be indemnified by the merged company against revenue losses by reason of the merger. Appendix G to the order detailed the manner in which such indemnity would be calculated and provided for the accelerated processing of complaints as to. new or changed routes, practices, rates, or services. Section 7 of Appendix G provided that if the merged company did not accede to all of the conditions, the merger would be deferred for two years or “such time as the Commission may determine to be necessary to protect, the interests of D & H, B & M and E-L.” And § 8 provided that the conditions “shall be construed, administered and enforced with the view to protecting the E-L, D & H and B & M and the shipping public which depends upon them for transportation, against the effects of the merger for the period and purposes set forth above.”
Thereafter, and without a hearing, but apparently on the objection of most of the parties, the Commission on September 16, 1966, modified its April 6 order and reopened' the hearing. 328 I. C. C. 304. The objectors, among other things, pointed to the fact that the conditions of. Appendix G were made without any notice or hearing and would create irreconcilable conflicts between the protected carriers and others adversely affected by the merger. In reopening the hearing the Commission limited it to the conditions imposed in Appendix G-, the prevention of possible manipulation of such conditions and the enlargement of the indemnity provision to include capital loss. In the reopening order of September 16, Í966, the Commission left intact its order of April 6, 1966, as to the undelayed consummation of the merger, continued in effect the ban on new or changed routes, practices, and rates as to traffic in which any of the protected railroads participated, but lifted the indemnification condition until further order, at which time any such provision found necessary could be made retroactive to the date of the merger. None of the previous findings, as to the necessity for the immediate imposition of the conditions included in the original order, were amended or withdrawn. The traffic conditions alone were left in effect.
This suit was filed on September 7, 1966, and arose upon the complaint of E-L and other railroads seeking an interlocutory injunction to restrain the consummation of the merger. A three-judge court was convened, 28 U. S. C. § 2284, and thereafter it declined, by a divided vote, to grant the interlocutory injunction. Erie-Lackawanna Railroad Co. v. United States, 259 F. Supp. 964. The appellants sought a stay from Mr. Justice Harlan who referred the application to the Court and it was granted on October 18, 1966. At the same time we expedited the oase for consideration. 385 U. S. 914. The sole question before us is whether, in light of the findings as to the necessity for interim protection for the so-called protected railroads, the Commission erred in permitting the consummation of the merger prior to and without awaiting determination of the inclusion proceedings. We believe that the Commission erred in approving the immediate consummation of the merger without determining the ultimate fate of the protected roads. We, therefore, reverse the judgment and remand the case to the District Court with. instructions to remand the matter to the Commission for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
I.
Questions not here decided.
At the outset we make it clear that we do not pass on the validity of the merger, the special conditions of Appendix G, the modified order of the Commission, or the peripheral points posed by the various parties. We hold only that under the uncontradicted findings of the Commission it was necessary for it to conclude the inclusion proceedings, as to the protected railroads, prior to permitting consummation of the merger.
II.
The merger, its background, its participants and relative position.
The Penn-Central merger has been under study and discussion by the Commission for some 10 years. After the initial study was completed in 1959, Central withdrew-, from the plan and began negotiations for a merger with" the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company (C «fe 0) for joint control of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company (B «fe 0). However, when at a later date.C «fe 0 had contracted for the purchase of some 61% of B «fe 0 stock, Central gave up its plan and renewed negotiations with Penn. The two roads signed an agreement of merger in 1962. The New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad'Company (NH) approached Penn and Central for inclusion in the plan but was given a deaf ear. The merger agreement provided that all properties, franchises, etc..(permitted, by respective state law), would be transferred to the merged company and appropriate stock exchange, debt arrangements, etc., effected. '
As the Commission found, the merger would “create an hour-glass shaped system flared on the east from Montreal, Canada, through Boston, Mass., to Norfolk, Va., and on the west from Mackinaw City, Mich., through Chicago, Ill., to St. Louis, Mo.” 327 I. C. C., at 489. It would operate some 19,600 miles of road in 14 States between the Great Lakes, with a splash in Canada on the north, and the Ohio and Potomac Rivers' on the south. After the two systems are connected as planned and' new and expanded yards are provided, the merger will consolidate trains now moving separately between the same points. The combined systems will have a substantial amount of parallel track-age and routes, with 160 common points or junctions. Terminals will be consolidated, present interchanges between the two systems will be eliminated and only the most efficient yards and facilities of the respective systems will be utilized. The merger plan calls for 98 projects that will intermesh their long-haul traffic at key points, creating a nonstop'service between the principal cities with “locals” coyering the multiple-stop routes and branch lines. It is estimated that enormous savings in transit time can be effected; Certain chosen yards — such as Selkirk — will be remodeled and modernized into electronically operated yards with capacities of from 5,000 to 10,000 cars per day. The through trains to the West will be formed at Selkirk and those from the West broken up for dispatch to terminals' or consignees in New England, New York, and northern New Jersey. The. plan calls for some New York City traffic to be routed over Central’s Hudson River East Shore line to lessen cost. By consolidating traffic on fast through lines, filling out trains, re-routing over the most efficient routes, eliminating some interchanges and effecting other improvements, the merged company will reduce by 6,000,000 the number of train miles operated. A single-line service will be operated between more points, with less circuity and less switching. The plan'álso calls for 31 daily trains to be withdrawn from the Pennsylvania with seven new ones added, leaving a total of 319 trains daily.
The Pennsylvania is the largest and Central the third largest railroad in the Northeastern Region. Together the operating revenue of the two roads was - over $1,500,000,000 in 1965. Their net income in 1964 totaled almost $57,000,000 and in 1965 ran in excess of $75,000,000. In 1963 the total net was barely.$16,000,000. The cost of operation of the two systems runs $90,000,000 a month and their working capital was some $72,000,000 in. 1965. As of December 31, 1963, their combined investments were $1,242,000,000. The Pennsylvania and Cehtral systems are each made up of underlying corporations, As of the date of the Examiners’ Report the merged company would have ownership interest in 182 corporations and 10 railroads under lease! Thirty-six of the corporations are rail carriers! in six of which the merged company would have a voting control. All six are Class I railroads.. It would likewise control six Class II railroads, five switching and terminal railroads, a holding company, five car-leasing companies, four common carriers and 34 noncarrier corporations.
The NH is the sixth largest railroad in the Northeastern Region and the largest in New England. On a national basis it ranks fourth among passenger-carrying railroads and is one of the largest non trunkline' fréight roads. It has some 1,500 miles of railroad in four States — Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and part of New York. NH has been in reorganization under § 77 of the Bankruptcy Act, 47 Stat. 1474, as amended, 11 U. S. C. § 205, since 1961. While its gross revenues have run in excess of $120,000,000, it has run deficits since 1958; During the trusteeship its deficits have run from $12,700,000 in 1962 to $15,100,000 in 1965.
hH HH I — I
The protesting parties, their setting m the Northeastern Region and their position on the merger.
Altogether some 200 parties participated in the proceedings before the Commission, some in support of and others in opposition to the merger. None of the appellant railroads challenge the merits of the merger; however, appellants Milton J. Shapp and the City of Scranton both attack the merger on its merits. Aside from Penn-Central and NH, there are 10 other carriers involved in this proceeding.
Three of these are the protected carriers — B & M, I) & H and E-L. B & M operates a freight and passenger service in. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and' New York over some 1,500 miles of road. It has suffered consecutive deficits in net income for some years and has not appealed from the decision of the District Court. D & H operates about 750 miles of road with some 600 in New York, less than 50 in Vermont and the balance in Pennsylvania. Its net income in 1965 was $5,000,000, its highest year since 1960. E-L operates some 3,000 miles of railroad located in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. Its net income was over $3,000,000 in 1965 but it. suffered heavy deficits in the seven preceding years. As we have previously noted, these three railroads have filed applications for inclusion in both this case and in Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. and New York, C. & St. L. R. Co.—Merger, 324 I. C. C. I. The Commission has withheld action, on the inclusion of E-L, B & M and D & H, in Pénn-Central until there is a final determination of their inclusion proceeding with Norfolk and Western (N & W). In the Jatter proceeding Commissioner Webb filed his report on December 22,1966, récommending the inclusion of E-L and D & H in the N & W system but was unable to prescribe terms for inclusion of B & M — this was left to private negotiation between the railroads. On argument here the Commission.has indicated that it anticipated entering a final order in the matter by Juiy or August 1967. If this is favorable these, three roads would be included in the N & W system, which has indicated its acquiescence in such a plan.
Six additional railroads involved here are the C & 0, B & 0; the Central of New Jersey (CNJ), the Reading Company, the Norfolk and Western, and the' Western Maryland Company (WM). The C & O-B & O system is the result-of a control proceeding in 1962. See Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co.—Control—Baltimore & O. R. Co., 317 I. C. C. 261, sustained, sub nom, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees v. United States, 221 F. Supp. 19, aff'd, per curiam, 375 U. S. 216 (1963). Together these two roads operate some 10,000 miles of railroad. Their lines extend from Michigan through Ohio and West Virginia to Virginia and from Chicago, Ill., and St. Louis, Mo., to Rochester, N. Y., and Washington, D. C. Their net operating income in 1965 totaled over $80,000,000. In addition, B & O owns 38 %■ voting control of'Reading which in turn controls CNJ. Reading has 1,200 miles of railroad in eastern Pennsylvania with net. operating revenue of some $8,000,000 in 1965. CNJ has 514 miles of railroad extending from Scranton, Pa., to. Jersey City, N. J. In 1965 it had a net operating deficit in excess of $3,000,000. C & O-B & O also own jointly 65% of the voting stock of WM. The latter has 741 miles of railroad extending, from Connellsville, JPa., and Webster Springs, W. Va., to Baltimore, Md. In 1965 its net operating income was nearly $8,500,000.
N & W has 7,000 miles of railroad extending in a double prong from Des Moines, Iowa, and Kansas. City, Mo., on the west to Buffalo, N. Y., and Pittsburgh, Pa., on the east and from Cincinnati, Ohio, and Bristol, Va., on the west to Hagerstown, Md., and Norfolk, Va.,.on the east. Its net operating income. for 1965 was approximately $118,000,000.'1 As we have noted, an inclusion proceeding is now pending under which B & M, D & H and E-L seek inclusion in the N & W system.
On October 11, 1965, C & O-B & O and N <fe W filed an application with the Commission asking approval of their merger into a single system and offering to include B & M, D & H, E-L, the Reading and CNJ therein, subject to various'conditions. If this were effected and the Penn-Central-NH merger were effected, the. Northeastern Region would then have two giant systems, i. e., Penn-Central and C & O-B & O-N & W.
Only one additional railroad remains a party here, the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad Company (C & El). It has approximately 750 miles of railroad operating between Chicago, Ill., St. Louis, Mo., and Evansville,Ind., with a net operating income of nearly $3,500,000 in. 1965. The Missouri Pacific Railroad Company has already been authorized by the Commission to make C & E I a part of its system. The fear of C & E I here was that the Penn and Central merged would be a more formidable competitor than the Central alone and it, accordingly, sought the imposition here of special routing and traffic conditions.
The only other appellants are the City of Scranton, Pa., and Milton J. Shapp. Scranton is served by E-L, D & H and CNJ. It fears that the merger will have adverse effects upon the city and therefore opposes the merger. Shapp sues as a citizen and stockholder of Penn and is likewise in opposition to the merger.
The United States has filed a memorandum in which it does not “quarrel with the merits of the Penn-Central merger proposal itself.” The agencies of the Executive Branch, the Solicitor General reports, “believe that the merger is in the public interest and that its consummation should be promptly effected.” This view, however, is based on the assumption “that a place in the emerging pattern of consolidation in the Northeast can be found for the lesser roads of the region.” It is the Commission’s approval of the immediate consummation of the merger prior to the completion of the proceedings to determine the place of the lesser roads to which the United States objects. It contends that since the very survival of the three protected, railroads is threatened by the Penn-Céntral merger, the Commission must first provide protection for them until their absorption by “a major system like Norfolk and Western.” - To this end the United States suggests that we hold the case to enable the Commision to conclude the related proceedings which it now has under consideration. The United States concludes that: “Only if the Commission is unable to promptly resolve the problems resulting from the merger would we deem it appropriate to urge this Court to reach the merits of the appeals and reverse the judgment below.”.
The appellant railroads take varying positions all short of attacking the merits of the merger. The three protected railroads contend that the merger should not be consummated prior to the final determination of their inclusion in some major system or the enforcement of effective protective conditions in the interim. Judicial, review, they say, of the protective conditions would otherwise be illusory. The C & O-B & O group and the N <fe W system maintain that the conditions of the April 6, 1966, order give the protected railroads a vested interest in the Penn-Central merger which would result in the protected railroads diverting traffic to Penn-Central which would normally have gone to them. They say, as does the United States, that the conditions were drawn without the benefit of notice and hearing, are deficient and enforcement thereof would be to their detriment. C & EI points to what it calls inconsistent findings as to the benefits it will have “of intensified competitive efforts” by its connecting carriers on routes in competition with Perin-Central. It contends that the indemnity conditions would “compound the economic injury” which would befall the C &, E I as a result of the merger and which prompted'it to request protective measures.
IV.
The national transportation policy and practices of the Commission thereunder.
This Court has often pointed out that the national transportation policy “is- the product of a long history of trial and error by Congress....” McLean Trucking Co. v. United States, 321 U. S. 67, 80 (1944). In that case it found that the Transportation Act of 1920 “markéd a sharp change in the policies and objectives embodied in those efforts.” Ibid. In that Act the Congress directed the Commission to adopt a plan for consolidation of the railroads of the United States into “a limited number of systems.” 41 Stat. 481 (1920). Consolidation would be approved by the Commission upon a finding that the transaction was in harmony with and in furtherance of the complete plan of consolidation and that the public interest would be promoted.' But the Commission was warned that “competition shall be preserved as fully as possible.” Ibid. The initiation of this unification, however, the Congress left wholly with the ■ carriers. The Commission was given ho power to compel mergers. This pattern was carried forward in the Transportation Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 898; however, § 5 of the former Act was amended to authorize the Commission to approve carrier-initiated proposals which it found to be consistent with the public interest and upon just and reasonable conditions. Under § 5 (2) (d) additional power was given the Commission to condition its approval of a merger upon the inclusion, upon request, of other railroads operating in the territory involved. As,we said in County of Marin v. United States, 356 U. S. 412 (1958), “the result of the [1940] Act was a change in the means, while the end remained the same. The very language of the amended ‘unification section’ expresses clearly the desire of the Congress that the industry proceed toward an integrated national transportation system through substantial corporate simplification.” Id., at 417-418. The Commission has, therefore, not proceeded by or under “a master plan” for consolidation in the various regions. Following this procedure the Commission has refused to consolidate the Northeastern Region railroad merger or control proceedings into one case. See Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co.— Control-Baltimore & O. R. Co., supra, at 265-266, and Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. and New York, C. & St. L. R. Co.—Merger, supra, at 18. Also Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees v. United States, 221 F. Supp. 19, at 29-31; aff’d per curiam, 375 U. S. 216 (1963).
It is contended that the order here is fatally defective for failure to comply with § 5 (2)(b) of the Act which requires the Commission to “enter an order approving and authorizing such transaction, upon the terms and conditions, and with the modifications, so found to be just and reasonable.” The claim is that by leaving the indemnity provisions open for future, determination the Commission did not meet the requirements of the section. Once a valid order is entered by the Commission, it, of course, has the power to retain jurisdiction for the purpose of making modifications that it finds necessary in the light of subsequent circumstances or to assist in compliance with prior conditions previously required or, of course, to correct any errors. The Commission also has power under § 5 (9) of the Act to make certain supplemental orders and under § 17 (3) may correct clerical ■ errors in certificates. We do not find it necessary to pass upon the question of naked power in the Commission to' do what has been done here. Even assuming that it does have that power, we find that its order approving immediate consummation of the merger is insupportable on its findings.
V.
Conclusions.
The Commission found in its April 6, 1966, order that the protected railroads would be adversely affected to a “serious degree” by the Penn-Central merger; that they would be “severely handicapped” in providing required transportation to the highly industrialized areas that they serve, which service is “essential” and “the public service dictates that it be preserved.” It then held that immediate consummation of the merger would be consistent with the public interest only if the conditions of Appendix G were immediately imposed. And, significantly, it concluded that even though it approved the merger, consummation of it would not be permitted unless the protected railroads “are protected during the period necessary to determine their future...'.” 327 I. C. C., at 529, 532. But after this suit was brought and strong opposition to Appendix G was voiced, the Commission, on September 16, 1966, withdrew all of the conditions of Appendix G save the traffic ones.'This left the protected railroads without sufficient protection according to the Commission’s own findings. This was done apparently because of the vehement objections of the appellant railroads that Appendix G would cause havoc rather than give shelter. We cannot say, as did the District Court, that the September 16, 1966, order meant nothing more than that the traffic conditions left imposed by it were in themselves sufficient to protect the three protected railroads during the interim between the merger and the decision as to their future in one of the major railroad systems. This interpretation runs in the face of not only the prior findings enumerated above but the specific terms and conditions of Appendix G found to be necessary to prevent “impairment or serious weakening” of the three carriers. Id,., at 532. Indeed, rather than being tentative, the requirements of Appendix G were rigidly fixed and established for the entire period preceding inclusion of the protected roads in some major system. The finding of consistency with the public interest was predicated entirely upon the unqualified acceptance of Appendix G by Penn-Central. Otherwise the merger would be put off for two years. In its effort to expedite the merger the Commission failed to provide the very protection that it at the same time declared indispensable to the three roads. This leaves the ultimate conclusion — that prompt consummation of the Penn-Central merger clearly would be in the public interest— without support and it falls under the Commission’s own findings.
In view of these facts and since none of the findings of the Commission were disturbed, attacked, or amended, we believe it was error to permit the merger to be effected. And we also note that even in the ultimate order of approval dated September 16, 1966, the Commission pointed out that its “finding [as to the merger being consistent with the public interest] was that, if the immediate consummation were to be authorized E-L, D & H and B & M would require special protection during the pendency of their petitions for inclusion in a major system.” Nevertheless, in spite of this confirmation of its finding, the Commission ordered the merger immediately consummated without the “special protection” afforded by Appendix G. Having found that the finding of consistency with the public interest could only be sustained by the imposition of the Appendix G “special protection,” the Commission failed to meet its statutory obligation when it arbitrarily removed the special conditions of Appendix G while leaving the prior finding-standing.
In view of the patent invalidity of the order permitting immediate consummation of the merger and in light of the present status of the proceeding before the Commission, we can only conclude that it is necessary that the decision as to the future of the protected railroads and their inclusion, in a major system be decided pribr to consummation of the Penn-Central merger. This is especially true since the findings and recommendations of Commissioner Webb, as to the inclusion of the three protected railroads, are now under submission to the full Commission and a decision should be reached thereon by July or August 1967, we are advised by counsel. This short time would have little effect upon the ultimate consummation of the merger — which has been in the making for some 10 years now — and if it resulted in the future of the protected railroads being finally decided, serious losses to them would be obviated. Furthermore, there would.be no occasion for the conditions of Appendix G to be imposed and hearing and decision on this highly controversial matter would not be necessary insofar as the three protected railroads are concerned. Finally, such action would provide the solution to the problem of the necessary and indispensable protection to. the three railroads that the Commission found prerequisite to the merger.
Furthermore, the serious charge that the conditions of Appendix G were imposed without notice and hearing would in a large part be dissipated by this course of action. As to the three protected roads it would be entirely obviated if and when their fate is determined. As to the other railroads affected, the Commission could more quickly conclude its present hearing and make a decision as to the effect of the merger upon them and the protection, if any, required.
This disposition is also buttressed by the fact that should the immediate consummation of the merger be permitted and at a later date neither the interim conditions nor the inclusion proceedings be disposed of favorably to the continued existence of the merger, the only remedy remaining would be to set it aside and unscramble the - consolidation. It is said that this does not follow since only the indemnity terms are at issue and they involve only money. This is blinking at reality. The fact is that traffic, trackage, terminals, etc., as well as financial and corporate structures can and will, beyond doubt, be quickly combined, changed, abandoned, or consolidated. The only condition now imposed for the maintenance of the status quo is the provision against any change of routes, traffic, rates, etc., as to business in which the three protected roads participate. They are comparatively small lines located for the most part in northeastern coastal States and would, percentagewise, be a small part of the total routes, trafile, rates, etc., of the whole Penn-Central system. There would be no restriction as to other routes, traffic, rates, etc., as well as all other operations of the merged company, including terminals, warehouses, etc., financial and corporate structures. The plan that the Penn-Central proposes to follow, as we have briefly sketched it, indicates not only major changes but quick action. Our experience with other mergers, and common sense as well, indicate that the “scrambling” goes fast but the unscrambling is interminable and seldom.effectively accomplished.
The Penn-Central merger has been studied for a decade.. Indeed, the parties to the merger agreed to it over five years ago and it has been under Commission consideration ever since that time. This is, of course, the more reason for expedition. We note and give weight. to the estimates of the Commission that the inclusion proceedings of the three roads in the N & W should be concluded in “a relatively short time.” Our remand should, therefore, entail only a1 very short delay before the Commission. If its order is attacked in court the hearing there can be expedited, as was this one, and an early determination made. We do not believe that this is too high a price to pay to make as certain as human ingenuity can devise, a just and reasonable disposition of this matter for all of the parties. After all, it is the largest railroad merger in our history and if not handled properly could seriously disrupt and irreparably injure the. entire railroad system in the northeastern section of the country — to the great detriment not only of the parties here but to the public conveniénce and necessity of the entire Nation.
The judgment of the District Court is reversed and the cause is remanded with instructions that it be remanded to the Commission for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. ⅛ so or<¡ered.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Appendix G.
Provisions for the Protection of E-L, D & H, and B <fc M.
1. Pending final determination of the petitions for inclusion filed by E-L, D & H, and B & M in this proceeding and in Finance Docket No. 21510 et al., or such other period of time as the Commission may prescribe, herein-'after called the protective period, and on traffic for which E-L, D & H and.B & M are competitive factors, the. merged company shall not publish or provide for any new or changed routing practice and/or freight rates or services, either locally or jointly with other carriers, which would divert or tend to divert traffic from routes in which E-L, D & H or B & M, now participates, or participated at the time this merger application was filed, or take any action or engage in any practice or conduct contrary to the purpose and general objectives of this condition as explained in this report.
For the purpose of illustrating — but in no way limiting — the application Of this condition,.the following specific provisions are prescribed:
A. During the protective period, and as to the described trafile, the railroads which shall make up the merged system will be considered separate railroads, as they now are, for the purposes of establishing new routes or rates or privileges and changes in present routes, rates or privileges.
B. When any of the described freight traffic is delivered to carriers of the merged system, it shall be allocated among the routes of the system in accordance with practices employed by the system’s railroads at the time this merger application was filed.
C. Where through routes and joint rates are now in existence via any component railroad of the merged system and E-L, D & H or B & M, the participation therein of such components shall be maintained during the protective period with the same vigor as such components have heretofore exercised in competition with each other and other carriers, to the end of preventing noticeable diversion from such routes to any other route in which the merged company participates.
D. The merged company for the protective period shall, agree to joint rates and. divisions thereof on its freight traffic interlined with E-L, D & H or B & M under terms no less advantageous to E-L, D & H and B & M than are the terms which those three carriers now have with the component carriers of the merged system, and, in the event of any changes in such joint rates, the divisions shall not be changed in any manner which will result in E-L, D & H or B & M receiving proportionally less than they now receive on joint rates with such component carriers.
E. In conjunction with E-L, D & H and B & M, the merged company shall, during the protective period, keep open all routes now in force for the transportation of freight over the lines of the three companies and the component carriers of the merged system; shall maintain thereon service equal to or better than that being given on the date this merger application was filed; shall improve
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 Kennedy
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which The Chief Justice, Justice White and Justice Souter join.
Petitioner Dionisio Hernandez asks us to review the New York state courts’ rejection of his claim that the prosecutor in his criminal trial exercised peremptory challenges to exclude Latinos from the jury by reason of their ethnicity. If true, the prosecutor’s discriminatory use of peremptory strikes would violate the Equal Protection Clause as interpreted by our decision in Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). We must determine whether the prosecutor offered a race-neutral basis for challenging Latino potential jurors and, if so, whether the state courts’ decision to accept the prosecutor’s explanation should be sustained.
Petitioner and respondent both, use the term “Latino” in their briefs to this Court. The amicus brief employs instead the term “Hispanic,” and the parties referred to the excluded jurors by that term in the trial court. Both words appear in the state-court opinions. No attempt has been made at a distinction by the parties and we make no attempt to distinguish the terms in this opinion. We will refer to the excluded venirepersons as Latinos in deference to the terminology preferred by the parties before the Court.
h — I
The case comes to us on direct review of petitioner’s convictions on two counts of attempted murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. On a Brooklyn street, petitioner fired several shots at Charlene Calloway and her mother, Ada Saline. Calloway suffered three gunshot wounds. Petitioner missed Saline and instead hit two men in a nearby restaurant. The victims survived the incident.
The trial was held in the New York Supreme Court, Kings County. We concern ourselves here only with the jury selection process and the proper application of Batson, which had been handed down before the trial took place. After 63 potential jurors had been questioned and 9 had been empaneled, defense counsel objected that the prosecutor had used four peremptory challenges to exclude Latino potential jurors. Two of the Latino venirepersons challenged by the prosecutor had brothers who had been convicted of crimes, and the brother of one of those potential jurors was being prosecuted by the same District Attorney’s office for a probation violation. Petitioner does not press his Batson claim with respect to those prospective jurors, and we concentrate on the other two excluded individuals.
After petitioner raised his Batson objection, the prosecutor did not wait for a ruling on whether petitioner had established a prima facie case of racial discrimination. Instead, the prosecutor volunteered his reasons for striking the jurors in question. He explained:
“Your honor, my reason for rejecting the — these two jurors — I’m not certain as to whether they’re Hispanics. I didn’t notice how many Hispanics had been called to the panel, but my reason for rejecting these two is I feel very uncertain that they would be able to listen and follow the interpreter.” App. 3.
After an interruption by defense counsel, the prosecutor continued:
“We talked to them for a long time; the Court talked to them, I talked to them. I believe that in their heart they will try to follow it, but I felt there was a great deal of uncertainty as to whether they could accept the interpreter as the final arbiter of what was said by each of the witnesses, especially where there were going to be Spanish-speaking witnesses, and I didn’t feel, when I asked them whether or not they could accept the interpreter’s translation of it, I didn’t feel that they could. They each looked away from me and said with some hesitancy that they would try, not that they could, but that they would try to follow the interpreter, and I feel that in a case where the interpreter will be for the main witnesses, they would have an undue impact upon the jury.” Id., at 3-4.
Defense counsel moved for a mistrial “based on the conduct of the District Attorney,” and the prosecutor requested a chance to call a supervisor to the courtroom before the judge’s ruling.
Following a recess, defense counsel renewed his motion, which the trial court denied. Discussion of the objection continued, however, and the prosecutor explained that he would have no motive to exclude Latinos from the jury:
“[TJhis case, involves four complainants. Each of the complainants is Hispanic. All my witnesses, that is, civilian witnesses, are going to be Hispanic. I have absolutely no reason — there’s no reason for me to want to exclude Hispanics because all the parties involved are Hispanic, and I certainly would have no reason to do that.” Id., at 5-6.
After further interchange among the judge and attorneys, the trial court again rejected petitioner’s claim. Id., at 12.
On appeal, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, noted that though the ethnicity of one challenged bilingual juror remained uncertain, the prosecutor had challenged the only three prospective jurors with definite Hispanic surnames. 140 App. Div. 2d 543, 528 N. Y. S. 2d 625 (1986). The court ruled that this fact made out a prima facie showing of discrimination. The court affirmed the trial court’s rejection of petitioner’s Batson claim, however, on the ground that the prosecutor had offered race-neutral explanations for the peremptory strikes sufficient to rebut petitioner’s prima facie case.
The New York Court of Appeals also affirmed the judgment, holding that the prosecutor had offered a legitimate basis for challenging the individuals in question and deferring to the factual findings of the lower New York courts. 75 N. Y. 2d 350, 552 N. E. 2d 621 (1990). Two judges dissented, concluding that on this record, analyzed in the light of standards they would adopt as a matter of state constitutional law, the prosecutor’s exclusion of the bilingual potential jurors should not have been permitted. We granted cer-tiorari, 498 U. S. 894 (1990), and now affirm.
h-< i — j
In Batson, we outlined a three-step process for evaluating claims that a prosecutor has used peremptory challenges in a manner violating the Equal Protection Clause. 476 U. S., at 96-98. The analysis set forth in Batson permits prompt rulings on objections to peremptory challenges without substantial disruption of the jury selection process. First, the defendant must make a prima facie showing that the prosecutor has exercised peremptory challenges on the basis of race. Id., at 96-97. Second, if the requisite showing has been made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to articulate a race-neutral explanation for striking the jurors in question. Id., at 97-98. Finally, the trial court must determine whether the defendant has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Id., at 98. This three-step inquiry delimits our consideration of the arguments raised by petitioner.
A
The prosecutor defended his use of peremptory strikes without any prompting or inquiry from the trial court. As a result, the trial court had no occasion to rule that petitioner had or had not made a prima facie showing of intentional discrimination. This departure from the normal course of proceeding need not concern us. We explained in the context of employment discrimination litigation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that “[w]here the defendant has done everything that would be required of him if the plaintiff had properly made out a prima facie case, whether the plaintiff really did so is no longer relevant.” United States Postal Service Bd. of Governors v. Aikens, 460 U. S. 711, 715 (1983). The same principle applies under Batson. Once a prosecutor has offered a race-neutral explanation for the peremptory challenges and the trial court has ruled on the ultimate question of intentional discrimination, the preliminary issue of whether the defendant had made a prima facie showing becomes moot.
B
Petitioner contends that the reasons given by the prosecutor for challenging the two bilingual jurors were not race neutral. In evaluating the race neutrality of an attorney’s explanation, a court must determine whether, assuming the proffered reasons for the peremptory challenges are true, the challenges violate the Equal Protection Clause as a matter of law. A court addressing this issue must keep in mind the fundamental principle that “official action will not be held unconstitutional solely because it results in a racially disproportionate impact. . . . Proof of racially discriminatory intent or purpose is required to show a violation of the Equal Protection Clause.” Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U. S. 252, 264-265 (1977); see also Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S. 229, 239 (1976). “ ‘Discriminatory purpose’. . . implies more than intent as volition or intent as awareness of consequences. It implies that the decisionmaker . . . selected ... a particular course of action at least in part ‘because of,’ not merely ‘in spite of,’ its adverse effects upon an identifiable group.” Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, 442 U. S. 256, 279 (1979) (footnote and citation omitted); see also McCleskey v. Kemp, 481 U. S. 279, 297-299 (1987).
A neutral explanation in the context of our analysis here means an explanation based on something other than the race of the juror. At this step of the inquiry, the issue is the facial validity of the prosecutor’s explanation. Unless a discriminatory intent is inherent in the prosecutor’s explanation, the reason offered will be deemed race neutral.
Petitioner argues that Spanish-language ability bears a close relation to ethnicity, and that, as a consequence, it violates the Equal Protection Clause to exercise a peremptory challenge on the ground that a Latino potential juror speaks Spanish. He points to the high correlation between Spanish-language ability and ethnicity in New York, where the case was tried. We need not address that argument here, for the prosecutor did not rely on language ability without more, but explained that the specific responses and the demeanor of the two individuals during voir dire caused him to doubt their ability to defer to the official translation of Spanish-language testimony.
The prosecutor here offered a race-neutral basis for these peremptory strikes. As explained by the prosecutor, the challenges rested neither on the intention to exclude Latino or bilingual jurors, nor on stereotypical assumptions about Latinos or bilinguals. The prosecutor’s articulated basis for these challenges divided potential jurors into two classes: those whose conduct during voir dire would persuade him they might have difficulty in accepting the translator’s rendition of Spanish-language testimony and those potential jurors who gave no such reason for doubt. Each category would include both Latinos and non-Latinos. While the prosecutor’s criterion might well result in the disproportionate removal of prospective Latino jurors, that disproportionate impact does not turn the prosecutor’s actions into a per se violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
Petitioner contends that despite the prosecutor’s focus on the individual responses of these jurors, his reason for the peremptory strikes has the effect of a pure, language-based reason because “[a]ny honest bilingual juror would have answered the prosecutor in the exact same way.” Brief for Petitioner 14. Petitioner asserts that a bilingual juror would hesitate in answering questions like those asked by the judge and prosecutor due to the difficulty of ignoring the actual Spanish-language testimony. In his view, no more can be expected than a commitment by a prospective juror to try to follow the interpreter’s translation.
But even if we knew that a high percentage of bilingual jurors would hesitate in answering questions like these and, as a consequence, would be excluded under the prosecutor’s criterion, that fact alone would not cause the criterion to fail the race-neutrality test. As will be discussed below, disparate impact should be given appropriate weight in determining whether the prosecutor acted with a forbidden intent, but it will not be conclusive in the preliminary race-neutrality step of the Batson inquiry. An argument relating to the impact of a classification does not alone show its purpose. See Personnel Administrator of Mass. v. Feeney, supra, at 279. Equal protection analysis turns on the intended consequences of government classifications. Unless the government actor adopted a criterion with the intent of causing the impact asserted, that impact itself does not violate the principle of race neutrality. Nothing in the prosecutor’s explanation shows that he chose to exclude jurors who hesitated in answering questions about following the interpreter because he wanted to prevent bilingual Latinos from serving on the jury.
If we deemed the prosecutor’s reason for striking these jurors a racial classification on its face, it would follow that a trial judge could not excuse for cause a juror whose hesitation convinced the judge of the juror’s inability to accept the official translation of foreign-language testimony. If the explanation is not race neutral for the prosecutor, it is no more so for the trial judge. While the reason offered by the prosecutor for a peremptory strike need not rise to the level of a challenge for cause, Batson, 476 U. S., at 97, the fact that it corresponds to a valid for-cause challenge will demonstrate its race-neutral character.
C
Once the prosecutor offers a race-neutral basis for his exercise of peremptory challenges, “[t]he trial court then [has] the duty to determine if the defendant has established purposeful discrimination.” Id., at 98. While the disproportionate impact on Latinos resulting from the prosecutor’s criterion for excluding these jurors does not answer the race-neutrality inquiry, it does have relevance to the trial court’s decision on this question. “[A]n invidious discriminatory purpose may often be inferred from the totality of the relevant facts, including the fact, if it is true, that the [classification] bears more heavily on one race than another.” Washington v. Davis, 426 U. S., at 242. If a prosecutor articulates a basis for a peremptory challenge that results in the disproportionate exclusion of members of a certain race, the trial judge may consider that fact as evidence that the prosecutor’s stated reason constitutes a pretext for racial discrimination.
In the context of this trial, the prosecutor’s frank admission that his ground for excusing these jurors related to their ability to speak and understand Spanish raised a plausible, though not a necessary, inference that language might be a pretext for what in fact were race-based peremptory challenges. This was not a case where by some rare coincidence a juror happened to speak the same language as a key witness, in a community where few others spoke that tongue. If it were, the explanation that the juror could have undue influence on jury deliberations might be accepted without concern that a racial generalization had come into play. But this trial took place in a community with a substantial Latino population, and petitioner and other interested parties were members of that ethnic group. It would be common knowledge in the locality that a significant percentage of the Latino population speaks fluent Spanish, and that many consider it their preferred language, the one chosen for personal commu-' nication, the one selected for speaking with the most precision and power, the one used to define the self.
The trial judge can consider these and other factors when deciding whether a prosecutor intended to discriminate. For example, though petitioner did not suggest the alternative to the trial court here, Spanish-speaking jurors could be permitted to advise the judge in a discreet way of any concerns with the translation during the course of trial. A prosecutor’s persistence in the desire to exclude Spanish-speaking jurors despite this measure could be taken into account in determining whether to accept a race-neutral explanation for the challenge.
The trial judge in this case chose to believe the prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation for striking the two jurors in question, rejecting petitioner’s assertion that the reasons were pretextual. In Batson, we explained that the trial court’s decision on the ultimate question of discriminatory intent represents a finding of fact of the sort accorded great deference on appeal:
“In a recent Title VII sex discrimination case, we stated that ‘a finding of intentional discrimination is a finding of fact’ entitled to appropriate deference by a reviewing court. Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 573 (1985). Since the trial judge’s findings in the context under consideration here largely turn on evaluation of credibility, a reviewing court ordinarily should give those findings great deference. Id., at 575-576.” Batson, supra, at 98, n. 21.
Batson’s treatment of intent to discriminate as a pure issue of fact, subject to review under a deferential standard, accords with our treatment of that issue in other equal protection cases. See Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U. S. 222, 229 (1985) (Court of Appeals correctly found that District Court committed clear error in concluding state constitutional provision was not adopted out of racial animus); Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 622-623 (1982) (clearly-erroneous standard applies to review of finding that at-large voting system was maintained for discriminatory purposes); Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, 443 U. S. 526, 534 (1979) (affirming Court of Appeals’ conclusion that District Court’s failure to find the intentional operation of a dual school system was clearly erroneous); Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398, 401-402 (1945) (great respect accorded to findings of state court in discriminatory jury selection case); see also Miller v. Fenton, 474 U. S. 104, 113 (1985). As Batson’s citation to Anderson suggests, it also corresponds with our treatment of the intent inquiry under Title VII. See Pullman-Standard v. Sivint, 456 U. S. 273, 293 (1982).
Deference to trial court findings on the issue of discriminatory intent makes particular sense in this context because, as we noted in Batson, the finding “largely will turn on evaluation of credibility.” 476 U. S., at 98, n. 21. In the typical peremptory challenge inquiry, the decisive question will be whether counsel’s race-neutral explanation for a peremptory challenge should be believed. There will seldom be much evidence bearing on that issue, and the best evidence often will be the demeanor of the attorney who exercises the challenge. As with the state of mind of a juror, evaluation of the prosecutor’s state of mind based on demeanor and credibility lies “peculiarly within a trial judge’s province.” Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 428 (1985), citing Patton v. Yount, 467 U. S. 1025, 1038 (1984).
The precise formula used for review of factfindings, of course, depends on the context. Anderson was a federal civil case, and we there explained that a federal appellate court reviews the finding of a district court on the question of intent to discriminate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a), which permits factual findings to be set aside only if clearly erroneous. While no comparable rule exists for federal criminal cases, we have held that the same standard should apply to review of findings in criminal cases on issues other than guilt. Maine v. Taylor, 477 U. S. 131, 145 (1986); Campbell v. United States, 373 U. S. 487, 493 (1963). See also 2 C. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 374 (2d ed. 1982 and Supp. 1990). On federal habeas review of a state conviction, 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) requires the federal courts to accord state-court factual findings a presumption of correctness.
This case comes to us on direct review of the state-court judgment. No statute or rule governs our review of facts found by state courts in cases with this posture. The reasons justifying a deferential standard of review in other contexts, however, apply with equal force to our review of a state trial court’s findings of fact made in connection with a federal constitutional claim. Our cases have indicated that, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, we would defer to state-court factual findings, even when those findings relate to a constitutional issue. See 324 Liquor Corp. v. Duffy, 479 U. S. 335, 351 (1987); California Liquor Dealers Assn. v. Midcal Aluminum, Inc., 445 U. S. 97, 111-112 (1980); see also Time, Inc. v. Firestone, 424 U. S. 448, 463 (1976); General Motors Corp. v. Washington, 377 U. S. 436, 441-442 (1964) (quoting Norton Co. v. Department of Revenue of Ill., 340 U. S. 534, 537-538 (1951)); Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U. S. 58, 68 (1963); Lloyd A. Fry Roofing Co. v. Wood, 344 U. S. 157, 160 (1952). Moreover, “an issue does not lose its factual character merely because its .resolution is dispositive of the ultimate constitutional question.” Miller v. Fenton, supra, at 113 (citing Dayton Bd. of Ed. v. Brinkman, supra).
Petitioner advocates “independent” appellate review of a trial court’s rejection of a Batson claim. We have difficulty understanding the nature of the review petitioner would have us conduct. Petitioner explains that “[ijndependent review requires the appellate court to accept the findings of historical fact and credibility of the lower court unless they are clearly erroneous. Then, based on these facts, the appellate court independently determines whether there has been discrimination.” Reply Brief for Petitioner 17. But if an appellate court accepts a trial court’s finding that a prosecutor’s race-neutral explanation for his peremptory challenges should be believed, we fail to see how the appellate court nevertheless could find discrimination. The credibility of the prosecutor’s explanation goes to the heart of the equal protection analysis, and once that has been settled, there seems nothing left to review.
Petitioner seeks support for his argument in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of United States, Inc., 466 U. S. 485 (1984), and Miller v. Fenton, supra. Bose Corp. dealt with review of a trial court’s finding of “actual malice,” a First Amendment precondition to liability in a defamation case, holding that an appellate court “must exercise independent judgment and determine whether the record establishes actual malice with convincing clarity.” 466 U. S., at 514. Miller accorded similar treatment to a finding that a confession was voluntary. 474 U. S., at 110. Those cases have no relevance to the matter before us. They turn on the Court’s determination that findings of voluntariness or actual malice involve legal, as well as factual, elements. See Miller, supra, at 115-117; Bose Corp., supra, at 501-502; see also Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton, 491 U. S. 657, 685 (1989) (“The question whether the evidence in the record in a defamation case is sufficient to support a finding of actual malice is a question of law”). Whether a prosecutor intended to discriminate on the basis of race in challenging potential jurors is, as Batson recognized, a question of historical fact.
Petitioner also looks to a line of this Court’s decisions reviewing state-court challenges to jury selection procedures. Many of these cases, following Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587 (1935), have emphasized this Court’s duty to “analyze the facts in order that the appropriate enforcement of the federal right may be assured,” id., at 590, or to “make independent inquiry and determination of the disputed facts,” Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 358 (1939). See, e. g., Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U. S. 545, 550 (1967); Avery v. Georgia, 345 U. S. 559, 561 (1953); Patton v. Mississippi, 332 U. S. 463, 466 (1947); Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130 (1940). The review provided for in those cases, however, leaves room for deference to state-court factual determinations, in particular on issues of credibility. For instance, in Akins v. Texas, 325 U. S. 398 (1945), we said:
“[T]he transcript of the evidence presents certain inconsistencies and conflicts of testimony in regard to limiting the number of Negroes on the grand jury. Therefore, the trier of fact who heard the witnesses in full and observed their demeanor on the stand has a better opportunity than a reviewing court to reach a correct conclusion as to the existence of that type of discrimination. While our duty, in reviewing a conviction upon a complaint that the procedure through which it was obtained violates due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, calls for our examination of evidence to determine for ourselves whether a federal constitutional right has been denied, expressly or in substance and effect, Norris v. Alabama, 294 U. S. 587, 589-90; Smith v. Texas, 311 U. S. 128, 130, we accord in that examination great respect to the conclusions of the state judiciary, Pierre v. Louisiana, 306 U. S. 354, 358. That respect leads us to accept the conclusion of the trier on disputed issues ‘unless it is so lacking in support in the evidence that to give it effect would work that fundamental unfairness which is at war with due process,’ Lisenba v. California, 314 U. S. 219, 238, or equal protection. Cf. Ashcraft v. Tennessee, 322 U. S. 143, 152, 153; Malinski v. New York, 324 U. S. 401, 404.” Id., at 401-402.
Other cases in the Norris line also express our respect for factual findings made by state courts. See Whitus, supra, at 550; Pierre, supra, at 358.
In the case before us, we decline to overturn the state trial court’s finding on the issue of discriminatory intent unless convinced that its determination was clearly erroneous. It “would pervert the concept of federalism,” Bose Corp., supra, at 499, to conduct a more searching review of findings made in state trial court than we conduct with respect to federal district court findings. As a general matter, we think the Norris line of cases reconcilable with this clear error standard of review. In those cases, the evidence was such that a “reviewing court on the entire evidence [would be] left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake ha[d] been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U. S. 364, 395 (1948). For instance, in Norris itself, uncontradicted testimony showed that “no negro had served on any grand or petit jury in [Jackson County, Alabama,] within the memory of witnesses who had lived there all their lives.” 294 U. S., at 591; see also Avery v. Georgia, supra, at 560-561; Patton v. Mississippi, supra, at 466; Smith v. Texas, supra, at 131. In circumstances such as those, a finding of no discrimination was simply too incredible to be accepted by this Court.
We discern no clear error in the state trial court’s determination that the prosecutor did not discriminate on the basis of the ethnicity of Latino jurors. We have said that “[w]here there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact-finder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 574 (1985). The trial court took a permissible view of the evidence in crediting the prosecutor’s explanation. Apart from the prosecutor’s demeanor, which of course we have no opportunity to review, the court could have relied on the facts that the prosecutor defended his use of peremptory challenges without being asked to do so by the judge, that he did not know which jurors were Latinos, and that the ethnicity of the victims and prosecution witnesses tended to undercut any motive to exclude Latinos from the jury. Any of these factors could be taken as evidence of the prosecutor’s sincerity. The trial court, moreover, could rely on the fact that only three challenged jurors can with confidence be identified as Latinos, and that the prosecutor had a verifiable and legitimate explanation for two of those challenges. Given these factors, that the prosecutor also excluded one or two Latino venire-persons on the basis of a subjective criterion having a disproportionate impact on Latinos does not leave us with a “definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” United States v. United States Gypsum Co., supra, at 395.
D
Language permits an individual to express both a personal identity and membership in a community, and those who share a common language may interact in ways more intimate than those without this bond. Bilinguals, in a sense, inhabit two communities, and serve to bring them closer. Indeed, some scholarly comment suggests that people proficient in two languages may not at times think in one language to the exclusion of the other. The analogy is that of a high-hurdler, who combines the ability to sprint and to jump to accomplish a third feat with characteristics of its own, rather than two separate functions. Grosjean, The Bilingual as a Competent but Specific Speaker-Hearer, 6 J. Multilingual & Multicultural Development 467 (1985). This is not to say that the cognitive processes and reactions of those who speak two languages are susceptible of easy generalization, for even the term “bilingual” does not describe a uniform category. It is a simple word for a more complex phenomenon with many distinct categories and subdivisions. Sánchez, Our Linguistic and Social Context, in Spanish in the United States 9, 12 (J. Amastae & L. Elias-Olivares eds. 1982); Dodson, Second Language Acquisition and Bilingual Development: A Theoretical Framework, 6 J. Multilingual & Multicultural Development 325, 326-327 (1985).
Our decision today does not imply that exclusion of bilinguals from jury service is wise, or even that it is constitutional in all cases. It is a harsh paradox that one may become proficient enough in English to participate in trial, see, e. g., 28 U. S. C. §§ 1865(b)(2), (3) (English-language ability required for federal jury service), only to encounter disqualification because he knows a second language as well. As the Court observed in a somewhat related context: “Mere knowledge of [a foreign] language cannot reasonably be regarded as harmful. Heretofore it has been commonly looked upon as helpful and desirable.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U. S. 390, 400 (1923).
Just as shared language can serve to foster community, language differences can be a source of division. Language elicits a response from others, ranging from admiration and respect, to distance and alienation, to ridicule and scorn. Reactions of the latter type all too often result from or initiate racial hostility. In holding that a race-neutral reason for a peremptory challenge means a reason other than race, we do not resolve the more difficult question of the breadth with which the concept of race should be defined for equal protection purposes. We would face a quite different case if the prosecutor had justified his peremptory challenges with the explanation that he did not want Spanish-speaking jurors. It may well be, for certain ethnic groups and in some communities, that proficiency in a particular language, like skin color, should be treated as a surrogate for race under an equal protection analysis. Cf. Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U. S. 500 (1926) (law prohibiting keeping business records in other than specified languages violated equal protection rights of Chinese businessmen); Meyer v. Nebraska, supra (striking down law prohibiting grade schools from teaching languages other than English). And, as we make clear, a policy of striking all who speak a given language, without regard to the particular circumstances of the trial or the individual responses of the jurors, may be found by the trial judge to be a pretext for racial discrimination. But that case is not before us.
l — H HH H-i
We find no error in the application by the New York courts of the three-step Batson analysis. The standard inquiry into the objecting party’s prima facie case was unnecessary given the course of proceedings in the trial court. The state courts came to the proper conclusion that the prosecutor offered a race-neutral basis for his exercise of peremptory challenges. The trial court did not commit clear error in choosing to believe the reasons given by the prosecutor.
Affirmed.
The prosecutor later gave the same explanation for challenging the bilingual potential jurors:
“. . . I felt that from their answers they would be hard pressed to accept what the interpreter said as the final thing on what the record would be, and I even had to ask the Judge to question them on that, and their answers were — I thought they both indicated that they would have trouble, although their final answer was they could do it. I just felt from the hesitancy in their answers and their lack of eye contact that they would not be able to do it.” App. 6.
The trial judge appears to have accepted the prosecutor’s reasoning as to his motivation. In response to a charge by defense counsel that the prosecutor excluded Latino jurors out of fear that they would sympathize with the defendant, the judge stated:
“The victims are all Hispanics, he said, and, therefore, they will be testifying for the People, so there could be sympathy for them as well as for the defendant, so he said [it] would not seem logical in this case he would look to throw off Hispanics, because I don’t think that his logic is wrong. They might feel sorry for a guy who’s had a bullet hole through him, he's Hispanic, so they may relate to him more than they’ll relate to the shooter.” Id., at 8.
Respondent cites United States v. Perez, 658 F. 2d 654 (CA9 1981), which illustrates the sort of problems that may arise where a juror fails to accept the official translation of foreign-language testimony. In Perez, the following interchange occurred:
“DOROTHY KIM (JUROR NO. 8): Your Honor, is it proper to ask the interpreter a question? I’m uncertain about the word La Vado [sic]. You say that is a bar.
“THE COURT: The Court cannot permit jurors to ask questions directly. If you want to phrase your question to me—
“DOROTHY KIM: I understood it to be a restroom. I could better believe they would meet in a restroom rather than a public bar if he is undercover.
“THE COURT: These are matters for you to consider. If you have any misunderstanding of what the witness testified to, tell the Court now what you didn’t understand and we’ll place the—
“DOROTHY KIM: I understand the word La Vado [sic] — l thought it meant restroom. She translates it as bar.
“MS. IANZITI: In the first place, the jurors are not to listen to the Spanish but to the English. I am a certified court interpreter.
“DOROTHY KIM: You’re an idiot.” Id., at 662.
Upon further questioning, “the witness indicated that none of the conversations in issue occurred in the restroom.” Id., at 663. The juror later explained that she had said “ ‘it’s an idiom’ ” rather than “ ‘you’re an idiot,’ ” but she was nevertheless dismissed from the jury. Ibid.
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.
Me. Chief Justice Vinson
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Invoking the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, petitioner sued his employer, an interstate railroad company, for injuries sustained during the course of his employment, allegedly through respondent’s negligence. The injury occurred in Ben Hill County, Georgia, which was the place of petitioner’s employment as well as the place of his residence. But petitioner filed his complaint in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Alabama; jurisdiction and venue were grounded on § 6 of the Act.
Respondent then initiated a suit in equity in the Superior Court of Ben Hill County and asked that petitioner be restrained from prosecuting his action in Alabama. Respondent’s petition to the Ben Hill County Court contained allegations that petitioner had deliberately sought to “harass” his employer by subjecting it to the burden and expense of defending the claim in a distant forum, far from the scene of the accident and the residences of the witnesses.
The trial court sustained a general demurrer to this petition. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed — holding that Georgia law provided Georgia courts with the power to enjoin Georgia residents from bringing vexatious suits in foreign jurisdictions. Petitioner’s claim that § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act prohibited such an injunction in this case was overruled. 209 Ga. 187, 71 S. E. 2d 243. We granted certiorari, 344 U. S. 863, for the decision had interpreted an important federal statute, and the interpretation was asserted to be in conflict with decisions of this Court in Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., 315 U. S. 698 (1942), and Baltimore & O. R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44 (1941).
In our grant of certiorari, we also directed counsel to brief and argue the question of whether the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court was “final.” The statute which vests us with jurisdiction to review the decisions of state courts provides that the judgment must come from the “highest court of a State in which a decision could be had,” and it must be “final.” 28 U. S. C. § 1257. The case at bar clearly met the first requirement, but we were in doubt as to whether it satisfied the second.
Congress has limited our power to review judgments from state courts lest the Court’s jurisdiction be exercised in piecemeal proceedings to render advisory opinions. Were our reviewing power not limited to “final” judgments, litigants would be free to come here and seek a decision on federal questions which, after later proceedings, might subsequently prove to be unnecessary and irrelevant to a complete disposition of the litigation. Ordinarily, then, the overruling of a demurrer, like the issuance of a temporary injunction, is not a “final” judgment.
Yet we are not bound to determine the presence or absence of finality from a mere examination of the “face of the judgment.” We have not interpreted § 1257 so as to preclude review of federal questions which are in fact ripe for adjudication when tested against the policy of § 1257.
The finality problem arises in this case because the judgment of the Georgia Supreme Court did not, on its face, end the litigation. Both parties agree that Georgia procedure would permit petitioner to return to the Superior Court of Ben Hill County and interpose some other defense to respondent’s suit for an injunction. But petitioner has no other defense to interpose. He has been both explicit and free with his concession that his case rests upon his federal claim and nothing more. If the court below decided that claim correctly, then nothing remains to be done but the mechanical entry of judgment by the trial court. Thus, as the case comes to us, the federal question is the controlling question; “there is nothing more to be decided.” Under these particular circumstances, we have jurisdiction over the cause, Richfield Oil Corp. v. State Board, 329 U. S. 69 (1946); and we reach the merits of petitioner’s contention that the Georgia Supreme Court has failed to give proper effect to the venue provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
Section 6 of that Act establishes petitioner’s right to sue in Alabama. It provides that the employee may bring his suit wherever the carrier “shall be doing business,” and admittedly respondent does business in Jefferson County, Alabama. Congress has deliberately chosen to give petitioner a transitory cause of action; and we have held before, in a case indistinguishable from this one, that § 6 displaces the traditional “power of a state court to enjoin its citizens, on the ground of oppressiveness . . . from suing ... in the state courts of another state . . . .” Miles v. Illinois Central R. Co., supra, 315 U. S., at 699. Respondent admits that the Miles case dealt with precisely the issue before us, but respondent tells us that Miles is now no longer the law because Congress overruled it, by implication, with the passage of § 1404 (a) of the Judicial Code in 1948. Section 1404 (a) provides:
“For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer any civil action to any other district or division where it might have been brought.”
We have heretofore held that § 1404 (a) makes the doctrine of jorum non conveniens applicable to Federal Employers’ Liability Act cases brought in federal courts and provides for the transfer of such actions to a more convenient forum. Ex parte Collett, 337 U. S. 55 (1949). Respondent would have us extend that decision, to hold that § 1404 (a) also provides for the power asserted by the Georgia court in this case. We do not agree; we do not think the language of the statute suggests any such implied grant of broad power to the state courts.
Section 1404 (a), by its very terms, speaks to federal courts; it addresses itself only to that federal forum in which a lawsuit has been initiated; its function is to vest such a federal forum with the power to transfer a transitory cause of action to a more convenient federal court. It does not speak to state courts, and it says nothing concerning the power of some court other than the forum where a lawsuit is initiated to enjoin the litigant from further prosecuting a transitory cause of action in some other jurisdiction. Nor does § 1404 (a) contemplate the collateral attack on venue now urged by respondent; it contains no suggestion that the venue question may be raised and settled by the initiation of a second lawsuit in a court in a foreign jurisdiction; its limited purpose is to authorize, under certain circumstances, the transfer of a civil action from one federal forum to another federal forum in which the action "might have been brought.”
Although the statutory language of § 1404 (a) contains no authorization for the power asserted in this case, respondent directs our attention to remarks in the Reviser’s Note to that provision of the Code. The Reviser’s Notes were before Congress when it considered enactment of the various provisions of the 1948 Judicial Code and Congress relied upon them to explain the significance and scope of each section.
Basing its argument upon the text of the Reviser’s Note to § 1404 (a), respondent argues that it must have been the intent of Congress, if not its expressed purpose, that § 1404 (a) be construed as respondent would construe it.
The Reviser’s Note to § 1404 (a) recites that this Court’s decision in Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, supra, furnished “an example of the need” for enactment of § 1404 (a). In the Kepner case, we held that a state court was not free to exercise its equity jurisdiction to enjoin a resident of the state from prosecuting a Federal Employers’ Liability Act suit in a distant federal court. We reasoned that Congress had purposely given the employee a right to establish venue in the federal court where he had sued, and, what Congress had so expressly given, the courts should not take away.
The reference to the Kepner case in the Reviser’s Note in nowise conflicts with what we think is the plain meaning of the language of § 1404 (a) itself. The Kepner case was simply cited as an apt example of an inequitable situation which could be cured by providing the federal courts with the power to transfer an action on grounds of jorum non conveniens. The full text of the Reviser’s Note makes it clear that it was the power of the federal court to transfer, and not the power of the state court to enjoin, which was the remedy envisioned for any injustice wrought by § 6 in the Kepner case.
Thus, with the exception of the transfer powers conferred upon the federal courts by § 1404 (a), Congress deliberately chose to leave this Court’s decision in the Kepner case intact. Indeed, we have said as much before:
“Section 6 of the Liability Act defines the proper forum; § 1404 (a) of the Code deals with the right to transfer an action properly brought. The two sections deal with two separate and distinct problems. Section 1404 (a) does not limit or otherwise modify any right granted in § 6 of the Liability Act or elsewhere to bring suit in a particular district. . . .” Ex parte Collett, supra, 337 U. S., at 60.
Congress might have gone further; it might have vested state courts with the power asserted here. In fact, the same Congress which enacted § 1404 (a) refused to enact a bill which would have amended § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act by limiting the employee’s choice of venue to the place of his injury or to the place of his residence.
This proposed amendment — the Jennings Bill — focused Congress’ attention on the decisions of this Court in both the Miles and the Kepner cases. The broad question — involving many policy considerations — of whether venue should be more narrowly restricted, was reopened; cogent arguments — both pro and con — were restated. Proponents of the amendment asserted that, as a result of the Miles and Kepner decisions, injured employees were left free to abuse their venue rights under § 6 and “harass” their employers in distant forums without restriction. They insisted that these abuses be curtailed. These arguments prevailed in the House, which passed the Jennings Bill, but the proposed amendment died in the Senate Judiciary Committee, and § 6 of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act was left just as this Court had construed it.
Since the narrow question in this case is simply whether the Miles case is still controlling; since we find no legislation which has devitalized it in any way, and since we find affirmative evidence that Congress chose to let it stand, the judgment below must be
Reversed.
45 U.S.C. § 51.
45 U.S.C. § 56.
See Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, 326 U. S. 120, 123-124 (1945); Gospel Army v. Los Angeles, 331 U. S. 543 (1947). Cf. Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117, 125-126 (1945).
Cf. Montgomery Building & Construction Trades Council v. Ledbetter Co., 344 U. S. 178 (1952).
See Gospel Army v. Los Angeles, supra, 331 U. S., at 546.
See Radio Station WOW v. Johnson, supra.
Clark v. Williard, 292 U. S. 112, 118 (1934).
28 U. S. C. § 1404 (a).
Ex parte Collett, supra, 337 U. S., at 65-70.
The pertinent part of the Reviser’s Note reads:
“Subsection (a) was drafted in accordance with the doctrine of forum non conveniens, permitting transfer to a more convenient forum, even though the venue is proper. As an example of the need of such a provision, see Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 1941, 62 S. Ct. 6, 314 U. S. 44, 86 L. Ed. 28, which was prosecuted under the Federal Employer’s Liability Act in New York, although the accident occurred and the employee resided in Ohio. The new subsection requires the court to determine that the transfer is necessary for convenience of the parties and witnesses, and further, that it is in the interest of justice to do so.”
H. R. 1639, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
See H. R. Rep. No. 613, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947); Hearings before Subcommittee No. 4 of the House Committee on the Judiciary on H. R. 1639, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947); Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary on S. 1567 and H. R. 1639, 80th Cong., 2d Sess. (1948). The Jennings Bill was debated extensively on the floor of the House. See 93 Cong. Rec. 9178-9193.
93 Cong. Rec. 9194.
See Ex parte Collett, supra, 337 U. S., at 62-65.
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases involve the tax consequences of a transfer of appreciated property by Thomas Crawley Davis to his former wife pursuant to a property settlement agreement executed prior to divorce, as well as the deduct-ibility of his payment of her legal expenses in connection therewith. The Court of Claims upset the Commissioner’s determination that there was taxable gain on the transfer but upheld his ruling that the fees paid the wife’s attorney were not deductible. 152 Ct. Cl. 805, 287 F. 2d 168. We granted certiorari on a conflict in the Court of Appeals and the Court of Claims on the taxability of such transfers. 368 U. S. 813. We have decided that the taxpayer did have a taxable gain on the transfer and that the wife’s attorney’s fees w7ere not deductible.
In 1954 the taxpayer and his then wife made a voluntary property settlement and separation agreement calling for support payments to the wife and minor child in addition to the transfer of certain personal property to the wife. Under Delaware law all the property transferred was that of the taxpayer, subject to certain statutory marital rights of the wife including a right of intestate succession and a right upon divorce to a share of the husband’s property. Specifically as a “division in settlement of their property” the taxpayer agreed to transfer to his wife, inter alia, 1,000 shares of stock in the E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. The then Mrs. Davis agreed to accept this division “in full settlement and satisfaction of any and all claims and rights against the husband whatsoever (including but not by way of limitation, dower and all rights under the laws of testacy and intestacy) . . . Pursuant to the above agreement which had been incorporated into the divorce decree, one-half of this stock was delivered in the tax year involved, 1955, and the balance thereafter. Davis’ cost basis for the 1955 transfer was $74,775.37, and the fair market value of the 500 shares there transferred was $82,250.- The taxpayer also agreed orally to pay the wife’s legal expenses, and in 1955 he made payments to the wife’s attorney, including $2,500 for services concerning tax matters relative to the property settlement.
I.
The determination of the income tax consequences of the stock transfer described above is basically a two-step analysis: (1) Was the transaction a taxable event? (2) If so, how much taxable gain resulted therefrom? Originally the Tax Court (at that time the Board of Tax Appeals) held that the accretion to property transferred pursuant to a divorce settlement could not be taxed as capital gain to the transferor because the amount realized by the satisfaction of the husband’s marital obligations was indeterminable and because, even if such benefit were ascertainable, the transaction was a nontaxable division of property. Mesta v. Commissioner, 42 B. T. A. 933 (1940); Halliwell v. Commissioner, 44 B. T. A. 740 (1941). However, upon being reversed in quick succession by the Courts of Appeals of the Third and Second Circuits, Commissioner v. Mesta, 123 F. 2d 986 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1941); Commissioner v. Halliwell, 131 F. 2d 642 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1942), the Tax Court accepted the position of these courts and has continued to apply these views in appropriate cases since that time, Hall v. Commissioner, 9 T. C. 53 (1947); Patino v. Commissioner, 13 T. C. 816 (1949); Estate of Stouffer v. Commissioner, 30 T. C. 1244 (1958); King v. Commissioner, 31 T. C. 108 (1958); Marshman v. Commissioner, 31 T. C. 269 (1958). In Mesta and Halliioell the Courts of Apjseals reasoned that the accretion to the property was “realized” by the transfer and that this gain could be measured on the assumption that the relinquished marital rights were equal in value to the property transferred. The matter was considered settled until the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in reversing the Tax Court, ruled that, although such a transfer might be a taxable event, the gain realized thereby could not be determined because of the impossibility of evaluating the fair market value of the wife’s marital rights. Commissioner v. Marshman, 279 F. 2d 27 (1960). In so holding that court specifically rejected the argument that these rights could be presumed to be equal in value to the property transferred for their release. This is essentially the position taken by the Court of Claims in the instant case.
H-i I — !
We now turn to the threshold question of whether the transfer in issue was an appropriate occasion for taxing the accretion to the stock. There can be no doubt that Congress, as evidenced by its inclusive definition of income subject to taxation, i. e., “all income from whatever source derived, including . . . [gjains derived from dealings in property,” intended that the economic growth of this stock be taxed. The problem confronting us is simply when is such accretion to be taxed. Should the economic gain be presently assessed against taxpayer, or should this assessment await a subsequent transfer of the property by the wife? The controlling statutory language, which provides that gains from dealings in property are to be taxed upon “§ale or other disposition,” is too general to include or exclude conclusively the transaction presently in issue. Recognizing this, the Government and the taxpayer argue by analogy with transactions more easily classified as within or without the ambient of taxable events. The taxpayer asserts that the present disposition is comparable to a nontaxable division of property between two co-owners, while the Government contends it more resembles a taxable transfer of property in exchange for the release of an independent legal obligation. Neither disputes the validity of the other’s starting point.
In support of his analogy the taxpayer argues that to draw a distinction between a wife’s interest in the property of her husband in a common-law jurisdiction such as Delaware and the property interest of a wife in a typical community property jurisdiction would commit a double sin; for such differentiation would depend upon “elusive and subtle casuistries which . . . possess no relevance for tax purposes,” Helvering v. Hallock, 309 U. S. 106, 118 (1940), and would create disparities between common-law and community property jurisdictions in contradiction to Congress’ general policy of equality between the two. The taxpayer’s analogy, however, stumbles on its own premise, for the inchoate rights granted a wife in her husband’s property by the Delaware law do not even remotely reach the dignity of co-ownership. The wife has no interest — passive or active — over the management or disposition of her husband’s personal property. Her rights are not descendable, and she must survive him to share in his intestate estate. Upon dissolution of the marriage she shares in the property only to such extent as the court deems “reasonable.” 13 Del. Code Ann. § 1531 (a). What is “reasonable” might be ascertained independently of the extent of the husband’s property by such criteria as the wife’s financial condition, her needs in relation to her accustomed station in life, her age and health, the number of children and their ages, and the earning capacity of the husband. See, e. g., Beres v. Beres, 52 Del. 133, 154 A. 2d 384 (1959).
This is not to say it would be completely illogical to consider the shearing off of the wife’s rights in her husband’s property as a division of that property, but we believe the contrary to be the more reasonable construction. Regardless of the tags, Delaware seems only to place a burden on the husband’s property rather than to make the wife a part owner thereof. In the present context the rights of succession and reasonable share do not differ significantly from the husband’s obligations of support and alimony. They all partake more of a personal liability of the husband than a property interest of the wife. The effectuation of these marital rights may ultimately result in the ownership of some of the husband’s property as it did here, but certainly this happenstance does not equate the transaction with a division of property by co-owners. Although admittedly such a view may permit different tax treatment among the several States, this Court in the past has not ignored the differing effects on the federal taxing scheme of substantive differences between community property and common-law systems. E. g., Poe v. Seaborn, 282 U. S. 101 (1930). To be sure Congress has seen fit to alleviate this disparity in many areas, e. g., Revenue Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 110, but in other areas the facts of life are still with us.
Our interpretation of the general statutory language is fortified by the long-standing administrative practice as sounded and formalized by the settled state of law in the lower courts. The Commissioner’s position was adopted in the early 40’s by the Second and Third Circuits and by 1947 the Tax Court had acquiesced in this view. This settled rule was not disturbed by the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in 1960 or the Court of Claims in the instant case, for these latter courts in holding the gain indeterminable assumed that the transaction was otherwise a taxable event. Such unanimity of views in support of a position representing a reasonable construction of an ambiguous statute will not lightly be put aside. It is quite possible that this notorious construction was relied upon by numerous taxpayers as well as the Congress itself, which not only refrained from making any changes in the statutory language during more than a score of years but re-enacted this same language in 1954.
III.
Having determined that the transaction was a taxable event, we now turn to the point on which the Court of Claims balked, viz., the measurement of the taxable gain realized by the taxpayer. The Code defines the taxable gain from the sale or disposition of property as being the “excess of the amount realized therefrom over the adjusted basis . . . .” I. R. C. (1954) § 1001 (a). The “amount realized” is further defined as “the sum of any money received plus the fair market value of the property (other than money) received.” I. R. C. (1954) § 1001 (b). In the instant case the “property received” was the release of the wife’s inchoate marital rights. The Court of Claims, following the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, found that there was no way to compute the fair market value of these marital rights and that it was thus impossible to determine the taxable gain realized by the taxpayer. We believe this conclusion was erroneous.
It must be assumed, we think, that the parties acted at arm’s length and that they judged the marital rights to be equal in value to the property for which they were exchanged. There was no evidence to the contrary here. Absent a readily ascertainable value it is accepted practice where property is exchanged to hold, as did the Court of Claims in Philadelphia Park Amusement Co. v. United States, 130 Ct. Cl. 166, 172, 126 F. Supp. 184, 189 (1954), that the values “of the two properties exchanged in an arms-length transaction are either equal in fact, or are presumed to be equal.” Accord, United States v. General Shoe Corp., 282 F. 2d 9 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1960); International Freighting Corp. v. Commissioner, 135 F. 2d 310 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1943). To be sure there is much to be said of the argument that such an assumption is weakened by the emotion, tension and practical necessities involved in divorce negotiations and the property settlements arising therefrom. However, once it is recognized that the transfer was a taxable • event, it is more consistent with the general purpose and scheme of the taxing statutes to make a rough approximation of the gain realized thereby than to ignore altogether its tax consequences. Cf. Helvering v. Safe Deposit & Trust Co., 316 U. S. 56, 67 (1942).
Moreover, if the transaction is to be considered a taxable event as to the husband, the Court of Claims’ position leaves up in the air the wife’s basis for the property-received. In the context of a taxable transfer by the husband, all indicia point to a “cost” basis for this property in the hands of the wife. Yet under the Court of Claims’ position her cost for this property, i. e., the value of the marital rights relinquished therefor, would be indeterminable, and on subsequent disposition of the property she might suffer inordinately over the Commissioner’s assessment which she would have the burden of proving erroneous, Commissioner v. Hansen, 360 U. S. 446, 468 (1959). Our present holding that the value of these rights is ascertainable eliminates this problem; for the same calculation that determines the amount received by the husband fixes the amount given up by the wife, and this figure, i. e., the market value of the property transferred by the husband, will be taken by her as her tax basis for the property received.
Finally, it must be noted that here, as well as in relation to the question of whether the event is taxable, we draw support from the prior administrative practice and judicial approval of that practice. See p. 71, supra. We therefore conclude that the Commissioner’s assessment of a taxable gain based upon the value of the stock at the date of its transfer has not been shown erroneous.
IV.
The attorney-fee question is much simpler. It is the customary practice in Delaware for the husband to pay both his own and his wife’s legal expenses incurred in the divorce and the property settlement. Here petitioner paid $5,000 of such fees in the taxable year 1955 earmarked for tax advice in relation to the property settlement. One-half of this sum went to the wife’s attorney. The taxpayer claimed that under § 212 (3) of the 1954 Code, which allows a deduction for the “ordinary and necessary expenses paid ... in connection with the determination, collection, or refund of any tax,” he was entitled to deduct the entire $5,000. The Court of Claims allowed the $2,500 paid taxpayer’s own attorney but denied the like amount paid the wife’s attorney. The sole question here is the deductibility of the latter fee; the Government did not seek review of the amount taxpayer paid his own attorney, and we intimate no decision on that point. As to the deduction of the wife’s fees, we read the statute, if applicable to this type of tax expense, to include only the expenses of the taxpayer himself and not those of his wife. Here the fees paid her attorney do not appear to be “in connection with the determination, collection, or refund” of any tax of the taxpayer. As the Court of Claims found, the wife’s attorney “considered the problems from the standpoint of his client alone. Certainly then it cannot be said that . . . [his] advice was directed to plaintiff’s tax problems . . . .” 152 Ct. Cl., at 805, 287 F. 2d, at 171. We therefore conclude, as did the Court of Claims, that those fees were not a deductible item to the taxpayer.
Reversed in part and affirmed in part.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of these cases.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of these cases.
Davis’ present wife, Grace Ethel Davis, is also a party to these proceedings because a joint return was filed in the tax year in question.
The holding in the instant case is in accord with Commissioner v. Marshman, 279 F. 2d 27 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1960), but is contra to the holdings in Commissioner v. Halliwell, 131 F. 2d 642 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1942), and Commissioner v. Mesta, 123 F. 2d 986 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1941).
12 Del. Code Ann. (Supp. 1960) § 512; 13 Del. Code Ann. § 1531. In the case of realty, the wife in addition to the above has rights of dower. 12 Del. Code Ann. §§ 502, 901, 904, 905.
Internal Revenue Code of 1954 §61 (a).
Iiiternal Revenue Code of 1954 §§ 1001, 1002.
Any suggestion that the transaction in question was a gift is completely unrealistic. Property transferred pursuant to a negotiated settlement in return for the release of admittedly valuable rights is not a gift in any sense of the term. To intimate that there was a gift to the extent the value of the property exceeded that of the rights released, not only invokes the erroneous premise that every exchange not precisely equal involves a gift but merely raises the measurement problem discussed in Part III, infra, p. 71. Cases in which this Court has held transfers of property in exchange for the release of marital rights subject to gift taxes are based not on the premise that such transactions are inherently gifts but on the concept that in the contemplation of the gift tax statute they are to be taxed as gifts. Merrill v. Fahs, 324 U. S. 308 (1945); Commissioner v. Wemyss, 324 U. S. 303 (1945); see Harris v. Commissioner, 340 TJ. S. 106 (1950). In interpreting the particular income tax provisions here involved, we find ourselves unfettered by the language and considerations ingrained in the gift and estate tax statutes. See Farid-Es-Sultaneh v. Commissioner, 160 F. 2d 812 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1947).
Under the present administrative practice, the release of marital rights in exchange for property or other consideration is not considered a taxable event as to the wife. For a discussion of the difficulties confronting a wife under a contrary approach, see Taylor and Schwartz, Tax Aspects of Marital Property Agreements, 7 Tax L. Rev. 19, 30 (1951); Comment, The Lump Sum Divorce Settlement as a Taxable Exchange, 8 U. C. L. A. L. Rev. 593, 601-602 (1961).
Section 1012 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954 provides that: “The basis of property shall be the cost of such property, except as otherwise provided in this subchapter and subchapters C (relating to corporate distributions and adjustments), K (relating to partners and partnerships), and P (relating to capital gains and losses). . . .”
We do not pass on the soundness of the taxpayer’s other attacks upon this determination, for these contentions were not presented to the Commissioner or the Court of Claims.
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.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioner, Boston Metals Company, brought this suit in admiralty against the steam vessel Winding Gulf and her owners to recover for loss of its obsolete destroyer which sank after colliding with the Winding Gulf. The collision occurred while the destroyer was being towed by the tug Peter Moran; the destroyer itself was without power or crew. The owners of the Winding Gulf filed a cross-libel against petitioner, charging that the collision was due to unseaworthiness of the destroyer. After hearings, the District Court found that the collision was due to negligent navigation by the Winding Gulf, to inadequate lights on the destroyer and absence of a crew on the destroyer to keep its lights brightly burning. This absence of lights and crew the District Court found was the fault of the master of the tug Peter Moran. The tug master’s negligence, however, was imputed to the petitioner because of provisions in the towage contract that the master and crew of the tug would become the servants of the petitioner and that the towing company would not be responsible for their negligent towage. On this basis, the District Court entered a decree in favor of the cross-libellant against petitioner which resulted in dividing the damages equally between petitioner and respondents. 72 F. Supp. 50. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the same grounds. 209 F. 2d 410. We granted certiorari. 348 U. S. 811.
In Bisso v. Inland Waterways Corp., decided today, ante, p. 85, we held invalid a contract designed to shift responsibility for a towboat’s negligence from the towboat to its innocent tow. That holding controls this case. For whatever this contract said, here as in the Bisso case, the persons who conducted these towing operations were in fact acting as employees of the towing company, not as employees of the owner of the tow. Under these circumstances it was error to hold petitioner liable for negligence of the towing company’s employees. Cf. The Adriatic, 30 T. L. R. 699.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Harlan took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
[For opinion of Mr. Justice Douglas, concurring, see ante, p. 95.]
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 issue here is the validity of a contract restricting the choice of venue for an action based upon the Federal Employers’ Liability Act. Petitioner was injured in the course of his duties as an employee of respondent railroad in November, 1946. Twice during the following month petitioner was advanced fifty dollars by respondent. On each of these occasions petitioner signed an agreement stipulating that if his claim could not be settled and he elected to sue, “such suit shall be commenced within the county or district where I resided at the time my injuries were sustained or in the county or district where my injuries were sustained and not elsewhere.” Although this provision defined the available forum as either the Circuit Court of Calhoun County, Michigan, or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, petitioner brought an action in the Superior Court of Cook County, Illinois. To enjoin petitioner’s prosecution of the Illinois case, respondent instituted this suit. The Michigan Circuit Court held that the contract restricting the choice of venue was void and dismissed the suit. The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. 321 Mich. 693, 33 N. W. 2d 120 (1948).
Certiorari was granted, 337 U. S. 923 (1949), because the federal and state courts which have considered the issue have reached conflicting results. We agree with those courts which have held that contracts limiting the choice of venue are void as conflicting with the Liability Act.
Section 6 of the Liability Act provides that “Under this Act an action may be brought in a district court of the United States, in the district of the residence of the defendant, or in which the cause of action arose, or in which the defendant shall be doing business at the time of commencing such action. The jurisdiction of the courts of the United States under this Act shall be concurrent with that of the courts of the several States, and no case arising under this Act and brought in any state court of competent jurisdiction shall be removed to any court of the United States.” It is not disputed that respondent is liable to suit in Cook County, Illinois, in accordance with this provision. We hold that petitioner’s right to bring the suit in any eligible forum is a right of sufficient substantiality to be included within the Congressional mandate of § 5 of the Liability Act: “Any contract, rule, regulation, or device whatsoever, the purpose or intent of which shall be to enable any common carrier to exempt itself from any liability created by this Act, shall to that extent be void . . . .” The contract before us is therefore void.
Any other result would be inconsistent with Duncan v. Thompson, 315 U. S. 1 (1942). That opinion reviewed the legislative history and concluded that “Congress wanted § 5 to have the full effect that its comprehensive phraseology implies.” 315 U. S. at 6. In that case as in this, the contract before the Court was signed after the injury occurred. The court below, in holding that an agreement delimiting venue should be enforced if it was reached after the accident, disregarded Duncan.
The vigor and validity of the Duncan decision was not impaired by Callen v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 332 U. S. 625 (1948). We there distinguished a full compromise enabling the parties to settle their dispute without litigation, which we held did not contravene the Act, from a device which obstructs the right of the Liability Act plaintiff to secure the maximum recovery if he should elect judicial trial of his cause. And nothing in Ex parte Collett, 337 U. S. 55 (1949), affects the initial choice of venue afforded Liability Act plaintiffs. We stated expressly that the section of the Judicial Code there involved, 28 U. S. C. § 1404 (a), “does not limit or otherwise modify any right granted in § 6 of the Liability Act or elsewhere to bring suit in a particular district. An action may still be brought in any court, state or federal, in which it might have been brought previously.” 337 U. S. at 60.
The right to select the forum granted in § 6 is a substantial right. It would thwart the express purpose of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act to sanction defeat of that right by the device at bar.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Jackson concur in the result but upon the grounds stated by Chief Judge Hand in Krenger v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 174 F. 2d 556, at 560 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1949).
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Minton took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
35 Stat. 65, as amended, 45 U. S. C. § 51.
The agreement also provided that the sums advanced would be deducted from whatever settlement or recovery petitioner finally achieved. As to this, the proviso in § 5 of the Liability Act specifies “That in any action brought against any such common carrier under or by virtue of any of the provisions of this Act, such common carrier may set off therein any sum it has contributed or paid to any insurance, relief benefit, or indemnity that may have been paid to the injured employee or the person entitled thereto on account of the injury or death for which said action was brought.” Referring to this provision, and interpreting a contract similar to the one here involved, at least one federal court has held that “The contract to waive the venue provisions is of no effect . . . because there was no consideration for it.” Akerly v. New York C. R. Co., 168 F. 2d 812, 815 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1948).
In accord with the decision below are: Roland v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 65 F. Supp. 630 (N. D. Ill. 1946); Herrington v. Thompson, 61 F. Supp. 903 (W. D. Mo. 1945); Clark v. Lowden, 48 F. Supp. 261 (D. Minn. 1942); Detwiler v. Chicago, R. I. & P. R. Co., 15 F. Supp. 541 (D. Minn. 1936); Detwiler v. Lowden, 198 Minn. 185, 188, 269 N. W. 367, 369, 107 A. L. R. 1054, 1059 (1936). In conflict with the ruling before us are: Krenger v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 174 F. 2d 556 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1949), petition for certiorari denied this day, see post, p. 866; Akerly v. New York C. R. Co., 168 F. 2d 812 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1948); Fleming v. Husted, 68 F. Supp. 900 (S. D. Iowa 1946); Sherman v. Pere Marquette R. Co., 62 F. Supp. 590 (N. D. Ill. 1945); Petersen v. Ogden U. R. & D. Co., 110 Utah 573, 175 P. 2d 744 (1946); cf. Porter v. Fleming, 74 F. Supp. 378 (D. Minn. 1947).
See Krenger, supra note 3, 174 F. 2d at 558; id. at 561 (concurring opinion of L. Hand, C. J.); Akerly, supra note 3, 168 F. 2d at 815; Petersen, supra, note 3, 110 Utah at 579, 175 P. 2d at 747.
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 delivered the opinion of the Court.
For almost 40 years, John Sturgeon has hunted moose along the Nation River in Alaska. Because parts of the river are shallow and difficult to navigate, Sturgeon travels by hovercraft, an amphibious vehicle capable of gliding over land and water. To reach his preferred hunting grounds, Sturgeon must pilot his hovercraft over a stretch of the Nation River that flows through the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, a 1.7 million acre federal preservation area managed by the National Park Service. 16 U.S.C. § 410hh(10).
Alaska law permits the use of hovercraft. National Park Service regulations do not. See 36 CFR § 2.17(e) (2015). After Park Service rangers informed Sturgeon that he was prohibited from using his hovercraft within the boundaries of the preserve, Sturgeon filed suit, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. He argues that the Nation River is owned by the State, and that the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) prohibits the Park Service from enforcing its regulations on state-owned land in Alaska. The Park Service disagrees, contending that it has authority to regulate waters flowing through federally managed preservation areas. The District Court and the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Park Service. We granted certiorari.
I
In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward, serving under President Andrew Johnson, negotiated a treaty to purchase Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. Treaty Concerning the Cession of the Russian Possessions in North America, Mar. 30, 1867, 15 Stat. 539. In a single stroke, the United States gained 365 million acres of land-an area more than twice the size of Texas. Despite the bargain price of two cents an acre, however, the purchase was mocked by contemporaries as "Seward's Folly" and President Johnson's "Polar Bear Garden." See C. Naske & H. Slotnick, Alaska: A History 92-94 (2011) (Naske & Slotnick); S.Rep. No. 1163, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1957).
The monikers didn't stick. In 1898, the "Three Lucky Swedes"-Jafet Lindeberg, Eric Lindblom, and Jon Brynteson-struck gold in Nome, Alaska. As word of their discovery spread, thousands traveled to Alaska to try their hand at mining. Once the gold rush subsided, settlers turned to other types of mining, fishing, and trapping, fueling an emerging export economy. See Naske & Slotnick 128-129, 155, 249-251; D. Wharton, The Alaska Gold Rush 186-187 (1972).
Despite newfound recognition of Alaska's economic potential, however, it was not until the 1950's that Congress seriously considered admitting Alaska as a State. By that time, it was clear that Alaska was strategically important both in the Pacific and Arctic, and that the Territory was rich in natural resources, including oil. Moreover, the people of Alaska favored statehood. See Naske & Slotnick 201, 224-235. But there was a problem: Out of the 365 million acres of land in Alaska, 98 percent were owned by the Federal Government. As a result, absent a land grant from the Federal Government to the State, there would be little land available to drive private economic activity and contribute to the state tax base. See S.Rep. No. 1163, at 2, 12 ("The expenses of the State of Alaska will be comparatively high, partially due to the vast land areas within the State; but the State would be able to realize revenues from only 2 percent of this vast area unless some provision were made to modify the present land-ownership conditions").
A solution was struck. The 1958 Alaska Statehood Act permitted Alaska to select 103 million acres of "vacant, unappropriated, and unreserved" federal land-just over a quarter of all land in Alaska-for state ownership. §§ 6(a)-(b), 72 Stat. 340. That land grant included "mineral deposits," which were "subject to lease by the State as the State legislature may direct." § 6(i), id., at 342. Upon statehood, Alaska also gained "title to and ownership of the lands beneath navigable waters" within the State, in addition to "the natural resources within such lands and waters," including "the right and power to manage, administer, lease, develop, and use the said lands and natural resources." § 3(a), 67 Stat. 30, 43 U.S.C. § 1311(a) ; § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343. With over 100 million acres of land now available to the new State, Alaska could begin to fulfill its state policy "to encourage the settlement of its land and the development of its resources by making them available for maximum use consistent with the public interest." Alaska Const., Art. VIII, § 1 (2014).
The Statehood Act did not, however, determine the rights of the Alaska Natives, who asserted aboriginal title to much of the same land now claimed by the State. Naske & Slotnick 287-289. To resolve the dispute, Congress in 1971 passed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), which extinguished aboriginal land claims in Alaska. 85 Stat. 688, as amended, 43 U.S.C. § 1601 et seq. In exchange, Congress provided for a $960 million settlement and permitted corporations organized by groups of Alaska Natives to select 40 million acres of federal land to manage within the State. §§ 1605, 1610-1615; Naske & Slotnick 296-297. Congress sought to implement the settlement "rapidly, with certainty, in conformity with the real economic and social needs" of Alaska Natives. § 1601(b).
In addition to settling the claims of the Alaska Natives, ANCSA directed the Secretary of the Interior to select up to 80 million acres of unreserved federal land in Alaska for addition to the National Park, Forest, Wildlife Refuge, and Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems, subject to congressional approval. § 1616(d)(2). When Congress failed to approve the Secretary's selections, however, President Carter unilaterally designated 56 million acres of federal land in Alaska as national monuments. See Presidential Proclamation Nos. 4611-4627, 3 CFR 69-104 (1978 Comp.).
President Carter's actions were unpopular among many Alaskans, who were concerned that the new monuments would be subject to restrictive federal regulations. Protesters demonstrated in Fairbanks, and more than 2,500 Alaskans participated in the "Great Denali-McKinley Trespass." The goal of the trespass was to break over 25 Park Service rules in a two-day period-including by camping, hunting, snowmobiling, setting campfires, shooting guns, and unleashing dogs. During the event, a "rider on horseback, acting the part of Paul Revere, galloped through the crowd yelling, 'The Feds are coming! The Feds are coming!' " N.Y. Times, Jan. 15, 1979, p. A8; Anchorage Daily News, Jan. 15, 1979, pp. 1-2.
Congress once again stepped in to settle the controversy, passing the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. 94 Stat. 2371, 16 U.S.C. § 3101 et seq. ANILCA had two stated goals: First, to provide "sufficient protection for the national interest in the scenic, natural, cultural and environmental values on the public lands in Alaska." § 3101(d). And second, to provide "adequate opportunity for satisfaction of the economic and social needs of the State of Alaska and its people." Ibid.
ANILCA set aside 104 million acres of land in Alaska for preservation purposes, in the process creating ten new national parks, preserves, and monuments-including the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve-and tripling the number of acres set aside in the United States for federal wilderness preservation. See § 410hh ; Naske & Slotnick 315-316. At the same time, ANILCA specified that the Park Service could not prohibit on those lands certain activities of particular importance to Alaskans. See, e.g., § 3170(a) (Secretary must permit reasonable use of vehicles "for travel to and from villages and homesites"); § 3201 (Secretary must permit "the taking of fish and wildlife for sport purposes and subsistence uses" within National Preserves in Alaska, subject to regulation and certain exceptions). President Carter's earlier land designations were rescinded. See § 3209(a).
Under ANILCA, federal preservation lands in Alaska were placed into "conservation system units," which were defined to include "any unit in Alaska of the National Park System, National Wildlife Refuge System, National Wild and Scenic Rivers Systems, National Trails System, National Wilderness Preservation System, or a National Forest Monument." § 3102(4). Congress drew the boundaries of those units to "follow hydrographic divides or embrace other topographic or natural features," however, rather than to map the Federal Government's landholdings. § 3103(b). As a consequence, in addition to federal land, over 18 million acres of state, Native Corporation, and private land ended up inside the boundaries of conservation system units. See Brief for Petitioner 6.
This brings us back to Sturgeon and his hovercraft.
II
A
One fall day in 2007, Sturgeon was piloting his hovercraft on the Nation River, which rises in the Ogilvie Mountains in Canada and joins the Yukon River within the boundaries of the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve conservation system unit (Yukon-Charley). Sturgeon was headed to a hunting ground upstream from the preserve, just shy of the Canadian border. To reach that hunting ground, dubbed "moose meadows," Sturgeon had to travel on a portion of the river that flows through the preserve.
About two miles into his trip on the Nation River, Sturgeon stopped on a gravel bar to repair the steering cable of his hovercraft. As he was performing the repairs, Sturgeon was approached by three Park Service rangers. The rangers informed him that hovercraft were prohibited under Park Service regulations, and that he was committing a crime by operating his hovercraft within the boundaries of the Yukon-Charley. Despite Sturgeon's protests that Park Service regulations did not apply because the river was owned by the State of Alaska, the rangers ordered Sturgeon to remove his hovercraft from the preserve. Sturgeon complied, heading home without a moose.
Sturgeon now fears that he will be criminally prosecuted if he returns to hunt along the Nation River in his hovercraft. To avoid prosecution, Sturgeon sued the Park Service and several federal officials in the United States District Court for the District of Alaska. He seeks declaratory and injunctive relief permitting him to operate his hovercraft within the boundaries of the Yukon-Charley. Alaska intervened in support of Sturgeon, and the Park Service opposed the suit.
The District Court granted summary judgment to the Park Service. Sturgeon v. Masica, 2013 WL 5888230 (Oct. 30, 2013). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed in pertinent part. Sturgeon v. Masica, 768 F.3d 1066 (2014).
We granted certiorari. 576 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 27, 192 L.Ed.2d 997 (2015).
B
The Secretary of the Interior has authority to "prescribe regulations" concerning "boating and other activities on or relating to water located within System units, including water subject to the jurisdiction of the United States." 54 U.S.C. § 100751(b) (2012 ed., Supp. II). "System units" are in turn defined as "any area of land and water administered by the Secretary, acting through the Director [of the Park Service], for park, monument, historic, parkway, recreational, or other purposes." §§ 100102, 100501.
The Park Service's hovercraft regulation was adopted pursuant to Section 100751(b). The hovercraft ban applies not only within "[t]he boundaries of federally owned lands and waters administered by the National Park Service," but also to "[w]aters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States located within the boundaries of the National Park System, including navigable waters ... without regard to the ownership of submerged lands." 36 CFR § 1.2(a). The hovercraft ban is not limited to Alaska, but instead has effect in federally managed preservation areas across the country.
Section 103(c) of ANILCA, in contrast, addresses the scope of the Park Service's authority over lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska. The first sentence of Section 103(c) specifies the property included as a portion of those units. It states: "Only those lands within the boundaries of any conservation system unit which are public lands (as such term is defined in this Act) shall be deemed to be included as a portion of such unit." 16 U.S.C. § 3103(c). ANILCA defines the word "land" to include "lands, waters, and interests therein," and the term "public lands" to include "lands the title to which is in the United States after December 2, 1980," with certain exceptions. § 3102. In sum, only "lands, waters, and interests therein" to which the United States has "title" are considered "public" land "included as a portion" of the conservation system units in Alaska.
The second sentence of Section 103(c) concerns the Park Service's authority to regulate "non-public" lands in Alaska, which include state, Native Corporation, and private property. It provides: "No lands which, before, on, or after December 2, 1980, are conveyed to the State, to any Native Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units." § 3103(c).
The third sentence of Section 103(c) explains how new lands become part of conservation system units: "If the State, a Native Corporation, or other owner desires to convey any such lands, the Secretary may acquire such lands in accordance with applicable law (including this Act), and any such lands shall become part of the unit, and be administered accordingly." Ibid.
C
The parties dispute whether Section 103(c) of ANILCA created an Alaska-specific exception to the Park Service's general authority over boating and related activities in federally managed preservation areas. Sturgeon, the Park Service, and the Ninth Circuit each adopt a different reading of Section 103(c), reaching different conclusions about the scope of the Park Service's powers.
Sturgeon, joined by the State, understands Section 103(c) to stand for a simple proposition: The Park Service is prohibited from regulating "non-public" land in Alaska as if that land were owned by the Federal Government. He contends that his reading is consistent with the history of federal land management in Alaska, beginning with the Alaska Statehood Act and culminating in ANILCA.
Sturgeon's argument proceeds in two steps. First, he asserts that the Nation River is not "public land" for purposes of ANILCA and is therefore not part of the Yukon-Charley. As discussed, ANILCA defines "public lands" as lands to which the United States has "title." 16 U.S.C. § 3102. And Section 103(c) provides that "[o]nly those lands within the boundaries of any conservation system unit which are public lands (as such term is defined in this Act) shall be deemed to be included as a portion of such unit." § 3103(c).
Sturgeon argues that the Nation River is not "public land" because it is owned by the State and not by the Federal Government. To support his argument, Sturgeon relies on the Alaska Statehood Act, which granted ownership of the submerged lands beneath the navigable waters in Alaska, and the resources within those waters, to the State. See § 6(m), 72 Stat. 343; 43 U.S.C. § 1311(a). He also cites this Court's decision in United States v. California, 436 U.S. 32, 98 S.Ct. 1662, 56 L.Ed.2d 94 (1978), which stated that "the Submerged Lands Act transferred title to and ownership of the submerged lands and waters" to the States. Id., at 40, 98 S.Ct. 1662 (internal quotation marks omitted). Because the State and not the Federal Government owns the Nation River, Sturgeon urges, it is not "public" land under ANILCA and is therefore not part of the Yukon-Charley.
Second, Sturgeon asserts that because the Nation River is not part of the Yukon-Charley, the Park Service lacks authority to regulate it. His argument rests on the second sentence of Section 103(c), which states that "[n]o lands which, before, on, or after December 2, 1980, are conveyed to the State, to any Native Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units." 16 U.S.C. § 3103(c).
Sturgeon argues that the phrase "regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units" refers to those regulations that apply "solely" by virtue of the Park Service's "authority to manage national parks." Brief for Petitioner 18, 26-27. The word "solely," Sturgeon contends, simply ensures that "non-public" lands within the boundaries of those units remain subject to laws generally "applicable to both public and private lands (such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act)." Id., at 19. Because the hovercraft regulation was adopted pursuant to the Park Service's authority over federally managed preservation areas, and is not a law of general applicability like the Clean Air Act or the Clean Water Act, Sturgeon concludes that Section 103(c) bars enforcement of the regulation.
The Park Service, in contrast, reads Section 103(c) more narrowly. In its brief in this Court, the Park Service, while defending the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit, relies primarily on very different arguments. The agency stresses that it has longstanding authority to regulate waters within federally managed preservation areas, and that Section 103(c) does not take any of that authority away. In reaching its conclusion, the Park Service disagrees with Sturgeon at each step.
First, the Park Service contends that the Nation River is part of the Yukon-Charley. To support that contention, the agency cites ANILCA's definition of "public lands," which-as noted-includes "lands, waters, and interests therein" to which the United States has "title." 16 U.S.C. § 3102. The Park Service argues that the United States has "title" to an "interest" in the water within the boundaries of the Yukon-Charley under the reserved water rights doctrine.
The reserved water rights doctrine specifies that "when the Federal Government withdraws its land from the public domain and reserves it for a federal purpose, the Government, by implication, reserves appurtenant water then unappropriated to the extent needed to accomplish the purpose of the reservation." Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 138, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976). By creating the Yukon-Charley, the Park Service urges, the Federal Government reserved the water within the boundaries of the conservation system unit to achieve the Government's conservation goals. As a result, the Federal Government has "title" to an "interest" in the Nation River, making it "public" land subject to Park Service regulations.
Second, the Park Service contends that even if the Nation River is not "public" land, the agency still has authority to regulate it. According to the Park Service, the second sentence of Section 103(c) imposes only a limited restriction on the agency's power, prohibiting it from enforcing on "non-public" lands only those regulations that explicitly apply "solely to public lands." The hovercraft regulation applies both within "[t]he boundaries of federally owned lands and waters administered by the National Park Service" and to "[w]aters subject to the jurisdiction of the United States located within the boundaries of the National Park System, including navigable waters ... without regard to the ownership of submerged lands." 36 CFR § 1.2(a). Accordingly, the Park Service asserts, the hovercraft regulation does not apply "solely to public lands," and Section 103(c) therefore does not prevent enforcement of the regulation. See Brief for Respondents 56-58.
The Ninth Circuit, for its part, adopted a reading of Section 103(c) different from the primary argument advanced by the Park Service in this Court. The Court of Appeals did not reach the question whether the Nation River counts as "public" land for purposes of ANILCA. Instead, it held that the phrase "regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units" distinguishes between Park Service regulations that apply solely to "public" lands in Alaska, and Park Service regulations that apply to federally managed preservation areas across the country. In the Ninth Circuit's view, the Park Service may enforce nationally applicable regulations on both "public" and "non-public" property within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska, because such regulations do not apply "solely to public lands within such units." The Park Service may not, however, apply Alaska-specific regulations to "non-public" lands within the boundaries of those units.
According to the Ninth Circuit, because the hovercraft regulation "applies to all federal-owned lands and waters administered by [the Park Service] nationwide, as well as all navigable waters lying within national parks," the hovercraft ban does not apply "solely" within conservation system units in Alaska. 768 F.3d, at 1077. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the Park Service therefore has authority to enforce its hovercraft regulation on the Nation River. Id., at 1078. The Ninth Circuit's holding is subject to some interpretation, but Sturgeon, the State, the Alaska Native Corporations, and the Park Service (at least at times) concur in our understanding of the decision below. See Brief for Petitioner 25; Brief for State of Alaska as Amicus Curiae 23; Brief for Arctic Slope Regional Corporation et al. as Amici Curiae 12-13; Brief for Doyon, Ltd., et al. as Amici Curiae 31-32; Brief for Respondents 20; Tr. of Oral Arg. 61; 80 Fed.Reg. 65573 (2015).
III
We reject the interpretation of Section 103(c) adopted by the Ninth Circuit. The court's reading of the phrase "regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units" may be plausible in the abstract, but it is ultimately inconsistent with both the text and context of the statute as a whole. Statutory language "cannot be construed in a vacuum. It is a fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme." Roberts v. Sea-Land Services, Inc., 566 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1350, 1357, 182 L.Ed.2d 341 (2012) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Under the reading of the statute adopted below, the Park Service may apply nationally applicable regulations to "non-public" lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska, but it may not apply Alaska-specific regulations to those lands. That is a surprising conclusion. ANILCA repeatedly recognizes that Alaska is different-from its "unrivaled scenic and geological values," to the "unique" situation of its "rural residents dependent on subsistence uses," to "the need for development and use of Arctic resources with appropriate recognition and consideration given to the unique nature of the Arctic environment." 16 U.S.C. §§ 3101(b), 3111(2), 3147(b)(5).
ANILCA itself accordingly carves out numerous Alaska-specific exceptions to the Park Service's general authority over federally managed preservation areas. For example, ANILCA requires the Secretary of the Interior to permit "the exercise of valid commercial fishing rights or privileges" within the National Wildlife Refuge System in Alaska, including the use of "campsites, cabins, motorized vehicles, and aircraft landings directly incident to the exercise of such rights or privileges," with certain exceptions. 94 Stat. 2393. ANILCA also requires the Secretary to "permit on the public lands appropriate use for subsistence purposes of snowmobiles, motorboats, and other means of surface transportation traditionally employed for such purposes by local residents, subject to reasonable regulation." 16 U.S.C. § 3121(b). And it provides that National Preserves "in Alaska shall be administered and managed as a unit of the National Park System in the same manner as a national park except as otherwise provided in this Act and except that the taking of fish and wildlife for sport purposes and subsistence uses, and trapping shall be allowed" pursuant to applicable law. § 3201 (emphasis added).
Many similar examples are woven throughout ANILCA. See, e.g., 94 Stat. 2393 (Secretary must administer wildlife refuge "so as to not impede the passage of navigation and access by boat on the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers," subject to reasonable regulation); id., at 2388 (Secretary must allow reindeer grazing uses in certain areas, including construction of necessary facilities); 16 U.S.C. § 3203(a) (Alaska-specific rules for wilderness management apply "in recognition of the unique conditions in Alaska"); § 3170(a) (Secretary must permit reasonable use of snowmachines, motorboats, and airplanes within conservation system units "for travel to and from villages and homesites").
All those Alaska-specific provisions reflect the simple truth that Alaska is often the exception, not the rule. Yet the reading below would prevent the Park Service from recognizing Alaska's unique conditions. Under that reading, the Park Service could regulate "non-public" lands in Alaska only through rules applicable outside Alaska as well. Thus, for example, if the Park Service elected to allow hovercraft during hunting season in Alaska-in a departure from its nationwide rule-the more relaxed regulation would apply only to the "public" land within the boundaries of the unit. Hovercraft would still be banned from the "non-public" land, even during hunting season. Whatever the reach of the Park Service's authority under ANILCA, we cannot conclude that Section 103(c) adopted such a topsy-turvy approach.
Moreover, it is clear that Section 103(c) draws a distinction between "public" and "non-public" lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska. See § 3103(c) ("Only those lands within the boundaries of any conservation system unit which are public lands ... shall be deemed to be included as a portion of such unit"); ibid. (No lands "conveyed to the State, to any Native Corporation, or to any private party shall be subject to the regulations applicable solely to public lands within such units"). And yet, according to the court below, if the Park Service wanted to differentiate between that "public" and "non-public" land in an Alaska-specific way, it would have to regulate the "non-public" land pursuant to rules applicable outside Alaska, and the "public" land pursuant to Alaska-specific provisions. Assuming the Park Service has authority over "non-public" land in Alaska (an issue we do not decide), that strikes us as an implausible reading of the statute.
Looking at ANILCA both as a whole and with respect to Section 103(c), the Act contemplates the possibility that all the land within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska may be treated differently from federally managed preservation areas across the country, and that "non-public" lands within the boundaries of those units may be treated differently from "public" lands within the unit. Under the Ninth Circuit's reading of Section 103(c), however, the former is not an option, and the latter would require contorted and counterintuitive measures.
We therefore reject the interpretation of Section 103(c) adopted by the court below. That reading of the statute was the sole basis for the disposition of this case by the Court of Appeals. We accordingly vacate the judgment of that court and remand for further proceedings.
We do not reach the remainder of the parties' arguments. In particular, we do not decide whether the Nation River qualifies as "public land" for purposes of ANILCA. Sturgeon claims that it does not; the Park Service that it does. The parties' arguments in this respect touch on vital issues of state sovereignty, on the one hand, and federal authority, on the other. We find that in this case those issues should be addressed by the lower courts in the first instance.
Given this determination, we also do not decide whether the Park Service has authority under Section 100751(b) to regulate Sturgeon's activities on the Nation River, even if the river is not "public" land, or whether-as Sturgeon argues-any such authority is limited by ANILCA. Finally, we do not consider the Park Service's alternative argument that it has authority under ANILCA over both "public" and "non-public" lands within the boundaries of conservation system units in Alaska, to the extent a regulation is written to apply specifically to both types of land. We leave those arguments to the lower courts for consideration as necessary.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 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.
Mr. Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this case is the validity under the Federal Constitution of Ordinance No. 704, which was enacted by the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, City Council in December 1969, and which placed a 20% tax on the gross receipts obtained from all transactions involving the parking or storing of a motor vehicle at a nonresidential parking place in return for a consideration. The ordinance superseded a 1968 ordinance imposing an identical tax, but at the rate of 15%, which in turn followed a tax at the rate of 10% imposed by the city in 1962. Soon after its enactment, 12 operators of offstreet parking facilities located in the city sued to enjoin enforcement of the ordinance, alleging that it was invalid under the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as Art. VIII, § 1, of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which requires that taxes shall be uniform upon the same class of subjects. It appears from the findings and the opinions in the state courts that, at the time of suit, there were approximately 24,300 parking spaces in the downtown area of the city, approximately 17,000 of which the respondents operated. Another 1,000 were in the hands of private operators not party to the suit. The balance of approximately 6,100 was owned by the Parking Authority of the city of Pittsburgh, an agency created pursuant to the Parking Authority Law of June 5, 1947, Pa. Stat. Ann., Tit. 53, § 341 et seg. (1974). The trial court also found that there was then a deficiency of 4,100 spaces in the downtown area.
The Court of Common Pleas sustained the ordinance. Its judgment was affirmed by the Commonwealth Court by a four-to-three vote, 6 Pa. Commw. 433, 291 A. 2d 556 (1972), on rehearing, 6 Pa. Commw. 453, 295 A. 2d 349 (1972); but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed, also four to three. 453 Pa. 245, 307 A. 2d 851 (1973). That court rejected challenges to the ordinance under the Pennsylvania Constitution and the Equal Protection Clause, but invalidated the ordinance as an uncompensated taking of property contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because the decision appeared to be in conflict with the applicable decisions of this Court, we granted certiorari, 414 U. S. 1127 (1974), and we now reverse the judgment.
In the opinion of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, two aspects of the Pittsburgh ordinance combined to deprive the respondents of due process of law. First, the court thought the tax was “unreasonably high” and was responsible for the inability of nine of 14 different private parking lot operators to conduct their business at a profit and of the remainder to show more than marginal earnings. 453 Pa., at 259-260, 307 A. 2d, at 859-860. Second, private operators of parking lots faced competition from the Parking Authority, a public agency enjoying tax exemption (although not necessarily from this tax) and other advantages which enabled it to offer offstreet parking at lower rates than those charged by private operators. The average all-day rate for the public lots was $2 as compared with a $3 all-day rate for the private lots. Ibid. The court’s conclusion was that “[w]here such an unfair competitive advantage accrues, generated by the use of public funds, to a local government at the expense of private property owners, without just compensation, a clear constitutional violation has occurred. . . .” “[T]he unreasonably burdensome 20 percent gross receipts tax, causing the majority of private parking lot operators to operate their businesses at a loss, in the special competitive circumstances of this case, constitutes an unconstitutional taking of private property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.” Id., at 267, 269-270, 307 A. 2d, at 863, 864.
We cannot agree that these two considerations, either alone or together, are sufficient to invalidate the parking tax ordinance involved in this case. The claim that a particular tax is so unreasonably high and unduly burdensome as to deny due process is both familiar and recurring, but the Court has consistently refused either to undertake the task of passing on the “reasonableness” of a tax that otherwise is within the power of Congress or of state legislative authorities, or to hold that a tax is unconstitutional because it renders a business unprofitable.
In Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S. 40 (1934), the Court sustained against due process attack a state excise tax of 150 per pound on all butter substitutes sold in the State. Conceding that the “tax is so excessive that it may or will result in destroying the intrastate business of appellant,” id., at 45, the Court held that “the due process of law clause contained in the Fifth Amendment is not a limitation upon the taxing power conferred upon Congress,” that no different rule should be applied to the States and that a tax within the lawful power of a State should not “be judicially stricken down under the due process clause simply because its enforcement may or will result in restricting or even destroying particular occupations or businesses.” Id., at 44. The premise that a tax is invalid if so excessive as to bring about the destruction of a particular business, the Court said, had been “uniformly rejected as furnishing no juridical ground for striking down a taxing act.” Id., at 47. Veazie Bank v. Fenno, 8 Wall. 533, 548 (1869); McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27 (1904); and Alaska Fish Co. v. Smith, 255 U. S. 44 (1921), are to the same effect.
In Alaska Fish, a tax on the manufacture of certain fish products was sustained, the Court saying, id., at 48-49: “Even if the tax should destroy a business it would not be made invalid or require compensation upon that ground alone. Those who enter upon a business take that risk. . . . We know of no objection to exacting a discouraging rate as the alternative to giving up a business, when the legislature has the full power of taxation.” See also International Harvester Co. v. Wisconsin Dept. of Taxation, 322 U. S. 435, 444 (1944); Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 30 (1922); Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U. S. 1, 24 (1916); Flint v. Stone Tracy Co., 220 U. S. 107, 168-169 (1911).
Neither the parties nor the Pennsylvania Supreme Court purports to differ with the foregoing principles. But the state court concluded that this was one of those “rare and special instances” recognized in Magnano and other cases where the Due Process Clause may be invoked because the taxing statute is “so arbitrary as to compel the conclusion that it does not involve an exertion of the taxing power, but constitutes, in substance and effect, the direct exertion of a different and forbidden power, as, for example, the confiscation of property.” 292 U. S., at 44.
There are several difficulties with this position. The ordinance on its face recites that its purpose is “[t]o provide for the general revenue by imposing a tax . . . ,” and in sustaining the ordinance against an equal protection challenge, the state court itself recognized that commercial parking lots are a proper subject for special taxation and that the city had decided, “not without reason, that commercial parking operations should be singled out for special taxation to raise revenue because of traffic related problems engendered by these operations.” 453 Pa., at 257, 307 A. 2d, at 858 (emphasis added).
It would have been difficult from any standpoint to have held that the ordinance was in no sense a revenue measure. The 20% tax concededly raised substantial sums of money; and even if the revenue collected had been insubstantial, Sonzinsky v. United States, 300 U. S. 506, 513-514 (1937), or the revenue purpose only secondary, Hampton & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 394, 411-413 (1928), we would not necessarily treat this exaction as anything but a tax entitled to the presumption of the validity accorded other taxes imposed by a State.
Rather than conclude that the 20% levy was not a tax at all, the Pennsylvania court accepted it as such and merely concluded that it was so unreasonably high and burdensome that, in the context of competition by the city, the ordinance had the “effect” of an uncompensated taking of property. 453 Pa., at 269, 307 A. 2d, at 864. The court did not hold a parking tax, as such, to be beyond the power of the city but it appeared to hold that a bona fide tax, if sufficiently burdensome, could be held invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. This approach is contrary to the cases already cited, particularly to the oft-repeated principle that the judiciary should not infer a legislative attempt to exercise a forbidden power in the form of a seeming tax from the fact, alone, that the tax appears excessive or even so high as to threaten the existence of an occupation or business. Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, supra, at 47; Child Labor Tax Case, supra, at 40-41; Veazie Bank v. Fenno, supra, at 548.
Nor are we convinced that the ordinance loses its character as a tax and may be stricken down as too burdensome under the Due Process Clause if the taxing authority, directly or through an instrumentality enjoying various forms of tax exemption, competes with the taxpayer in a manner thought to be unfair by the judiciary. This approach would demand not only that the judiciary undertake to separate those taxes that are too burdensome from those that are not, but also would require judicial oversight of the terms and circumstances under which the government or its tax-exempt instru-mentalities may undertake to compete with the private sector. The clear teaching of prior cases is that this is not a task that the Due Process Clause demands of or permits to the judiciary. We are not now inclined to chart a different course.
In Veazie Bank, supra, a 10% tax on state bank notes was sustained over the objection of the dissenters that the purpose was to foster national banks, instrumentalities of the National Government, in preference to private banks chartered by the States. More directly in point is Puget Sound Co. v. Seattle, 291 U. S. 619 (1934), where the city imposed a gross receipts tax on a power and light company and at the same time actively competed with that company in the business of furnishing power to consumers. The company’s contention was that “constitutional limitations are transgressed . . . because the tax affects a business with which the taxing sovereign is actively competing.” Id., at 623. Calling on prior cases in support, the Court rejected the contention, holding that “the Fourteenth Amendment does not prevent a city from conducting a public water works in competition with private business or preclude taxation of the private business to help its rival to succeed.” Id., at 626. See also Madera Water Works v. Madera, 228 U. S. 454 (1913). The holding in Puget Sound remains good law and, together with the other authorities to which we have already referred, it is sufficient to require reversal of the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Even assuming that an uncompensated and hence forbidden “taking” could be inferred from an unreasonably high tax in the context of competition from the taxing authority, we could not conclude that the Due Process Clause was violated in the circumstances of this case. It was urged by the city that the private operators would not suffer because they could and would pass the tax on to their customers, who, as a class, should pay more for the services of the city that they directly or indirectly utilize in connection with the special problems incident to the twice daily movement of large numbers of cars on the streets of the city and in and out of parking garages. The response of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was that competition from the city prevented the private operators from raising their prices and recouping their losses by collecting the tax from their customers. On the record before us, this is not a convincing basis for concluding that the parking tax effected an unconstitutional taking of respondents’ property. There are undisturbed findings in the record that there were 24,300 parking places in the downtown area, that there was an overall shortage of parking facilities, and that the public authority supplied only 6,100 parking spaces. Because these latter spaces were priced substantially under the private lots it could be anticipated that they would be preferred by those seeking parking in the downtown area. Insofar as this record reveals, for the 20% tax to have a destructive effect on private operators as compared with the situation immediately preceding its enactment, the damage would have to flow chiefly, not from those who preferred the cheaper public parking lots, but from those who could no longer afford an increased price for downtown parking at all. If this is the case, we simply have another instance where the government enacts a tax at a “discouraging rate as the alternative to giving up a business,” a policy to which there is no constitutional objection. Alaska Fish Co. v. Smith, 255 U. S., at 49; Magnano Co. v. Hamilton, 292 U. S., at 46.
The parking tax ordinance recited that “[n] on-residential parking places for motor vehicles, by reason of the frequency rate of their use, the changing intensity of their use at various hours of the day, their location, then-relationship to traffic congestion and other characteristics, present problems requiring municipal services and affect the public interest, differently from parking places accessory to the use and occupancy of residences.” By enacting the tax, the city insisted that those providing and utilizing nonresidential parking facilities should pay more taxes to compensate the city for the problems incident to offstreet parking. The city was constitutionally entitled to put the automobile parker to the choice of using other transportation or paying the increased tax.
The judgment of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is
Reversed.
The ordinance defined a nonresidential parking place as follows: “(c) ‘Non-Residential Parking Place’ or ‘Parking Place’ — any place within the City, whether wholly or partially enclosed or open, at which motor vehicles are parked or stored for any period of time in return for a consideration not including:
“(i) any parking area or garage to the extent that it is provided or leased to the occupants of a residence on the same or other premises for use only in connection with, and as accessory to, the occupancy of such residence, and (ii) any parking area or garage operated exclusively by an owner or lessee of a hotel, an apartment hotel, tourist court or trailer park, to the extent that the parking area or garage is provided to guests or tenants of such hotel, tourist court or trailer park for no additional consideration.
“As used herein, the term ‘residence’ includes (i) any building designed and used for family living or sleeping purposes other than a hotel, apartment hotel, tourist court or trailer park, and (ii) any dwelling unit located in a hotel or apartment hotel.
“The terms ‘hotel,’ ‘apartment hotel,’ ‘tourist court,’ ‘trailer park’ and 'dwelling unit’ are used herein as defined in the Zoning Ordinance, Ordinance No. 192, approved May 10, 1958, as amended.”
It appears from the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that Ordinance No. 704 was itself superseded while appeal was pending in the state courts. 453 Pa. 245,266 n. 13,307 A. 2d 851, 863 n. 13. The new urdinance, effective April 1, 1973, imposed a 20% tax on the consideration paid in nonresidential parking transactions, the tax to be collected from the patron by the operator. This case is not mooted by the new ordinance, however, for there remains the issue of substantial refunds of taxes collected under Ordinance No. 704.
The ordinance on its face applies to all nonresidential parking transactions. The following, however, appears in n. 9 of the opinion of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, 453 Pa., at 265, 307 A. 2d, at 862:
“As of this writing, the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas has ruled that the Public Parking Authority is exempt from payment of the challenged gross receipts tax. Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh v. City of Pittsburgh, No. 687, July Term, 1972. See Allegheny County v. Moon Township, 436 Pa. 54, 258 A. 2d 630 (1969). An appeal is presently pending before the Commonwealth Court.
“However, whether the Public Parking Authority is subject to the tax seems to make little real difference in the context of this present dispute. Even if the Authority had to pay the tax to the City it would mean only in reality an accounting transaction, transferring dollars from one pocket of an instrumentality of City government to another. Thus although appellants’ argument would be strengthened by the common pleas court’s decision, we need not presently rest our decision upon Public Parking Authority of Pittsburgh v. City of Pittsburgh, supra.”
Cf. Heiner v. Donnan, 285 U. S. 312, 326 (1932); Nichols v. Coolidge, 274 U. S. 531, 542 (1927); Child Labor Tax Case, 259 U. S. 20, 37 et seq. (1922); Brushaber v. Union Pacific R. Co., 240 U. S. 1, 24-25 (1916); McCray v. United States, 195 U. S. 27, 60 (1904); Henderson Bridge Co. v. Henderson City, 173 U. S. 592, 614-615 (1899); M‘Culloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 423 (1819).
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 Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case to consider whether the Confrontation Clause requires that a defendant in a criminal case be allowed to impeach the credibility of a prosecution witness by cross-examination directed at possible bias deriving from the witness’ probationary status as a juvenile delinquent when such an impeachment would conflict with a State’s asserted interest in preserving the confidentiality of juvenile adjudications of delinquency.
(1)
When the Polar Bar in Anchorage closed in the early morning hours of February 16, 1970, well over a thousand dollars in cash and checks was in the bar’s Mosler safe. About midday, February 16, it was discovered that the bar had been broken into and the safe, about two feet square and weighing several hundred pounds, had been removed from the premises.
Later that afternoon the Alaska State Troopers received word that a safe had been discovered about 26 miles outside Anchorage near the home of Jess Straight and his family. The safe, which was subsequently determined to be the one stolen from the Polar Bar, had been pried open and the contents removed. Richard Green, Jess Straight’s stepson, told investigating troopers on the scene that at about noon on February 16 he had seen and spoken with two Negro men standing alongside a late-model metallic blue Chevrolet sedan near where the safe was later discovered. The next day Anchorage police investigators brought him to the police station where Green was given six photographs of adult Negro males. After examining the photographs for 30 seconds to a minute, Green identified the photograph of petitioner as that of one of the men he had encountered the day-before and described to the police. Petitioner was arrested the next day, February 18. On February 19, Green picked petitioner out of a lineup of seven Negro males.
At trial, evidence was introduced to the effect that paint chips found in the trunk of petitioner’s rented blue Chevrolet could have originated from the surface of the stolen safe. Further, the trunk of the car contained particles which were identified as safe insulation characteristic of that found in Mosler safes. The insulation found in the trunk matched that of the stolen safe.
Richard Green was a crucial witness for the prosecution. He testified at trial that while on an errand for his mother he confronted two men standing beside a late-model metallic blue Chevrolet, parked on a road near his family’s house. The man standing at the rear of the car spoke to Green asking if Green lived nearby and if his father was home. Green offered the men help, but his offer was rejected. On his return from the errand Green again passed the two men and he saw the man with whom he had had the conversation standing at the rear of the car with “something like a crowbar’’’ in his hands. Green identified petitioner at the trial as the man with the “crowbar.” The safe was discovered later that afternoon at the point, according to Green, where the Chevrolet had been parked.
Before testimony was taken at the trial of petitioner, the prosecutor moved for a protective order to prevent any reference to Green’s juvenile record by the defense in the course of cross-examination. At the time of the trial and at the time of the events Green testified to, Green was on probation by order of a juvenile court after having been adjudicated a delinquent for burglarizing two cabins. Green was 16 years of age at the time of the Polar Bar burglary, but had turned 17 prior to trial.
In opposing the protective order, petitioner’s counsel made it clear that he would not introduce Green’s juvenile adjudication as a general impeachment of Green’s character as a truthful person but, rather, to show specifically that at the same time Green was assisting the police in identifying petitioner he was on probation for burglary. From this petitioner would seek to show — or at least argue — that Green acted out of fear or concern of possible jeopardy to his probation. Not only might Green have made a hasty and faulty identification of petitioner to shift suspicion away from himself as one who robbed the Polar Bar, but Green might have been subject to undue pressure from the police and made his identifications under fear of possible probation revocation. Green’s record would be revealed only as necessary to probe Green for bias and prejudice and not generally to call Green’s good character into question.
The trial court granted the motion for a protective order, relying on Alaska Rule of Children’s Procedure 23, and Alaska Stat. .§ 47.10.080 (g) (1971).
Although prevented from revealing that Green had been on probation for the juvenile delinquency adjudication for burglary at the same time that he originally identified petitioner, counsel for petitioner did his best to expose Green’s state of mind at the time Green discovered that a stolen safe had been discovered near his home. Green denied that he was upset or uncomfortable about the discovery of the safe. He claimed not to have been worried about any suspicions the police might have been expected to harbor against him, though Green did admit that it crossed his mind that the police might have thought he had something to do with the crime.
Defense counsel cross-examined Green in part as follows:
“Q. Were you upset at all by the fact that this safe was found on your property?
“A. No, sir.
“Q. Did you feel that they might in some way suspect you of this?
“A. No.
“Q. Did you feel uncomfortable about this though?
“A. No, not really.
“Q. The fact that a safe was found on your property?
“A. No.
“Q. Did you suspect for a moment that the police might somehow think that you were involved in this?
“A. I thought they might ask a few questions is all.
“Q. Did that thought ever enter your mind that you — that the police might think that you were somehow connected with this?
“A. No, it didn’t really bother me, no.
“Q. Well, but ... .
“A. I mean, you know, it didn’t — it didn’t come into my mind as worrying me, you know.
“Q. That really wasn’t — wasn’t my question, Mr. Green. Did you think that — not whether it worried you so much or not, but did you feel that there was a possibility that the police might somehow think that you had something to do with this, that they might have that in their mind, not that you ....
“A. That came across my mind, yes, sir.
“Q. That did cross your mind?
“A. Yes.
“Q. So as I understand it you went down to the— you drove in with the police in — in their car from mile 25, Glenn Highway down to the city police station?
“A. Yes, sir.
“Q. And then went into the investigators’ room with Investigator Gray and Investigator Weaver?
“A. Yeah.
“Q. And they started asking you questions about— about the incident, is that correct?
“A. Yeah.
“Q. Had you ever been questioned like that before by any law enforcement officers?
“A. No.
“MR. RIPLEY: I’m going to object to this, Your Honor, it’s a carry-on with rehash of the same thing. He’s attempting to raise in the jury’s mind ....
“THE COURT: I’ll sustain the objection.”
Since defense counsel was prohibited from making inquiry as to the witness’ being on probation under a juvenile court adjudication, Green’s protestations of unconcern. over possible police suspicion that he might have had a part in the Polar Bar burglary and his categorical denial of ever having been the subject of any similar law-enforcement interrogation went unchallenged. The tension between the right of confrontation and the State’s policy of protecting the witness with a juvenile record is particularly evident in the final answer given by the witness. Since it is probable that Green underwent some questioning by police when he was arrested for the burglaries on which his juvenile adjudication of delinquency rested, the answer can be regarded as highly suspect at the very least. The witness was in effect asserting, under protection of the trial court’s ruling, a right to give a questionably truthful answer to a cross-examiner pursuing a relevant line of inquiry; it is doubtful whether the bold “No” answer would have been given by Green absent a belief that he was shielded from traditional cross-examination. It would be difficult to conceive of a situation more clearly illustrating the need for cross-examination. The remainder of the cross-examination was devoted to an attempt to prove that Green was making his identification at trial on the basis of what he remembered from his earlier identifications at the photographic display and lineup, and not on the basis of his February 16 confrontation with the two men on the road.
The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed petitioner’s conviction, concluding that it did not have to resolve the potential conflict in this case between a defendant’s right to a meaningful confrontation with adverse witnesses and the State’s interest in protecting the anonymity of a juvenile offender since “our reading of the trial transcript convinces us that counsel for the defendant was able adequately to question the youth in considerable detail concerning the possibility of bias or motive.” 499 P. 2d 1025, 1036 (1972). Although the court admitted that Green’s denials of any sense of anxiety or apprehension upon the safe’s being found close to his home were possibly self-serving, “the suggestion was nonetheless brought to the attention of the jury, and that body was afforded the opportunity to observe the demeanor of the youth and pass on his credibility.” Ibid. The court concluded that, in light of the indirect references permitted, there was no error.
Since we granted certiorari limited to the question of whether petitioner was denied his right under the Confrontation Clause to adequately cross-examine Green, 410 U. S. 925 (1973), the essential question turns on the correctness of the Alaska court’s evaluation of the “adequacy” of the scope of cross-examination permitted. We disagree with that court’s interpretation of the Confrontation Clause and we reverse.
(2)
The Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the right of an accused in a criminal prosecution “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” This right is secured for defendants in state as well as federal criminal proceedings under Pointer v. Texas, 380 U. S. 400 (1965). Confrontation means more than being allowed to confront the witness physically. “Our cases construing the [confrontation] clause hold that a primary interest secured by it is the right of cross-examination.” Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 415, 418 (1965). Professor Wigmore stated:
“The main and essential purpose of confrontation is to secure for the opponent the opportunity of cross-examination. The opponent demands confrontation, not for the idle purpose of gazing upon the witness, or of being gazed upon by him, but for the purpose of cross-examination, which cannot be had except by the direct and personal putting of questions and obtaining immediate answers.” 5 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 1395, p. 123 (3d ed. 1940). (Emphasis in original.)
Cross-examination is the principal means by which the believability of a witness and the truth of his testimony are tested. Subject always to the broad discretion of a trial judge to preclude repetitive and unduly harassing interrogation, the cross-examiner is not only permitted to delve into the witness’ story to test the witness’ perceptions and memory, but the cross-examiner has traditionally been allowed to impeach, i. e., discredit, the witness. One way of discrediting the witness is to introduce evidence of a prior criminal conviction of that witness. By so doing the cross-examiner intends to afford the jury a basis to infer that the witness’ character is such that he would be less likely than the average trustworthy citizen to be truthful in his testimony. The introduction of evidence of a prior crime is thus a general attack on the credibility of the witness. A more particular attack on the witness’ credibility is effected by means of cross-examination directed toward revealing possible biases, prejudices, or ulterior motives of the witness as they may relate directly to issues or personalities in the case at hand. The partiality of a witness is subject to exploration at trial, and is “always relevant as discrediting the witness and affecting the weight of his testimony.” 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 940, p. 775 (Chadbourn rev. 1970). We have recognized that the exposure of a witness’ motivation in testifying is a proper and important function of the constitutionally protected right of cross-examination. Greene v. McElroy, 360 U. S. 474, 496 (1959).
In the instant case, defense counsel sought to show the existence of possible bias and prejudice of Green, causing him to make a faulty initial identification of petitioner, which in turn could have affected his later in-court identification of petitioner.
We cannot speculate as to whether the jury, as sole judge of the credibility of a witness, would have accepted this line of reasoning had counsel been permitted to fully present it. But we do conclude that the jurors were entitled to have the benefit of the defense theory before them so that they could make an informed judgment as to the weight to place on Green’s testimony which provided “a crucial link in the proof ... of petitioner’s act.”- Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U. S., at 419. The accuracy and truthfulness of Green’s testimony were key elements in the State’s case against petitioner. The claim of bias which the defense sought to develop was admissible to afford a basis for an inference of undue pressure because of Green’s vulnerable status as a probationer, cf. Alford v. United States, 282 U. S. 687 (1931), as well as of Green’s possible concern that he might be a suspect in the investigation.
We cannot accept the Alaska Supreme Court’s conclusion that the cross-examination that was permitted defense counsel was adequate to develop the issue of bias properly to the jury. While counsel was permitted to ask Green whether he was biased, counsel was unable to make a record from which to argue why Green might have been biased or otherwise lacked that degree of impartiality expected of a witness at trial. On the basis of the limited cross-examination that was permitted, the jury might well have thought that defense counsel was engaged in a speculative and baseless line of attack on the credibility of an apparently blameless witness or, as the prosecutor’s objection put it, a “rehash” of prior cross-examination. On these facts it seems clear to us that to make any such inquiry effective, defense counsel should have been permitted to expose to the jury the facts from which jurors, as the sole triers of fact and credibility, could appropriately draw inferences relating to the reliability of the witness. Petitioner was thus denied the right of effective cross-examination which “ 'would be constitutional error of the first magnitude and no amount of showing of want of prejudice would cure it.’ Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U. S. 1, 3.” Smith v. Illinois, 390 U. S. 129, 131 (1968).
(3)
The claim is made that the State has an important interest in protecting the anonymity of juvenile offenders and that this interest outweighs any competing interest this petitioner might have in cross-examining Green about his being on probation. The State argues that exposure of a juvenile’s record of delinquency would likely cause impairment of rehabilitative goals of the juvenile correctional procedures. This exposure, it is argued, might encourage the juvenile offender to commit further acts of delinquency, or cause the juvenile offender to lose employment opportunities or otherwise suffer unnecessarily for his youthful transgression.
We do not and need not challenge the State’s interest as a matter of its own policy in the administration of criminal justice to seek to preserve the anonymity of a juvenile offender. Cf. In re Gault, 387 U. S. 1, 25 (1967). Here, however, petitioner sought to introduce evidence of Green’s probation for the purpose of suggesting that Green was biased and, therefore, that his testimony was either not to be believed in his identification of petitioner or at least very carefully considered in that light. Serious damage to the strength of the State’s case would have been a real possibility had petitioner been allowed to pursue this line of inquiry. In this setting we conclude that the right of confrontation is paramount to the State’s policy of protecting a juvenile offender. Whatever temporary embarrassment might result to Green or his family by disclosure of his juvenile record— if the prosecution insisted on using him to make its case— is outweighed by petitioner’s right to probe into the influence of possible bias in the testimony of a crucial identification witness.
In Alford v. United States, supra, we upheld the right of defense counsel to impeach a witness by showing that because of the witness' incarceration in federal prison at the time of trial, the witness’ testimony was biased as “given under promise or expectation of immunity, or under the coercive effect of his detention by officers of the United States.” 282 U. S., at 693. In response to the argument that the witness had a right to be protected from exposure of his criminal record, the Court stated:
“[.N]o obligation is imposed on the court, such as that suggested below, to protect a witness from being discredited on cross-examination, short of an attempted invasion of his constitutional protection from self incrimination, properly invoked. There is a duty to protect him from questions which go beyond the bounds of proper cross-examination merely to harass, annoy or humiliate him.” Id., at 694.
As in Alford, we conclude that the State's desire that Green fulfill his public duty to testify free from embarrassment and with his reputation unblemished must fall before the right of petitioner to seek out the truth in the process of defending himself.
The State’s policy interest in protecting the confidentiality of a juvenile offender's record cannot require yielding of so vital a constitutional right as the effective cross-examination for bias of an adverse witness. The State could have protected Green from exposure of his juvenile adjudication in these circumstances by refraining from using him to make out its case; the State cannot, consistent with the right of confrontation, require the petitioner to bear the full burden of vindicating the State’s interest in the secrecy of juvenile criminal records. The judgment affirming petitioner’s convictions of burglary and grand larceny is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
u -s go Qrdererl
Rule 23 provides:
“No adjudication, order, or disposition of a juvenile case shall be admissible in a court not acting in the exercise of juvenile jurisdiction except for use .in a presentencing procedure in a criminal case where the superior court, in its discretion, determines that such use is appropriate.”
Section 47.10.080 (g) provides in pertinent part:
“The commitment and placement of a child and evidence given in the court are not admissible as evidence against the minor in a subsequent case or proceedings in any other court . ...”
In the same opinion the Alaska Supreme Court also affirmed petitioner’s conviction, following a separate trial, for being a felon in possession of a concealable firearm. That conviction is not in issue before this Court.
In Greene we stated:
“Certain principles have remained relatively immutable in our jurisprudence. One of these is that where governmental action seriously injures an individual, and the reasonableness of the action depends on fact findings, the evidence used to prove the Government’s case must be disclosed to the individual so that he has an opportunity to show that it is untrue. While this is important in the case of documentary evidence, it is even more important where the evidence consists of the testimony of individuals whose memory might be faulty or who, in fact, might be perjurers or persons motivated by malice, vindictiveness, intolerance, prejudice, or jealousy. We have formalized these protections in the requirements of confrontation and cross-examination. . . .” 360 U. S., at 496.
“[A] partiality of mind at some former time may be used as the basis of an argument to the same state at the time of testifying; though the ultimate object is to establish partiality at the time of testifying.” 3A J. Wigmore, Evidence § 940, p. 776 (Chadbourn rev. 1970). (Emphasis in original; footnotes omitted.)
Although Alford involved a federal criminal trial and we reversed because of abuse of discretion and prejudicial error, the constitutional dimension of our holding in Alford is not in doubt. In Smith v. Illinois, 390 U. S. 129, 132-133 (1968), we relied, in part, on Alford to reverse a state criminal conviction on confrontation grounds.
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 Clark
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners, eight families of Navajo Indians, seek damages under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the destruction of their horses by agents of the Federal Government. The District Court allowed damages of $100,000 and enjoined the Government and its agents from further interference with petitioners. The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed, 220 F. 2d 666, on the ground that the Utah abandoned horse statute, Utah Code Ann., 1953, 47-2, was properly invoked by the government agents. We do not agree with the Court of Appeals.
Petitioners are wards of the Government. They have lived from time immemorial in stone and timber hogans on public land in San Juan County, Utah. This bleak area in the southeastern corner of the State is directly north of the Navajo Indian Reservation. While some Indian families from the reservation come into the area to graze their livestock, petitioners claim to have always lived there the year round. They are herdsmen and for generations they have grazed their livestock on this land. They are a simple and primitive people. Their living is derived entirely from their animals, from the little corn they are able to grow in family plots, and the wild game and pine nuts that the land itself affords. The District Court found that horses, as petitioners’ beasts of burden and only means of transportation, were essential to their existence.
In 1934 the Government enacted the Taylor Grazing Act, 48 Stat. 1269, 43 U. S. C. § 315, which provided for the regulation and use of these public lands. Grazing permits were issued to white livestock operators, and for a number of years these permittees grazed their livestock in common with petitioners, who continued in peaceable occupation and use of the land they claimed as their ancestral home. Limited forage made disputes between the stockmen and the Indians inevitable, and about 1950 both the Government and the white livestock operators filed suits to remove the Indians from this land. In addition to legal proceedings, another method was employed by the government agents. Beginning in September 1952 and continuing until sometime after the present suit was filed in the District Court, the Department of Interior’s range manager vigorously prosecuted a campaign to round up and destroy petitioners’ horses. This action was taken pursuant to the Utah abandoned horse statute, Utah Code Ann., 1953, 47-2, which provides that the Board of County Commissioners may authorize the elimination of “abandoned” horses on the open range. An “abandoned” horse is defined as one running at large on the open range which is either not branded or, if branded, one on which the tax for the preceding year has not been paid. During the roundup a total of 115 horses and 38 burros belonging to petitioners were taken and sold or destroyed. Some horses were sold locally. Some were shot and their carcasses left on the range. Most of the animals, however, were trucked some 350 miles away to Provo, Utah, where they were sold to a horse-meat plant or a glue factory. The total amount derived from such sales, about $1,700, has been retained by the District Advisory Board composed of local stockmen. No part of it has been paid or offered to petitioners.
There is considerable evidence in the record to show that the Utah abandoned horse statute was applied dis-criminatorily against the Indians. In one instance the assistant range'manager watched from a bluff while petitioner Hosteen Sakezzie released his horses from their corral. Later, a short distance away, the same government agent supervised a roundup of these horses and drove them 35 miles through the night to another corral from which they were loaded into trucks for the horse-meat plant. Sakezzie and three other Indians trailed the horses to the entrucking point but were not allowed to reclaim them. On another occasion five horses taken during the roundup which belonged to white stockmen were returned to their owners on the payment of a nominal $2.50 a head, but petitioner Little Wagon was told that to reclaim his horses the charge would be $60 a head, an amount known to be far above his means. For the most part, these and other facts found by the District Court were unchallenged in the Court of Appeals and are unchallenged here.
The Court of Appeals did not reach the question of liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act, since it concluded that the government agents’ actions were authorized by the Utah abandoned horse statute. We cannot dispose of this case so easily.
The Taylor Grazing Act seeks to provide the most beneficial use of the public range and to protect grazing rights in the districts it creates. Chournos v. United States, 193 F. 2d 321. Section 2 of the Act, 48 Stat. 1270, 43 U. S. C. § 315a, provides that the Secretary of the Interior shall “make such rules and regulations . . . and do any and all things necessary to accomplish the purposes of this Act.” Pursuant to this authorization the Secretary has issued the Federal Range Code, 43 CFR § 161.1 et seq. Unauthorized grazing on the federal range and the removal of trespassing livestock is expressly provided for by § 161.11 (b) of this Code:
“(b) Unlawful grazing on Federal range; removal of livestock; impoundment. Whenever the charge consists of unlawfully grazing livestock on the Federal range, the notice served on the alleged violator . . . will order the alleged violator to remove the livestock or to cause them to be removed immediately or within such reasonable time as may be specified. If the alleged violator fails to comply with the notice the range manager may proceed to exercise the proprietary right of the United States in the Federal range, under local impoundment law and procedure, if practicable; otherwise he may refer the matter through the usual channels for appropriate legal action by the United States against the violator.”
Whenever the charge consists of unlawfully grazing livestock, this section requires that written notice, as provided by § 161.11 (a), together with an order to remove the livestock, be served on the alleged violator. Only “if the alleged violator fails to comply with the notice” may the range manager proceed under local impoundment law and procedure. It is clear that both the written notice and failure to comply are express conditions precedent to the employment of local procedures. The Code is, of course, the law of the range, and the activities of federal agents are controlled by its provisions. They are required to follow the procedures there established.
The Court of Appeals held that there was no inconsistency between the federal regulation and the state statute because the regulation pertained to individual owners while the statute was aimed at “abandoned” horses running loose on the range. We cannot agree. As we read it, the Utah statute is directed not to horses abandoned in the sense that they are ownerless, or that their owners cannot be located, but rather to horses considered “abandoned” under an express statutory definition. As applied to horses “at large upon the open range,” this definition depends only on branding and payment of prior tax assessment without any consideration of whether the horses are owned by someone and, if so, whether such owner is known or can be located. As the Court of Appeals itself recognized: “The dictionary definition of the term ‘abandoned’ has no application.” 220 F. 2d, at 672. Furthermore, the record is replete with evidence that in this case the government agents actually did know that the horses belonged to petitioners and had not been abandoned. The District Court found that, “said agents knew beyond any possible doubt to whom said horses belonged”; that “the said agents and employees of defendant knew these brands to be the brands used by plaintiffs as well as they knew that the horses belonged to plaintiffs”; and concluded that the horses “were used daily in the performance of the work of their owners, the plaintiffs, and this was well known by defendant’s said agents and employees.” In the face of these findings, not disturbed by the Court of Appeals, it cannot be contended that the government agents were unable to comply with the specific provision for notice which regulated their actions. Nor has the Government contended that there was an attempt at any time to comply with the notice provisions of the Federal Range Code.
For these reasons we hold that the Utah abandoned horse statute was not properly invoked. The circumstances of this case were specifically provided for by § 161.11 (b) of the Federal Range Code, and the government agents failed to comply with the terms of that section because the requisite notice was not given.
But, having concluded that there was no statutory authority, we are faced with the question whether the Government is liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for wrongful and tortious acts of its employees committed in an attempt to enforce a federal statute which they administer. We believe there is such liability in the circumstances of this case.
Section 1346 (b) of Title 28, United States Code, authorizes suits against the Government for “loss of property . . . caused by the negligent or wrongful act . . . of any employee of the Government while acting within the scope of his office or employment, under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant in accordance with the law of the place where the act . . . occurred.” It is clear that the federal agents here were acting within the scope of their •employment under both state and federal law. Under the law of Utah an employer is liable to third persons for the willful torts of his employees if the acts are committed in furtherance of the employer’s interests or if the use of force could have been contemplated in the employment. Cf. Barney v. Jewel Tea Co., 104 Utah 292, 139 P. 2d 878. Both of these conditions obtained here. The federal agents were attempting to enforce the federal range law, and such enforcement must contemplate at least the force used in removal of stock from the range. The fact that the agents did not have actual authority for the procedure they employed does not affect liability. There is an area, albeit a narrow one, in which a government agent, like a private agent, can act beyond his actual authority and yet within the scope of his employment. We note also that § 1346 (b) provides for liability for “wrongful” as well as “negligent” acts. In an earlier case the Court has pointed out that the addition of this word was intended to include situations like this involving “ ‘trespasses’ which might not be considered strictly negligent.” Dalehite v. United States, 346 U. S. 15, 45.
Nor does 28 U. S. C. § 2680 bar liability here. This section provides that:
“The provisions of this chapter and section 1346 (b) of this title shall not apply to—
“ ('a) Any claim based upon an act or omission of an employee of the Government, exercising due care, in the execution of a statute or regulation, whether or not such statute or regulation be valid, or based upon the exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty on the part of a federal agency or an employee of the Government, whether or not the discretion involved be abused.”
The first portion of section (a) cannot apply here, since the government agents were not exercising due care in their enforcement of the federal law. “Due care” implies at least some minimal concern for the rights of others. Here, the agents proceeded with complete disregard for the property rights of the petitioners. Nor can the second portion of (a) exempt the Government from liability. We are here not concerned with any problem of a “discretionary function” under the Act, see Dalehite v. United States, supra. These acts were wrongful trespasses not involving discretion on the part of the agents, and they do give rise to a claim compensable under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
The District Court awarded damages in the lump sum of $100,000, the amount sought by petitioners jointly. Apparently this award was based on the value of the horses, consequential damages for deprivation of use and for “mental pain and suffering.” Under the Federal Tort Claims Act, damages are determined by the law of the State where the tortious act was committed, 28 U. S. C. § 1346 (b), subject to the limitations that the United States shall not be liable for “interest prior to judgment or for punitive damages,” 28 U. S. C. § 2674. But it is necessary in any case that the findings of damages be made with sufficient particularity so that they may be reviewed. Here the District Court merely awarded the amount prayed for in the complaint. There was no attempt to allot any particular sum to any of the 30 plaintiffs, who owned varying numbers of horses and burros. There can be no apportionment of the award among the petitioners unless it be assumed that the horses were valued equally, the burros equally, and some assumption is made as to the consequential damages and pain and suffering of each petitioner. These assumptions cannot be made in the absence of pertinent findings, and the findings here are totally inadequate for review. The case must be remanded to the District Court for the appropriate findings in this regard.
Since the District Court did not possess the power to enjoin the United States, neither can it enjoin the individual agents of the United States over whom it never acquired personal jurisdiction. That part of the Court of Appeals judgment dissolving the injunction is affirmed. The remainder of the judgment is reversed and remanded to the District Court for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
For example, No. 13 of the Findings of Fact made by the District Court states: “Wood is the only fuel available to plaintiffs as a fuel for their fires, and it is necessary at certain times to travel by horse up to 15 or 20 miles to drag or haul wood to the camps or hogans. Water is also scarce and this must be carried by horse and burro for distances up to 10 miles from the camps. Trips to reach the pine nuts areas often require trips by horse for 150 miles, and to reach sites of certain ceremonies and other functions among the Navajo people often require plaintiffs and their families to travel on their horses for 150 miles. Seventy-five mile trips are required in their hunting expeditions which can only be done on horses. That the same use is made of burros as of horses by plaintiffs and the burro is held in the same esteem by them as are horses.”
The suit by the United States was dismissed by the District Court, 93 F. Supp. 745. The Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and reinstated the complaint, United States v. Hosteen Tse-Kesi, 191 F. 2d 518. The suit was later dismissed by the District Court on June 27, 1953, for the reason that it was moot because the Indians had moved to the reservation and were no longer on the public lands. The suit brought by several white stockmen in a Utah state court resulted in an order enjoining certain Navajo Indians, including some of the petitioners, from trespassing and grazing livestock on the lands in question. Young v. Felornia, 121 Utah 646, 244 P. 2d 862. A petition for certiorari in this suit was pending before this Court at the time the roundup was started. Certiorari was subsequently denied, 344 U. S. 886.
While the Government does not challenge particular findings, it does level a general charge that the trial was conducted in such an atmosphere of bias and prejudice that no factual conclusions of the court should be relied on. The Court of Appeals noted “that the case was tried in an atmosphere of maximum emotion and a minimum of judicial impartiality.” 220 F. 2d, at 670. After oral argument and a thorough consideration of the record, however, we do not find that the trial was conducted so improperly as to vitiate these findings. See Labor Board v. Donnelly Co., 330 U. S. 219, 236-237.
“§161.11 Procedure for enforcement of rules and regulations— (a) Service of notice. Whenever it appears that there has been any willful violation of any provision of the act or of the Federal Range Code for Grazing Districts, the range manager will cause the alleged violator ... to be served with a written notice, which will set forth the act or acts constituting such violation and in which reference will be made to the provision or provisions of the act or the Federal Range Code for Grazing Districts alleged to have been violated. Such notice may be served in person or by registered mail and the affidavit of the person making personal service or the registry receipt shall be preserved.”
Section 16 of the Taylor Grazing Act, 48 Stat. 1275, 43 U. S. C. § 315n, reserves the power of the States to enforce “statutes enacted for police regulation” on the public range. Section 161.11 (b) of the Range Code provides the exclusive procedure for the invocation of such state statutes by federal agents.
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.'
This case is here on appeal from the Supreme Court of Arizona under § 237 of the Judicial Code as amended, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (now 28 U. S. C. § 1257). It involves the constitutional validity of the following amendment to the Arizona Constitution, adopted at the 1946 general election:
“No person shall be denied the opportunity to obtain or retain employment because of non-membership in a labor organization, nor shall the state or any subdivision thereof, or any corporation, individual or association of any kind enter into any agreement, written or oral, which excludes any person from employment or continuation of employment because of non-membership in a labor organization.”
The Supreme Court of Arizona sustained the amendment as constitutional against the contentions that it “deprived union appellants of rights guaranteed under the First Amendment and protected against invasion by the State under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution”; that it impaired the obligations of existing contracts in violation of Art. I, § 10, of the United States Constitution; and that it deprived appellants of due process of law, and denied them equal protection of the laws contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment. All of these questions, properly reserved in the state court, were decided against the appellants by the State Supreme Court. The same questions raised in the state court are presented here.
For reasons given in two other cases decided today we reject the appellants' contentions that the Arizona amendment denies them freedom of speech, assembly or petition, impairs the obligation of their contracts, or deprives them of due process of law. Lincoln Federal Labor Union v. Northwestern Iron & Metal Co. and Whitaker v. North Carolina, ante, p. 525. A difference between the Arizona amendment and the amendment and statute considered in the Nebraska and North Carolina cases has made it necessary for us to give separate consideration to the contention in this case that the Arizona amendment denies appellants equal protection of the laws.
The language of the Arizona amendment prohibits employment discrimination against non-union workers, but it does not prohibit discrimination against union workers. It is argued that a failure to provide the same protection for union workers as that provided for non-union workers places the union workers at a disadvantage, thus denying unions and their members the equal protection of Arizona's laws.
Although the Arizona amendment does not itself expressly prohibit discrimination against union workers, that state has not left unions and union members without protection from discrimination on account of union membership. Prior to passage of this constitutional amendment, Arizona made it a misdemeanor for any person to coerce a worker to make a contract “not to join, become or remain, a member of any labor organization” as a condition of getting or holding a job in Arizona. A section of the Arizona Code made every such contract (generally known as a “yellow dog contract”) void and unenforceable. Similarly, the Arizona constitutional amendment makes void and unenforceable contracts under which an employer agrees to discriminate against non-union workers. Statutes implementing the amendment have provided as sanctions for its enforcement relief by injunction and suits for damages for discrimination practiced in violation of the amendment. Whether the same kind of sanctions would be afforded a union worker against whom an employer discriminated is not made clear by the opinion of the State Supreme Court in this case. But assuming that Arizona courts would not afford a remedy by injunction or suit for damages, we are unable to find any indication that Arizona’s amendment and statutes are weighted on the side of non-union as against union workers. We are satisfied that Arizona has attempted both in the anti-yellow-dog-contract law and in the anti-discrimination constitutional amendment to strike at what were considered evils, to strike where those evils were most felt, and to strike in a manner that would effectively suppress the evils.
In Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Corp., 301 U. S. 1, this Court considered a challenge to the National Labor Relations Act on the ground that it applied restraints against employers but did not apply similar restraints against wrongful conduct by employees. We there pointed out, at p! 46, the general rule that “legislative authority, exerted within its proper field, need not embrace all the evils within its reach.” And concerning state laws we have said that the existence of evils against which the law should afford protection and the relative need of different groups for that protection “is a matter for the legislative judgment.” West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U. S. 379, 400. We cannot say that the Arizona amendment has denied appellants equal protection of the laws.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Murphy dissents.
American Federation of Labor v. American Sash & Door Co., 67 Ariz. 20, 189 P. 2d 912.
Ariz. Code Ann. § 56-120 (1939).
Ariz. Sess. Laws (1947) e. 81, p. 173.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Like many federal statutes, 42 U. S. C. § 1981 does not contain a statute of limitations. We held in Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U. S. 656, 660 (1987), that federal courts should apply “the most appropriate or analogous state statute of limitations” to claims based on asserted violations of § 1981. Three years after our decision in Goodman, Congress enacted a catchall 4-year statute of limitations for actions arising under federal statutes enacted after December 1, 1990. 28 U. S. C. § 1658. The question in this case is whether petitioners’ causes of action, which allege violations of § 1981, as amended by the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (1991 Act), 105 Stat. 1071, are governed by § 1658 or by the personal injury statute of limitations of the forum State.
I
Petitioners are African-American former employees of respondent’s Chicago manufacturing division. On November 25,1996, petitioners filed this class action alleging violations of their rights under § 1981, as amended by the 1991 Act. Specifically, the three classes of plaintiffs alleged that they were subjected to a racially hostile work environment, given an inferior employee status, and wrongfully terminated or denied a transfer in connection with the closing of the Chicago plant. Respondent sought summary judgment on the ground that petitioners’ claims are barred by the applicable Illinois statute of limitations because they arose more than two years before the complaint was filed. Petitioners responded that their claims are governed by § 1658, which provides: “Except as otherwise provided by law, a civil action arising under an Act of Congress enacted after the date of the enactment of this section may not be commenced later than 4 years after the cause of action accrues.” Section 1658 was enacted on December 1, 1990. Thus, petitioners’ claims are subject to the 4-year statute of limitations if they arose under an Act of Congress enacted after that date.
The original version of the statute now codified at Rev. Stat. § 1977, 42 U. S. C. § 1981, was enacted as § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27. It was amended in minor respects in 1870 and recodified in 1874, see Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U. S. 160, 168-169, n. 8 (1976), but its basic coverage did not change prior to 1991. As first enacted, § 1981 provided in relevant part that “all persons [within the jurisdiction of the United States] shall have the same right, in every State and Territory ... to make and enforce contracts . . . as is enjoyed by white citizens.” 14 Stat. 27. We held in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164 (1989), that the statutory right “to make and enforce contracts” did not protect against harassing conduct that occurred after the formation of the contract. Under that holding, it is clear that petitioners’ hostile work environment, wrongful discharge, and refusal to transfer claims do not state violations of the original version of §1981. In 1991, however, Congress responded to Patterson by adding a new subsection to § 1981 that defines the term “ ‘make and enforce contracts’ ” to include the “termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.” 42 U. S. C. § 1981(b). It is undisputed that petitioners have alleged violations of the amended statute. The critical question, then, is whether petitioners’ causes of action “ar[ose] under” the 1991 Act or under § 1981 as originally enacted.
The District Court determined that petitioners’ wrongful termination, refusal to transfer, and hostile work environment claims arose under the 1991 Act and therefore are governed by §1658. Adams v. R. R. Donnelley & Sons, 149 F. Supp. 2d 459 (ND Ill. 2001). In its view, the plain text of § 1658 compels the conclusion that, “whenever Congress, after December 1990, passes legislation that creates a new cause of action, the catch-all statute of limitations applies to that cause of action.” Id., at 464. The 1991 amendment to § 1981 falls within that category, the court reasoned, because it opened the door to claims of postcontract discrimination that, under Patterson, could not have been brought under § 1981 as enacted. 149 F. Supp. 2d, at 464.
The District Court certified its ruling for an interlocutory appeal pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1292(b), and the Court of Appeals reversed. 305 F. 3d 717 (CA7 2002). It concluded that § 1658 “applies only when an act of Congress creates a wholly new cause of action, one that does not depend on the continued existence of a statutory cause of action previously enacted and kept in force by the amendment.” Id., at 726. The 1991 amendment does not satisfy that test, the court explained, because the text of § 1981(b) “simply cannot stand on its own”; instead, it merely redefines a term in the original statute without altering the text that “provides the basic right of recovery for an individual whose constitutional rights have been violated.” Id., at 727.
The Court of Appeals’ conclusion that §1658 does not apply to a cause of action based on a post-1990 amendment to a pre-existing statute is consistent with decisions from the Third and Eighth Circuits. See Zubi v. AT&T Corp., 219 F. 3d 220, 224 (CA3 2000); Madison v. IBP, Inc., 257 F. 3d 780, 798 (CA8 2001). Conversely, the Courts of Appeals for the Sixth and Tenth Circuits have held that § 1658 applies “whenever Congress, after December 1990, passes legislation that creates a new cause of action,” whether or not the legislation amends a pre-existing statute. Harris v. Allstate Insurance Co., 300 F. 3d 1183, 1190 (CA10 2002); accord, Anthony v. BTR Automotive Sealing Systems, Inc., 339 F. 3d 506, 514 (CA6 2003). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict in the Circuits, 538 U. S. 1030 (2003), and now reverse.
II
Petitioners, supported by the United States as amicus curiae, argue that reversal is required by the “plain language” of § 1658, which prescribes a 4-year statute.of limitations for “civil action[s] arising under an Act of Congress enacted after” December 1, 1990. They point out that the 1991 Act is, by its own terms, an “Act” of Congress that was “enacted” after December 1,1990. See Pub. L. 102-166,105 Stat. 1071. Moreover, citing our interpretations of the term “arising under” in other federal statutes and in Article III of the Constitution, petitioners maintain that their causes of action arose under the 1991 Act.
Respondent concedes that the 1991 Act qualifies as an “Act of Congress enacted” after 1991, but argues that the meaning of the term “arising under” is not so clear. We agree. Although our expositions of the “arising under” concept in other contexts are helpful in interpreting the term as it is used in § 1658, they do not point the way to one obvious answer. For example, Chief Justice Marshall’s statement that a case arises under federal law for purposes of Article III jurisdiction whenever federal law “forms an ingredient of the original cause,” Osborn v. Bank of United States, 9 Wheat. 738, 823 (1824), supports petitioners’ view that their causes of action arose under the 1991 amendment to § 1981, because the 1991 Act clearly “forms an ingredient” of petitioners’ claims. But the same could be said of the original version of § 1981. Thus, reliance on Osborn would suggest that petitioners’ causes of action arose under the pre-1991 version of § 1981 as well as under the 1991 Act, just as a cause of action may arise under both state and federal law. As the Court of Appeals observed, however, §1658 does not expressly “address the eventuality when a cause of action ‘aris[es] under’ two different Aets,’ one enacted before and one enacted after the effective date of §1658.” 305 F. 3d, at 724.
Petitioners argue that we should look not at Article III, but at how Congress has used the term “arising under” in federal legislation. They point in particular to the statutes in Title 28 that define the scope of federal subject-matter jurisdiction. We have interpreted those statutes to mean that a claim arises under federal law if federal law provides a necessary element of the plaintiff’s claim for relief. Petitioners recognize that we have construed the term more broadly in other statutes, but argue that the placement of § 1658 in Title 28 suggests that Congress meant to invoke our interpretation of the neighboring jurisdictional rules. We hesitate to place too much significance on the location of a statute in the United States Code. But even if we accepted the proposition that Congress intended the term “arising under” to have the same meaning in § 1658 as in other sections of Title 28, it would not follow that the text is unambiguous. We have said that “[t]he most familiar definition of the statutory ‘arising under’ limitation” is the statement by Justice Holmes that a suit “ ‘arises under the law that creates the cause of action,’ ” Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust for Southern Cal., 463 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1983) (quoting American Well Works Co. v. Layne & Bowler Co., 241 U. S. 257, 260 (1916)). On one hand, that statement could support petitioners’ view that their causes of action arose under the 1991 Act, which created a statutory right that did not previously exist. On the other hand, it also could support respondent’s claim that petitioners’ causes of action arose under the original version of § 1981, which contains the operative language setting forth the elements of their claims. Justice Holmes’ formulation even could support the view that petitioners’ claims arose under both versions of the statute. Cf. T. B. Harms Co. v. Eliscu, 339 F. 2d 823, 827 (CA2 1964) (Friendly, J.) (“It has come to be realized that Mr. Justice Holmes’ formula is more useful for inclusion than for the exclusion for which it was intended”). In order to ascertain Congress’ intent, therefore, we must look beyond the bare text of § 1658 to the context in which it was enacted and the purposes it was designed to accomplish.
Ill
In Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478, 483 (1980), we observed that Congress’ failure to enact a uniform statute of limitations applicable to federal causes of action created a “void which is commonplace in federal statutory law.” Over the years that void has spawned a vast amount of litigation. Prior to the enactment of § 1658, the “settled practice [was] to adopt a local time limitation as federal law if it [was] not inconsistent with federal law or policy to do so.” Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 266-267 (1985). Such “[[limitation borrowing,” Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S., at 484, generated a host of issues that required resolution on a statute-by-statute basis. For éxample, it often was difficult to determine which of the forum State’s statutes of limitations was the most appropriate to apply to the federal claim. We wrestled with that issue in Wilson v. Garcia, in which we considered which state statute provided the most appropriate limitations principle for claims arising under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. 471 U. S., at 268, 276-279 (resolving split of authority over whether the closest state analogue to an action brought under § 1983 was an action for tortious injury to the rights of another, an action on an unwritten contract, or an action for a liability on a statute). Before reaching that question, however, we first had to determine whether the characterization of a §1983 claim for statute of limitations purposes was an issue of state or federal law and whether all such claims should be characterized in the same way. Ibid. Two years later, in Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., we answered the same three questions for claims arising under § 1981. 482 U. S., at 660, 661-662. Both decisions provoked dissent and further litigation.
The practice of borrowing state statutes of limitations also forced courts to address the “frequently present problem of a conflict of laws in determining which State statute [was] controlling, the law of the forum or that of the situs of the injury.” S. Rep. No. 619, 84th Cong., 1st Sess., 4-6 (1955) (discussing problems caused by borrowing state statutes of limitations for antitrust claims). Even when courts were able to identify the appropriate state statute, limitations borrowing resulted in uncertainty for both plaintiffs and defendants, as a plaintiff alleging a federal claim in State A would find herself barred by the local statute of limitations while a plaintiff raising precisely the same claim in State B would be permitted to proceed. Ibid. Interstate variances of that sort could be especially confounding in class actions because they often posed problems for joint resolution. See Memorandum from R. Marcus, Assoc. Reporter to Workload Subcommittee (Sept. 1, 1989), reprinted in App. to Vol. 1 Federal Courts Study Committee, Working Papers and Subcommittee Reports (1990), Doc. No. 5, p. 10 (hereinafter Marcus Memorandum). Courts also were forced to grapple with questions such as whether federal or state law governed when an action was “commenced,” or when service of process had to be effectuated. See Sentry Corp. v. Harris, 802 F. 2d 229 (CA7 1986) (addressing those issues in the wake of our decision in Wilson). And the absence of a uniform federal limitations period complicated the development of federal law on the question when, or under what circumstances, a statute of limitations could be tolled. See 802 F. 2d, at 234-242 (discussing conflicting authority "on whether tolling was a matter of state or federal law); Board of Regents v. Tomanio, 446 U. S., at 485 (explaining that “ ‘borrowing’ logically included [state] rules of tolling”).
'Those problems led both courts and commentators to “cal[l] upon Congress to eliminate these complex cases, that do much to consume the time and energies of judges but that do little to advance the cause of justice, by enacting federal limitations periods for all federal causes of action.” Sentry Corp. v. Harris, 802 F. 2d, at 246. Congress answered that call by creating the Federal Courts Study Committee, which recommended the enactment of a retroactive, uniform federal statute of limitations. As we have noted, § 1658 applies only to claims arising under statutes enacted after December 1, 1990, but it otherwise follows the Committee’s recommendation. The House Report accompanying the final bill confirms that Congress was keenly aware of the problems associated with the practice of borrowing state statutes of limitations, and that a central purpose of § 1658 was to minimize the occasions for that practice.
The history that led to the enactment of § 1658 strongly supports an interpretation that fills more rather than less of the void that has created so much unnecessary work for federal judges. The interpretation favored by respondent and the Court of Appeals subverts that goal by restricting § 1658 to cases in which the plaintiff’s cause of action is based solely on a post-1990 statute that “ ‘establishes a new cause of action without reference to preexisting law.’ ” 305 F. 3d, at 727 (quoting Zubi v. AT&T Corp., 219 F. 3d, at 225). On that view, § 1658 would apply only to a small fraction of post-1990 enactments. Congress routinely creates new rights of action by amending existing statutes, and “[altering statutory definitions, or adding new definitions of terms previously undefined, is a common way of amending statutes.” Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U. S. 298, 308 (1994). Nothing in the text or history of § 1658 supports an interpretation that would limit its reach to entirely new sections of the United States Code. An amendment to an existing statute is no less an “Act of Congress” than a new, stand-alone statute. What matters is the substantive effect of an enactment — the creation of new rights of action and corresponding liabilities — not the format in which it appears in the Code.
The Court of Appeals reasoned that § 1658 must be given a narrow scope lest it disrupt litigants’ settled expectations. The court observed that Congress refused to make §1658 retroactive because, “‘with respect to many statutes that have no explicit limitations provision, the relevant limitations period has long since been resolved by judicial decision,’ ” and “ ‘retroactively imposing a four year statute of limitations on legislation that the courts have previously ruled is subject to a six month limitations period in one [State], and a ten year period in another, would threaten to disrupt the settled expectations of... many parties.’” 305 F. 3d, at 725-726 (quoting H. R. Rep. No. 101-734, p. 24 (1990)). Concerns about settled expectations provide a valid reason to reject an interpretation of § 1658 under which any new amendment to federal law would suffice to trigger the 4-year statute of limitations, regardless of whether the plaintiff’s claim would have been available — and subject to a state statute of limitations — prior to December 1, 1990. Such concerns do not, however, carry any weight against the reading of § 1658 adopted by the District Court and urged by petitioners, under which the catchall limitations period applies only to causes of action that were not available until after § 1658 was enacted. If a cause of action did not exist prior to 1990, potential litigants could not have formed settled expectations as to the relevant statute of limitations that would then be disrupted by application of § 1658.
We conclude that a cause of action “aris[es] under an Act of Congress enacted” after December 1,1990 — and therefore is governed by § 1658’s 4-year statute of limitations — if the plaintiff’s claim against the defendant was made possible by a post-1990 enactment. That construction best serves Congress’ interest in alleviating the uncertainty inherent in the practice of borrowing state statutes of limitations while at the same time protecting settled interests. It spares federal judges and litigants the need to identify the appropriate state statute of limitations to apply to new claims but leaves in place the “borrowed” limitations periods for pre-existing causes of action, with respect to which the difficult work already has been done.
Interpreting § 1658 to apply whenever a post-1990 enactment creates a new right to maintain an action also is consistent with the common usage of the word “arise” to mean “come into being; originate” or “spring up.” Finally, that construction is consistent with our interpretations of the term “arising under” as it is used in statutes governing the scope of federal subject-matter jurisdiction. By contrast, nothing in our case law supports an interpretation as narrow as that endorsed by the Court of Appeals, under which “arising under” means something akin to “based solely upon.” We should avoid reading § 1658 in such a way as to give the familiar statutory language a meaning foreign to every other context in which it is used.
IV
In this case, petitioners’ hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and failure to transfer claims “ar[ose] under” the 1991 Act in the sense that petitioners’ causes of action were made possible by that Act. Patterson held that “racial harassment relating to the conditions of employment is not actionable under § 1981.” 491 U. S., at 171 (emphasis added). The 1991 Act overturned Patterson by defining the key “make and enforce contracts” language in § 1981 to include the “termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.” 42 U. S. C. § 1981(b). In Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., we recognized that the 1991 amendment “enlarged the category of conduct that is subject to § 1981 liability,” 511 U. S., at 303, and we therefore held that the amendment does not apply “to a case that arose before it was enacted,” id., at 300. Our reasoning in Rivers supports the conclusion that the 1991 Act fully qualifies as “an Act of Congress enacted after [December 1,1990]” within the meaning of §1658. Because petitioners’ hostile work environment, wrongful termination, and failure to transfer claims did not allege a violation of the pre-1990 version of § 1981 but did allege violations of the amended statute, those claims “ar[ose] under” the amendment to § 1981 contained in the 1991 Act.
While that conclusion seems eminently clear in this case, respondent has posited various hypothetical cases in which it might be difficult to determine whether a particular claim arose under the amended or the unamended version of a statute. Similarly, the Court of Appeals reasoned that applying §1658 to post-1990 amendments ’ could be problematic in some cases because “'the line between an amendment that modifies an existing right and one that creates a new right is often difficult to draw.’” 305 F. 3d, at 725 (quoting Zubi v. AT&T Corp., 219 F. 3d, at 224). We are not persuaded that any “guess work,” 305 F. 3d, at 725, is required to determine whether the plaintiff has alleged a violation of the relevant statute as it stood prior to December 1, 1990, or whether her claims necessarily depend on a subsequent amendment. Courts routinely make such determinations when dealing with amendments (such as the 1991 amendment to §1981) that do not apply retroactively. In any event, such hypothetical problems pale in comparison with the difficulties that federal courts faced for decades in trying to answer all the questions raised by borrowing appropriate limitations rules from state statutes.
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.
In 2002, Congress amended § 1658 to add a separate provision (subsection (b)) specifying the statute of limitations for certain securities law claims. Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act of 2002, Pub. L. 107-204, § 804(a), 116 Stat. 801. The original language of § 1658 (quoted above) was left unchanged but is now set forth in subsection (a). See 28 U. S. C. § 1658(a) (2000 ed., Supp. III).
The current version of § 1981 reads as follows:
“(a) Statement of equal rights
“All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
“(b) ‘Make and enforce contracts’ defined
“For purposes of this section, the term ‘make and enforce contracts’ includes the making, performance, modification, and termination of contracts, and the enjoyment of all benefits, privileges, terms, and conditions of the contractual relationship.
“(c) Protection against impairment
“The rights protected by this section are protected against impairment by nongovernmental discrimination and impairment under color of State law.”
The court found matters somewhat less clear with respect to petitioners’ claims regarding their employee status (which involved allegations that respondent has a practice of using its African-American employees as “ ‘temporary* ” or “ ‘casual’ ” employees), and directed the parties to “sort out this question amongst themselves in light of” its ruling. 149 F. Supp. 2d, at 460, 465.
Indeed, the same would appear to be true of virtually any substantive amendment, whether or not the plaintiff could have stated a claim preamendment.
See, e. g., 28 U. S. C. § 1331 (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States”); § 1338(a) (“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action arising under any Act of Congress relating to patents, plant variety protection, copyrights and trademarks”).
See, e. g., Christianson v. Colt Industries Operating Corp., 486 U. S. 800, 808 (1988) (a case may “ ‘aris[e] under’ ” federal law if “ ‘federal law is a necessary element of [a claim]’ ”); Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc., 535 U. S. 826, 830 (2002) (a claim “ ‘arises under’” patent law if either “‘federal patent law creates the cause of action’ ” or “ ‘the plaintiff’s right to relief necessarily depends on resolution of a substantial question of federal patent law’ ”).
See, e.g., Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602, 615 (1984) (a claim arises under the Medicare Act for purposes of 42 U. S. C. §405(h) when “‘both the standing and the substantive basis for the presentation’ ” of the claim is the Medicare Act).
See Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 280 (1985) (O’Connor, J., dissenting); Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U. S. 656, 669 (1987) (Brennan, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 680 (Powell, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
See, e. g., Smith v. Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., 875 F. 2d 1325, 1326-1328 (CA7 1989) (concluding that the rule established in Goodman did not apply retroactively).
The problems associated with borrowing state statutes of limitations prompted Congress in 1955 to enact a federal period of limitations governing treble damages actions under the antitrust laws. 15 U. S. C. § 15b. See S. Rep. No. 619, at 5 (explaining that “[i]t is one of the primary purposes of this bill to put an end to the confusion and discrimination present under existing law where local statutes of limitations are made applicable to rights granted under our Federal laws”).
See also, e. g., Lowenthal, Pastuszenski, & Greenwald, Special Project, Time Bars in Specialized Federal Common Law: Federal Rights of Action and State Statutes of Limitations, 65 Cornell L. Rev. 1011, 1105 (1980); Blume & George, Limitations and the Federal Courts, 49 Mich. L. Rev. 937, 992-993 (1951); Note, Federal Statutes Without Limitations Provisions, 53 Colum. L. Rev. 68, 77-78 (1953); Note, Disparities in Time Limitations on Federal Causes of Action, 49 Yale L. J. 738, 745 (1940).
A report prepared for the Committee concluded that “there is little to be said in favor of the current situation and there seems to be no identifiable support for continuing this situation.” Marcus Memorandum 1,
The House Report notes “a number of practical problems” created by the practice of borrowing statutes of limitations: “ ‘It obligates judges and lawyers to determine the most analogous state law claim; it imposes uncertainty on litigants; reliance on varying state laws results in undesirable variance among the federal courts and disrupts the development of federal doctrine on the suspension of limitation periods.’” H. R. Rep. No. 101-734, p. 24 (1990).
A few years after § 1658 was enacted, we described it as supplying “a general, 4-year limitations period for any federal statute subsequently enacted without one of its own.” North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U. S. 29, 34, n. (1995). In his separate opinion in that case, Justice Scaua captured the basic purpose of §1658 when he observed that “a uniform nationwide limitations period for a federal cause of action is always significantly more appropriate” than a rule that applies in some States but not in others. Id., at 37 (opinion concurring in judgment).
American Heritage Dictionary 96 (4th ed. 2000); Black’s Law Dictionary 138 (rev. 4th ed. 1968).
Oxford English Dictionary 629 (2d ed. 1989); Black’s Law Dictionary, at 138.
Indeed, respondent concedes that, “[i]n this case, the nature of the ‘new’ claim is clear. It is recognized that liability under § 1981 was expanded, because this Court had spoken on the scope of § 1981 and Congress reversed the Court’s interpretation in the Civil Rights Act of 1991.” Brief for Respondent 26.
Respondent argues that the question whether a plaintiff’s cause of action would have been viable prior to a post-1991 amendment will be particularly complicated in cases in which there was a split of authority regarding the scope of the original statute. In such cases, courts will have to determine whether the amendment clarified existing law or created new rights and liabilities. Such analysis is hardly beyond the judicial ken: Courts must answer precisely the same question when deciding whether an amendment may be applied retrospectively. See, e. g., Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U. S. 939, 948-950 (1997). The substantial overlap between the retroactivity and statute-of-limitations inquiries undermines respondent’s claim that application of § 1658 to post-1991 amendments will generate additional work for federal judges.
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
A provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act requires that an alien who applies for naturalization as a United States citizen must establish that during the five years preceding the filing of his petition he has been “a person of good moral character.” Another provision specifies that no applicant may be found to be a person of good moral character who, within that period, “has given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining any benefits” under the Act. The petitioner, an alien who entered this country from Hungary in 1956, filed a petition for naturalization in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts in 1962. At the final hearing the Attorney General appeared by counsel in opposition to the petition. Following this hearing the District Judge denied the petition, finding that the petitioner had testified falsely to facilitate his naturalization, and therefore could not, under the law, be found to be a person of good moral character within the statutory period. The Court of Appeals affirmed, and we granted certiorari.
During the preparation of his application to file a petition for naturalization, the petitioner was asked the following question: “Have you ever, in the United States or in any other place, (a) been a member of, or in any other way connected with, or associated with the Communist Party either directly, or indirectly through another organization, group, or person?” The petitioner, under oath, answered “No.” On two subsequent occasions during the preliminary proceedings on his petition for naturalization, the petitioner again swore that he had never been a member of the Communist Party.
At the final hearing before the District Judge, the Government produced two witnesses whose testimony indicated that the petitioner had been a member of the Communist Party in Hungary. Dr. Pal Halasz stated that he had known the petitioner when they were both students at the University of Budapest Medical School and had seen the petitioner attend Communist Party meetings there on one or more occasions. While such meetings were sometimes open to persons who were not Party members, and Dr. Halasz was not sure that the petitioner was a Party member, his attendance at Party-meetings gave Dr. Halasz the impression that the petitioner was a member. Dr. Gyorgy Kury related that he had attended a study group at the University in September 1948. These groups met to discuss Marxist-Leninist ideology, and students were required to attend regardless of Party membership. One student in each group was responsible for leading this discussion. Dr. Kury testified that, at the meeting in question, the petitioner introduced himself as a member of the Communist Party and the student leader responsible for the group’s ideological education. Dr. Kury further testified that the petitioner had told the group that he had become a member of the Communist Party after Soviet troops had occupied Hungary in 1945.
The petitioner testified that he had never been a Party member or the ideological leader of any student discussion group. He related the heavy pressures on students at the University to attend Party functions and become members, and admitted that these pressures had led him to attend some open Party meetings as a nonmember, but added that he had not been an active participant at these meetings. The petitioner also emphasized his religious upbringing and other factors in his personal life which, he contended, made it unlikely that he would become a Party member. The petitioner’s wife testified that he had never been a Party member, and four other witnesses stated that, while in Hungary and after his arrival in the United States, the petitioner had expressed his strong opposition to the Communist Party and the Communist regime in Hungary.
Basing his decision solely on his own evaluation of the testimony adduced at this hearing, the District Judge concluded that the petitioner had become a Party member in 1945 and had remained a member for an indefinite number of years, that the petitioner had attended meetings of the Party, and that he had instructed student study groups in Communist ideology. Accordingly, the court concluded that the petitioner had testified falsely in the preliminary naturalization proceedings, and denied his application for citizenship on the ground that he was, therefore, “not a person of good moral character within the meaning of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
The petitioner asks us to reject as “clearly erroneous” the factual conclusion about his Party membership reached by the District Judge and accepted by the Court of Appeals. In order to do so, we would be forced to disregard this Court’s repeated pronouncements that it “cannot undertake to review concurrent findings of fact by two courts below in the absence of a very obvious and exceptional showing of error.” E. g., Graver Mfg. Co. v. Linde Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275. For there was no “very obvious and exceptional” error in the conclusion of the two courts below that the petitioner had been a member of the Communist Party. The testimony of Dr. Kury gave a concrete basis for this conclusion, and that of Dr. Halasz lent it further evidentiary support. The conclusion of the courts below is not inconsistent with the possibility that the petitioner may have harbored a strong opposition to the Party which he bared to his friends. For the petitioner may have merely joined the Party as a nominal member in deference to the strong pressures which the Party exerted on students to become members, pressures which several witnesses, including the petitioner himself, recited in detail.
The policy underlying the “two-court” rule is obvious. This Court possesses no empirical expertise to set against the careful and reasonable conclusions of lower courts on purely factual issues. When, as here, resolution of the disputed factual issues turns largely on an assessment of the relative credibility of witnesses whose testimonial demeanor was observed only by the trial court, the rule has particular force. To be sure, this Court has not hesitated to undertake independent examination of factual issues when constitutional claims may depend on their resolution. See, e. g., Napue v. Illinois, 360 U. S. 264, 271-272; Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U. S. 380, 385-386. Cf. Hoffa v. United States, ante, p. 293. But this exceptional doctrine has no application to the present case, for the petitioner makes no claim that any constitutional issues are involved here.
Different considerations do not govern merely because this is a naturalization case. When the Government seeks to strip a person of citizenship already acquired, or deport a resident alien and send him from our shores, it carries the heavy burden of proving its case by “clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence.” But when an alien seeks to obtain the privileges and benefits of citizenship, the shoe is on the other foot. He is the moving party, affirmatively asking the Government to endow him with all the advantages of citizenship. Because that status, once granted, cannot lightly be taken away, the Government has a strong and legitimate interest in ensuring that only qualified persons are granted citizenship. For these reasons, it has been universally accepted that the burden is on the alien applicant to show his eligibility for citizenship in every respect. This Court has often stated that doubts “should be resolved in favor of the United States and against the claimant.” E. g., United States v. Macintosh, 283 U. S. 605, 626.
The petitioner points out that in deportation cases this Court has held that an alien may not be expelled from this country on the ground that he has been a member of the Communist Party unless his participation in the Party amounted to “meaningful association.” Rowoldt v. Perfetto, 355 U. S. 115; Gastelum-Quinones v. Kennedy, 374 U. S. 469. He contends that the same rule should apply in the context of naturalization, and that the Government’s proof in this case failed to establish “meaningful association.” But the petitioner’s application was not denied because of his Communist Party membership. It was denied because, under oath, he did not tell the truth. The petitioner was not asked whether he had been “meaningfully associated” with the Communist Party. Nor was the inquiry limited to party membership. He was posed the much broader question whether he had ever “been a member of, or in any other way connected with, or associated with the Communist Party either directly, or indirectly through another organization, group, or person.” The District Court could rightly have found that the petitioner had not told the truth when he answered this question in the negative if he had not been an actual member, or his membership had been only nominal.
Even assuming that an alien may be denied citizenship on the statutory ground of Party membership only when “meaningful association” is shown, the broader question asked of the petitioner was certainly material and relevant. The Government is entitled to know of any facts that may bear on an applicant’s statutory eligibility for citizenship, so that it may pursue leads and make further investigation if doubts are raised. The petitioner has never indicated that he was confused or misled by the scope of the question — that he believed at the time it was asked that the question reached only “meaningful association.”
We cannot say that the District Court was wrong in finding that the petitioner had failed to tell the truth. It follows that the Court of Appeals was not in error in declining to upset that finding.
Affirmed.
Section 316 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 66 Stat. 242, 8 U. S. C. § 1427 (a), provides:
“No person, except as otherwise provided in this title, shall be naturalized unless such petitioner, (1) immediately preceding the date of filing his petition for naturalization has resided continuously, after being lawfully admitted for permanent residence, within the United States for at least five years and during the five years immediately preceding the date of filing his petition has been physically present therein for periods totaling at least half of that time, and who has resided within the State in which the petitioner filed the petition for at least six months, (2) has resided continuously within the United States from the date of the petition up to the time of admission to citizenship, and (3) during all the periods referred to in this subsection has been and still is a person of good moral character, attached to the principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed to the good order and happiness of the United States.”
Section 101 (f), 66 Stat. 172, 8 U. S. C. § 1101 (f) :
“For the purposes of this Act — No person shall be regarded as, or found to be, a person of good moral character who, during the period for which good moral character is required to be established, is, or was — ... (6) one who has given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining any benefits under this Act . . . ."
Such an appearance is authorized by § 336 (d) of the Act, 66 Stat. 258, 8 U. S. C. § 1447 (d).
239 F. Supp. 725.
352 F. 2d 71. The Court of Appeals referred to Rule 52, Fed. Rules Civ. Proc., which provides in relevant part:
“Findings by the Court, (a) Effect. . . . Findings of fact shall not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and due regard shall be given to the opportunity of the trial court to judge of the credibility of the witnesses.”
384 U. S. 903.
A preliminary examination on the petitioner’s application for citizenship was held before a naturalization examiner, who transmitted his findings and recommendations to the District Judge, all pursuant to § 335 of the Act, 66 Stat. 255, 8 U. S. C. § 1446. But at the final hearing before the District Court, the judge heard testimony and conducted an independent hearing in accordance with §336 (b) of the Act, 66 Stat. 257, 8 U. S. C. §1447 (b), and explicitly declined to rely on any of the preliminary examination materials in reaching his conclusion. 239 F. Supp., at 727.
At the same time, the judge found the evidence too weak to establish the Government’s alternative contention that the petitioner’s application should be denied because he had been a Party member within 10 years preceding his application for citizenship in 1962, and thus came within § 313 of the Act, 66 Stat. 240, 8 U. S. C. § 1424, which provides in relevant part:
“'(a) ... no person shall hereafter be naturalized as a citizen of the United States—
“(2) who is a member of or affiliated with . . . (D) the Communist or other totalitarian party ... of any foreign state ....
“(c) The provisions of this section shall be applicable to any applicant for naturalization who at any time within a period of ten years immediately preceding the filing of the petition for naturalization or after such filing and before taking the final oath of citizenship is, or has been found to be within any of the classes enumerated within this section, notwithstanding that at the time the petition is filed he may not be included within such classes.”
Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U. S. 118; Nowak v. United States, 356 U. S. 660; Chaunt v. United States, 364 U. S. 350.
Woodby v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, ante, p. 276.
The Government has not sought to deport the petitioner because of his affiliations with the Communist Party, and to do so it would be required to prove by “clear, unequivocal, and convincing evidence,” Woodby v. Immigration and Naturalization Service, supra, at 286, that the petitioner had been a Party member who was “meaningfully associated” with it, Rowoldt v. Perfetto, 355 U. S. 115; Gastelum-Quinones v. Kennedy, 374 U. S. 469. The Government’s evidence in this case fell clearly short of such a showing. Cf. n. 8, supra.
The District Court specifically refused to accept the Government’s contention that the petitioner was ineligible for naturalization under the statutory provisions barring Communist Party members from citizenship. See n. 8, 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: | 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 Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §621 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), forbids arbitrary discrimination by public and private employers against employees on account of age. Under § 4(f)(2) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2), however, age-based employment decisions taken pursuant to the terms of “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act, are exempt from the prohibitions of the ADEA. In the case before us, we must consider the meaning and scope of the § 4(f)(2) exemption.
I
A
In 1933, the State of Ohio established the Public Employees Retirement System of Ohio (PERS) to provide retirement benefits for state and local government employees. Public employers and employees covered by PERS make contributions to a fund maintained by PERS to pay benefits to covered employees. Under the PERS statutory scheme, two forms of monthly retirement benefits are available to public employees upon termination of their public employment. Age-and-service retirement benefits are paid to those employees who at the time of their retirement (1) have at least 5 years of service credit and are at least 60 years of age; (2) have 30 years of service credit; or (3) have 25 years of service credit and are at least 55 years of age. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 145.33, 145.34 (1984 and Supp. 1988). Disability retirement benefits are available to employees who suffer a permanent disability, have at least five years of total service credit, and are under the age of 60 at retirement. § 145.35. The requirement that disability retirees be under age 60 at the time of their retirement was included in the original PERS statute, and has remained unchanged since 1959..
Employees who take disability retirement are treated as if they are on leave of absence for the first five years of their retirement. Should their medical conditions improve during that time, they are entitled to be rehired. § 145.39. Employees receiving age-and-service retirement, on the other hand, are not placed on leave of absence, but they are permitted to apply for full-time employment with any public employer covered by PERS after 18 months of retirement. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.381(C) (1984). Once an individual retires on either age-and-service or disability retirement benefits, he or she continues to receive that type of benefit throughout retirement, regardless of age.
B
Appellee June M. Betts was hired by the Hamilton County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities as a speech pathologist in 1978. The board is a public agency, and its employees are covered by PERS. In 1984, because of medical problems, appellee became unable to perform her job adequately and was reassigned to a less demanding position. Appellee’s medical condition continued to deteriorate, however, and by May 1985, when appellee was 61 years of age, her employer concluded that she was no longer able to perform adequately in any employment capacity. Appel-lee was given the choice of retiring or undergoing medical testing to determine whether she should be placed on unpaid medical leave. She chose to retire, an option which gave her eligibility for age-and-service retirement benefits from PERS. Because she was over 60 at the time of retirement, however, appellee was denied disability retirement benefits, despite her medical condition.
Before 1976, the fact that appellee’s age disqualified her for disability benefits would have had little practical significance, because the formula for calculating disability benefits was almost the same as the formula used to determine age-and-service benefits. In 1976, however, the PERS statutory scheme was amended to provide that disability retirement payments would in no event constitute less than 30 percent of the disability retiree’s final average salary. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.36 (1984). No such floor applies in the case of employees receiving age-and-service retirement payments. The difference was of much significance in appellee’s case: her age-and-service retirement benefits amount to $158.50 per month, but she would have received nearly twice that, some $355 per month, had she been permitted to take disability retirement instead.
Appellee filed an age discrimination charge against PERS with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and filed suit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, claiming that PERS’ refusal to grant her application for disability retirement benefits violated the ADEA. The District Court found that PERS’ retirement scheme was discriminatory on its face, in that it denied disability retirement benefits to certain employees on account of their age. Betts v. Hamilton County Bd. of Mental Retardation, 631 F. Supp. 1198, 1202-1203 (1986). The court rejected PERS’ reliance on § 4(f)(2) of the ADEA, which exempts from the Act’s prohibitions certain actions taken in observance of “the terms of... any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of [the Act]....” 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2). Relying on interpretive regulations promulgated by the EEOC, the District Court held that employee benefit plans qualify for the § 4(f)(2) exemption only if any age-related reductions in employee benefits are justified by the increased cost of providing those benefits to older employees. Because the PERS plan provided for a reduction in available benefits at age 60, a reduction not shown to be justified by considerations of increased cost, the court concluded that PERS’ plan was not entitled to claim the protection of the § 4(f)(2) exemption. 631 F. Supp., at 1203-1204.
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals affirmed. Betts v. Hamilton County Bd. of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 848 F. 2d 692 (CA6 1988). The majority agreed with the District Court that the § 4(f)(2) exemption is available only to those retirement plans that can provide age-related cost justifications or “a substantial business purpose” for any age-based reduction in benefits. Id., at 694. The majority rejected PERS’ reliance on United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, 434 U. S. 192 (1977), which held that retirement plans adopted prior to the enactment of the ADEA need not be justified by any business purpose, concluding that Congress had “expressly repudiated” this decision when it amended the ADEA in 1978. 848 F. 2d, at 694. Because PERS had failed to provide any evidence that its discrimination against older workers was justified by age-related cost considerations, the majority concluded that summary judgment was appropriate.
Judge Wellford dissented. Noting that PERS’ plan was adopted long before enactment of the ADEA, he argued that under United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, supra, it could not be a “subterfuge to evade the purposes” of the Act. Judge Wellford rejected the EEOC’s regulations requiring cost justifications for all age-based reductions in benefits, finding that nothing in the statute’s language imposed such a requirement. We noted probable jurisdiction, 488 U. S. 907 (1988), and now reverse.
II
Under § 4(a)(1) of the ADEA, it is unlawful for an employer
“to fail or refuse to hire or 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).
Notwithstanding this general prohibition, however, § 4(f)(2) of the ADEA provides that it is not unlawful for an employer
“to observe the terms of... any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which is not a subterfuge to evade the purposes of this chapter, except that no such employee benefit plan shall excuse the failure to hire any individual, and no such... employee benefit plan shall require or permit the involuntary retirement of any individual... because of the age of such individual.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(f)(2).
On its face, the PERS statutory scheme renders covered employees ineligible for disability retirement once they have attained age 60. Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 145.35 (1984). PERS’ refusal to grant appellee’s application for disability benefits therefore qualifies as an action “to observe the terms of” the plan. All parties apparently concede, moreover, that PERS’ plan is “bona fide,” in that it “‘exists and pays benefits.’” McMann, 434 U. S., at 194; see id., at 206-207 (White, J., concurring in judgment). Finally, whatever the precise meaning of the phrase “any... employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan,” see infra, at 173-175, it is apparent that a disability retirement plan falls squarely within that category. Cf. 29 CFR § 1625.10(f)(1)(h) (1988). Accordingly, PERS is entitled to the protection of the § 4(f)(2) exemption unless its plan is “a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act.
We first construed the meaning of “subterfuge” under § 4(f)(2) in United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, supra. In McMann, the employer’s retirement plan required employees to retire at the age of 60. After being forced to retire by the terms of the plan, McMann sued under the ADEA, claiming that the forced retirement was a violation of the Act, and that the mandatory retirement provision was not protected by the § 4(f)(2) exemption because it was a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act. We rejected both positions. With respect to mandatory retirement, we found that the statutory language and legislative history provided no support for the proposition that Congress intended to forbid age-based mandatory retirement.
Turning to the claim that the mandatory retirement provision was a “subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act, we rejected the conclusion of the court below that forced retirement on the basis of age must be deemed a subterfuge absent some business or economic purpose for the age-based distinction. Instead, we held that the term “subterfuge” must be given its ordinary meaning as “a scheme, plan, stratagem, or artifice of evasion.” Id., at 203. Viewed in this light, the retirement plan at issue could not possibly be characterized as a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act, since it had been established in 1941, long before the Act was enacted. As we observed, “[t]o spell out an intent in 1941 to evade a statutory requirement not enacted until 1967 attributes, at the very least, a remarkable prescience to the employer. We reject any such per se rule requiring an employer to show an economic or business purpose in order to satisfy the subterfuge language of the Act.” Ibid.
As an initial matter, appellee asserts that McMann is no longer good law. She points out that in 1978, less than a year after McMann was decided, Congress amended § 4(f)(2) to overrule McMann’s validation of mandatory retirement based on age. See Pub. L. 95-256, § 2(a), 92 Stat. 189. The result of that amendment was the addition of what now is the final clause of § 4(f)(2).
The legislative history of the 1978 amendment contains various references to the definition of subterfuge, and according to appellee these reveal clear congressional intent to disapprove the reasoning of McMann. The Conference Committee Report on the 1978 amendment, for example, expressly discusses and rejects McMann, stating that “[p]lan provisions in effect prior to the date of enactment are not exempt under section 4(f)(2) by virtue of the fact that they antedate the act or these amendments.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-950, p. 8 (1978). See also 124 Cong. Rec. 7881 (1978) (remarks of Rep. Hawkins) (“The conferees specifically disagree with the Supreme Court’s holding and reasoning in [McMann], particularly its conclusion that an employee benefit plan which discriminates on the basis of age is protected by section 4(f)(2) because it predates the enactment of the ADEA”); id., at 8219 (remarks of Sen. Javits); id., at 7888 (remarks of Rep. Waxman).
PERS disputes appellee’s interpretation of this legislative history, asserting that it refers only to benefit plans that permit involuntary retirement and not to the more general issue whether a pre-Act plan can be a subterfuge in other circumstances. We need not resolve this dispute, however. The 1978 amendment to the ADEA did not add a definition of the term “subterfuge” or modify the language of § 4(f)(2) in any way, other than by inserting the final clause forbidding mandatory retirement based on age. We have observed on more than one occasion that the interpretation given by one Congress (or a committee or Member thereof) to an earlier statute is of little assistance in discerning the meaning of that statute. See Weinberger v. Rossi, 456 U. S. 25, 35 (1982); Consumer Product Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U. S. 102, 118, and n. 13 (1980); United States v. Southwestern Cable Co., 392 U. S. 157, 170 (1968); Rainwater v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 593 (1958); see also McMann, supra, at 200, n. 7. Congress changed the specific result of McMann by adding a final clause to § 4(f)(2), but it did not change the controlling, general language of the statute. As Congress did not amend the relevant statutory language, we see no reason to depart from our holding in McMann that the term “subterfuge” is to be given its ordinary meaning, and that as a result an employee benefit plan adopted prior to enactment of the ADEA cannot be a subterfuge. See EEOC v. Cargill, Inc., 855 F. 2d 682, 686 (CA10 1988); EEOC v. County of Orange, 837 F. 2d 420, 422 (CA9 1988).
According to PERS, our reaffirmation of McMann should resolve this case. The PERS system was established by statute in 1933, and the rule that employees over age 60 may not qualify for disability retirement benefits has remained unchanged since 1959. The ADEA was not made applicable to the States until 1974. See Pub. L. 93-259, § 28(a)(2), 88 Stat. 74, codified at 29 U. S. C. § 630(b)(2). Since the age-60 requirement predates application of the ADEA to PERS, PERS argues that, under McMann, its plan cannot be a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the ADEA.
While McMann remains of considerable relevance to our decision here, we reject the argument that it is dispositive. It is true that the age-60 rule was adopted before 1974, and is thus insulated under McMann from challenge as a subterfuge. The plan provision attacked by appellee, however, is the rule that disability retirees automatically receive a minimum of 30 percent of, their final average salary upon retirement, while disabled employees who retire after age 60 do not. The 30 percent floor was not added to the plan until 1976, and to the extent this new rule increased the age-based disparity caused by the pre-Act age limitation, McMann does not insulate it from challenge. See EEOC v. Cargill, supra, at 686, n. 4; EEOC v. County of Orange, supra, at 423; EEOC v. Home Ins. Co., 672 F. 2d 252, 259, and n. 9 (CA2 1982). No “remarkable prescience” would have been required of PERS in 1976 for it to formulate the necessary intent to evade the ADEA, and thus the automatic rule of McMann is inapplicable. See 434 U. S., at 203. Accordingly, we must turn to an inquiry into the precise meaning of the § 4(f)(2) exemption in the context of post-Act plans.
H-i hH
Appellee and her amici say that § 4(f)(2) protects age-based distinctions in employee benefit plans only when justified by the increased cost of benefits for older workers. They cite an interpretive regulation promulgated by the Department of Labor, the agency initially charged with enforcing the Act, in 1979. 44 Fed. Reg. 30658-30662 (1979), codified at 29 CFR §860.120 (1980), redesignated 29 CFR § 1625.10 (1988). The regulation recites that the purpose of the exemption “is to permit age-based reductions in employee benefit plans where such reductions are justified by significant cost considerations,” and that “benefit levels for older workers may be reduced to the extent necessary to achieve approximate equivalency in cost for older and younger workers.” § 1625.10(a)(1). With respect to disability benefits in particular, the regulation provides that “[Reductions on the basis of age in the level or duration of benefits available for disability are justifiable only on the basis of age-related cost considerations....” § 1625.10(f)(1)(h). Under these provisions, employers may reduce the value of the benefits provided to older workers as necessary to equalize costs for workers of all ages, but they cannot exclude older workers from the coverage of their benefit plans altogether.
The requirement that employers show a cost-based justification for age-related reductions in benefits appears nowhere in the statute itself. The EEOC as amicus contends that this rule can be drawn either from the statutory requirement that age-based distinctions in benefit plans not be a subterfuge to evade the purposes of the Act, or from the portion of § 4(f)(2) limiting its scope to actions taken pursuant to “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan.” Brief for EEOC as Amicus Curiae 9-14. We consider these alternatives in turn.
A
The regulations define “subterfuge” as follows: “In general, a plan or plan provision which prescribes lower benefits for older employees on account of age is not a ‘subterfuge’ within the meaning of section 4(f)(2), provided that the lower level of benefits is justified by age-related cost considerations.” 29 CFR § 1625.10(d) (1988). Various lower courts have accepted this definition. E. g., EEOC v. Mt. Lebanon, 842 F. 2d 1480, 1489 (CA3 1988); see also Cipriano v. Board, of Education of North Tonawanda School Dist., 785 F. 2d 51, 57-58 (CA2 1986). As the analysis in McMann makes apparent, however, this approach to the definition of subterfuge cannot be squared with the plain language of the statute. Although McMann’s holding, that pre-Act plans can never be a subterfuge, is not dispositive here, its reasoning is nonetheless controlling, for we stated in that case that “subterfuge” means “a scheme, plan, stratagem, or artifice of evasion,” which, in the context of § 4(f)(2), connotes a specific “intent... to evade a statutory requirement.” 434 U. S., at 203. The term thus includes a subjective element that the regulation’s objective cost-justification requirement fails to acknowledge.
Ignoring this inconsistency with the plain language of the statute, appellee and the EEOC suggest that the regulation represents a contemporaneous and consistent interpretation of the ADEA by the agencies responsible for the Act’s enforcement and is therefore entitled to special deference. See EEOC v. Associated Dry Goods Corp., 449 U. S. 590, 600, n. 17 (1981); see also Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984). But, of course, no deference is due to agency interpretations at odds with the plain language of the statute itself. Even contemporaneous and longstanding agency interpretations must fall to the extent they conflict with statutory language.
Contrary to the suggestion of the EEOC and appellee, moreover, the cost-justification requirement was not adopted contemporaneously with enactment of the ADEA. The cost-justification rule had its genesis in an interpretive bulletin issued by the Department of Labor in January 1969. 34 Fed. Reg. 322, 323, codified at 29 CFR § 860.120(a) (1970). To be sure, that regulation provided that plans which reduced benefits on the basis of age would “be considered in compliance with the statute” if the benefit reductions were justified by age-related cost considerations, but it did not purport to exclude from the § 4(f)(2) exemption all plans that could not meet a cost-justification requirement. Rather, this original version of the cost-justification rule was nothing more than a safe harbor, a nonexclusive objective test for employers to use in determining whether they could be certain of qualifying for the § 4(f)(2) exemption. It was not until 1979 that this regulatory safe harbor was transformed into the exclusive means of escaping classification as a subterfuge.
Appellee and her amici rely in large part on the legislative history of the ADEA and the 1978 amendments. In view of our interpretation of the plain statutory language of the subterfuge requirement, however, this reliance on legislative history is misplaced. See Davis v. Michigan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 808, n. 3 (1989); McMann, 434 U. S., at 199. The “subterfuge” exception to the § 4(f)(2) exemption cannot be limited in the manner suggested by the regulation.
B
The second possible source of authority for the cost-justification rule is the statute’s requirement that the § 4(f)(2) exemption be available only in the case of “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan.” The EEOC argues, and some courts have held, that the phrase “such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan” is intended to limit the protection of § 4(f)(2) to those plans which have a cost justification for all age-based differentials in benefits. See EEOC v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 725 F. 2d 211, 224 (CA3 1983), cert. denied, 469 U. S. 820 (1984); EEOC v. Borden’s, Inc., 724 F. 2d 1390, 1396 (CA9 1984). The argument is as follows: the types of plans listed in the statute share the common characteristic that the cost of the benefits they provide generally rises with the age of their beneficiaries. This common characteristic suggests that Congress intended the § 4(f)(2) exemption to cover only those plans in which costs rise with age. The obvious explanation for the limitation on the scope of § 4(f)(2), the argument continues, is that the purpose of the exemption is to permit employers to reduce overall benefits paid to older workers only to the extent necessary to equalize costs for older and younger workers.
There are a number of difficulties with this explanation for the cost-justification requirement. Perhaps most obvious, it requires us to read a great deal into the language of this clause of § 4(f)(2), language that appears on its face to be nothing more than a listing of the general types of plans that fall within the category of “employee benefit plan.” The statute’s use of the phrase “any employee benefit plan” seems to imply a broad scope for the statutory exemption, and the “such as” clause suggests enumeration by way of example, not an exclusive listing. Nor is it by any means apparent that the types of plans mentioned were intentionally selected because the cost to the employer of the benefits provided by these plans tends to increase with age. Indeed, many plans that fall within these categories do not share that particular attribute at all, defined-contribution pension plans perhaps being the most obvious example. We find it quite difficult to believe that Congress would have chosen such a circuitous route to the result urged by appellee and the EEOC.
The interpretation is weakened further by the fact that the regulation itself does not support it. According to 29 CFR §1625.10(b) (1988), “[a]n ‘employee benefit plan’ is a plan, such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan, which provides employees with what are frequently referred to as ‘fringe benefits.’” This definition makes no mention of the limitation urged by the EEOC, and indeed seems sufficiently broad to encompass a wide variety of plans providing fringe benefits to employees, regardless of whether the cost of those benefits increases yith age. The regulation’s discussion of the cost-justification requirement is reserved for the subsection defining “subterfuge.” § 1625.10(d). Under these circumstances, this aspect of the EEOC’s argument is entitled to little, if any, deference. Cf. Bowen v. Georgetown University Hospital, 488 U. S. 204, 212-213 (1988).
For these reasons, we conclude that the phrase “any bona fide employee benefit plan such as a retirement, pension, or insurance plan” cannot reasonably be limited to benefit plans in which all age-based reductions in benefits are justified by age-related cost considerations. Accordingly, the interpretive regulation construing § 4(f)(2) to include a cost-justification requirement is contrary to the plain language of the statute and is invalid.
IV
Having established that the EEOC’s definition of subterfuge is invalid, we turn to the somewhat more difficult task of determining the precise meaning of the term as applied to post-Act plans. We begin, as always, with the language of the statute itself.
The protection of § 4(f)(2) is unavailable to any employee benefit plan “which is a subterfuge to evade the purposes of” the Act. As set forth in § 2(b) of the ADE A, the purposes of the Act are “to promote employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment.” 29 U. S. C. § 621(b). On the facts of this case, the only purpose that the PERS plan could be a “subterfuge to evade” is the goal of eliminating “arbitrary age discrimination in employment.”
As the presence of the various exemptions and affirmative defenses contained in § 4(f) illustrates, Congress recognized that not all age discrimination in employment is “arbitrary.” In order to determine the type of age discrimination that Congress sought to eliminate as arbitrary, we must look for guidance to the substantive prohibitions of the Act itself, for these provide the best evidence of the nature of the evils Congress sought to eradicate. Indeed, our decision in McMann compels this approach, for it rejected the contention that the purposes of the Act can be distinguished from the Act itself: “The distinction relied on is untenable because the Act is the vehicle by which its purposes are expressed and carried out; it is difficult to conceive of a subterfuge to evade the one which does not also evade the other.” 434 U. S., at 198. Accordingly, a post-Act plan cannot be a subterfuge to evade the ADEA’s purpose of banning arbitrary age discrimination unless it discriminates in a manner forbidden by the substantive provisions of the Act.
Section 4(a), the ADEA’s primary enforcement mechanism against age discrimination by employers, forbids employers
“(1) to fail or refuse to hire or 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;
“(2) to limit, segregate, or classify his employees in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s age; or
“(3) to reduce the wage rate of any employee in order to comply with this chapter.” 29 U. S. C. § 623(a).
The phrase “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment” in § 4(a)(1) can be read to encompass employee benefit plans of the type covered by § 4(f)(2). Such an interpretation, however, would in effect render the § 4(f) (2) exemption nugatory with respect to post-Act plans. Any benefit plan that by its terms mandated discrimination against older workers would also be facially irreconcilable with the prohibitions in § 4(a)(1) and, therefore, with the purposes of the Act itself. It is difficult to see how a plan provision that expressly mandates disparate treatment of older workers in a manner inconsistent with the purposes of the Act could be said not to be a subterfuge to evade those purposes, at least where the plan provision was adopted after enactment of the ADEA.
On the other hand, if § 4(f)(2) is viewed as exempting the provisions of a bona fide benefit plan from the purview of the ADEA so long as the plan is not a method of discriminating in other, non-fringe-benefit aspects of the employment relationship, both statutory provisions can be given effect. This interpretation of the ADEA would reflect a congressional judgment that age-based restrictions in the employee benefit plans covered by § 4(f)(2) do not constitute the “arbitrary age discrimination in employment” that Congress sought to prohibit in enacting the ADEA. Instead, under this construction of the statute, Congress left the employee benefit battle for another day, and legislated only as to hiring and firing, wages and salaries, and other non-fringe-benefit terms and conditions of employment.
To be sure, this construction of the words of the statute is not the only plausible one. But the alternative interpretation would eviscerate § 4(f)(2). As Justice White wrote in his separate concurrence in McMann, “[bjecause all retirement plans necessarily make distinctions based on age, I fail to see how the subterfuge language, which was included in the original version of the bill and was carried all the way through, could have been intended to impose a requirement which almost no retirement plan could meet.” 434 U. S., at 207.
Not surprisingly, the legislative history does not support such a self-defeating interpretation, but to the contrary shows that Congress envisioned a far broader role for the § 4(f)(2) exemption. When S. 830, the bill that was to become the ADEA, was originally proposed by the administration in January 1967, it contained no general exemption for benefit plans that differentiated in benefits based on age. Senator Javits, one of the principal moving forces behind enactment of age discrimination legislation, generally favored the administration’s bill, but believed that a broader exemption for employee benefit plans was needed. Accordingly, he proposed an amendment substantially along the lines of present-day § 4(f)(2). 113 Cong. Rec. 7077 (1967).
One factor motivating Senator Javits’ amendment was the concern that, absent some exemption for benefit plans, the Act might “actually encourage employers, faced with the necessity of paying greatly increased premiums, to look for excuses not to hire older workers when they might have done so under a law granting them a degree of flexibility with respect to such matters.” Id., at 7076. Reducing the cost of hiring older workers was not the only purpose of the proposed amendment, however. Its goals were far more comprehensive. As Senator Javits put it, “the age discrimination law is not the proper place to fight” the battle of ensuring “adequate pension benefits for older workers,” and § 4(f)(2) was therefore intended to be “a fairly broad exemption... for bona fide retirement and seniority systems.” Ibid. Later, referring to the effect of his proposed amendment on the provisions of employee benefit plans, Senator Ja-vits stated that “[i]f the older worker chooses to waive all of those provisions, then the older worker can obtain the benefits of this act....” Id., at 31255. And finally, in his individual views accompanying the Senate Report on S. 830, Senator Javits observed: “I believe the bill has also been improved by the adoption of language, based on an amendment which I had offered, exempting the observance of bona fide seniority systems and retirement, pension, or other employment benefit plans from its prohibitions.” S. Rep. No. 723, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 14 (1967) (emphasis added).
Other Members of Congress expressed similar views. Senator Yarborough, the principal sponsor and floor manager of the administration bill, observed that § 4(f)(2), “when it refers to retirement, pension, or insurance plan,... means that a man who would not have been employed except for this law does not have to receive the benefits of the plan.” 113 Cong. Rec. 31255 (1967). Indeed, at least one Congressman opposed the ADEA precisely because it permitted employers to exclude older employees from participation in benefit plans altogether when the terms of the plans mandated that result. Id., at 34745 (remarks of Rep. Smith).
While the Committee Reports on the ADEA do not address the matter in any detail, they do state that § 4(f)(2) “serves to emphasize the primary purpose of the bill — hiring of older workers — by permitting employment without necessarily including such workers in employee benefit plans.” S. Rep. No. 723, supra, at 4; H. R. Rep. No. 805, 90th Cong., 1st Séss., 4 (1967). That explanation does not support a narrow reading of the § 4(f)(2) exemption. The Committee Reports, moreover, refute a reading of § 4(f)(2) that would limit its protection to pre-Act plans, for they make it clear that the exemption “applies to new and existing employee benefit plans, and to both the establishment and maintenance of such plans.” S. Rep. No.
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases arise under the Telecommunications Act of 1996. Each is about the power of the Federal Communications Commission to regulate a relationship between monopolistic companies providing local telephone service and companies entering local markets to compete with the incumbents. Under the Act, the new entrants are entitled, among other things, to lease elements of the local telephone networks from the incumbent monopolists. The issues are whether the FCC is authorized (1) to require state utility commissions to set the rates charged by the incumbents for leased elements on a forward-looking basis untied to the incumbents’ investment, and (2) to require incumbents to combine such elements at the entrants’ request when they lease them to the entrants. We uphold the FCC’s assumption and exercise of authority on both issues.
I
The 1982 consent decree settling the Government’s antitrust suit against the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) divested AT&T of its local-exchange carriers, leaving AT&T as a long-distance and equipment company, and limiting the divested carriers to the provision of local telephone service. United States v. American Telephone & Telegraph Co., 552 F. Supp. 131 (DC 1982), aff’d sub nom. Maryland v. United States, 460 U. S. 1001 (1983). The decree did nothing, however, to increase competition in the persistently monopolistic local markets, which were thought to be the root of natural monopoly in the telecommunications industry. See S. Benjamin, D. Lichtman, & H. Shelanski, Telecommunications Law and Policy 682 (2001) (hereinafter Benjamin et al.); P. Huber, M. Kellogg, & J. Thorne, Federal Telecommunications Law §2.1.1, pp. 84-85 (2d ed. 1999) (hereinafter Huber et al.); W. Baumol & J. Sidak, Toward Competition in Local Telephony 7-10 (1994); S. Breyer, Regulation and Its Reform 291-292, 314 (1982). These markets were addressed by provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (1996 Act or Act), Pub L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56, that were intended to eliminate the monopolies enjoyed by the inheritors of AT&T’s local franchises; this objective was considered both an end in itself and an important step toward the Act’s other goals of boosting competition in broader markets and revising the mandate to provide universal telephone service. See Benjamin et al. 716.
Two sets of related provisions for opening local markets •concern us here. First, Congress required incumbent local-exchange carriers to share their own facilities and services on terms to be agreed upon with new entrants in their markets. 47 U. S. C. § 251(c) (1994 ed., Supp. V). Second, knowing that incumbents and prospective entrants would sometimes disagree on prices for facilities or services, Congress directed the FCC to prescribe methods for state commissions to use in setting rates that would subject both incumbents and entrants to the risks and incentives that a competitive market would produce. § 252(d). The particular method devised by the FCC for setting rates to be charged for interconnection and lease of network elements under the Act, § 252(d)(1), and regulations the FCC imposed to implement the statutory duty to share these elements, § 251(c)(3), are the subjects of this litigation, which must be understood against the background of ratemaking for public utilities in the United States and the structure of local exchanges made accessible by the Act.
A
Companies providing telephone service have traditionally been regulated as monopolistic public utilities. See J. Bon-bright, Principles of Public Utility Rates 3-5 (1st ed. 1961) (hereinafter Bonbright); I. Barnes, Economics of Public Utility Regulation 37-41 (1942) (hereinafter Barnes). At the dawn of modern utility regulation, in order to offset monopoly power and ensure affordable, stable public access to a utility’s goods or services, legislatures enacted rate schedules to fix the prices a utility could charge. See id., at 170-173; C. Phillips, Regulation of Public Utilities 111-112, and n. 5 (1984) (hereinafter Phillips). See, e. g., Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S. 466, 470-476 (1898) (statement of case); Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113, 134 (1877). As this job became more complicated, legislatures established specialized administrative agencies, first local or state, then federal, to set and regulate rates. Barnes 173-175; Phillips 115-117. See, e. g., Minnesota Rate Cases, 230 U. S. 352, 433 (1913) (Interstate Commerce Commission); Shreveport Rate Cases, 234 U. S. 342, 354-355 (1914) (jurisdictional dispute between ICC and Texas Railroad Commission). See generally T. Mc-Craw, Prophets of Regulation 11-65 (1984). The familiar mandate in the enabling Acts was to see that rates be “just and reasonable” and not discriminatory. Barnes 289. See, e. g., Transportation Act of 1920, 49 U. S. C. § 1(5) (1934 ed.).
All rates were subject to regulation this way: retail rates charged directly to the public and wholesale rates charged among businesses involved in providing the goods or services offered by the retail utility. Intrastate retail rates were regulated by the States or municipalities, with those at wholesale generally the responsibility of the National Government, since the transmission or transportation involved was characteristically interstate. See Phillips 143.
Historically, the classic scheme of administrative rate-setting at the federal level called for rates to be set out by the regulated utility companies in proposed tariff schedules, on the model applied to railroad carriers under the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887,24 Stat. 379. After interested parties had had notice of the proposals and a chance to comment, the tariffs would be accepted by the controlling agency so long as they were “reasonable” (or “just and reasonable”) and not “unduly discriminatory.” Hale, Commissions, Rates, and Policies, 53 Harv. L. Rev. 1103, 1104-1105 (1940). See, e. g., Southern Pacific Co. v. ICC, 219 U. S. 433, 445 (1911). The States generally followed this same tariff-schedule model. Barnes 297-298. See, e. g., Smyth, supra, at 470-476.
The way rates were regulated as between businesses (by the National Government) was in some respects, however, different from regulation of rates as between businesses and the public (at the state or local level). In wholesale markets, the party charging the rate and the party charged were often sophisticated businesses enjoying presumptively equal bargaining power, who could be expected to negotiate a “just and reasonable” rate as between the two of them. Accordingly, in the Federal Power Act of 1920,41 Stat. 1063, and again in the Natural Gas Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 821, Congress departed from the scheme of purely tariff-based regulation and acknowledged that contracts between commercial buyers and sellers could be used in ratesetting, 16 U. S. C. §824d(d) (Federal Power Act); 15 U. S. C. §717c(c) (Natural Gas Act). See United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Mobile Gas Service Corp., 350 U. S. 332, 338-339 (1956). When commercial parties did avail themselves of rate agreements, the principal regulatory responsibility was not to relieve a contracting party of an unreasonable rate, FPC v. Sierra Pacific Power Co., 350 U. S. 348, 355 (1956) (“its improvident bargain”), but to protect against potential discrimination by favorable contract rates between allied businesses to the detriment of other wholesale customers. See ibid. Cf. New York v. United States, 331 U. S. 284, 296 (1947) (“The principal evil at which the Interstate Commerce Act was aimed was discrimination in its various manifestations”). This Court once summed up matters at the wholesale level this way:
“[WJhile it may be that the Commission may not normally impose upon a public utility a rate which would produce less than a fair return, it does not follow that the public utility may not itself agree by contract to a rate affording less than a fair return or that, if it does so, it is entitled to be relieved of its improvident bargain. In such circumstances the sole concern of the Commission would seem to be whether the rate is so low as to adversely affect the public interest — as where it might impair the financial ability of the public utility to continue its service, cast upon other consumers an excessive burden, or be unduly discriminatory.” Sierra Pacific Power Co., supra, at 355 (citation omitted).
See also United Gas Pipe Line Co., supra, at 345.
Regulation of retail rates at the state and local levels was, on the other hand, focused more on the demand for “just and reasonable” rates to the public than on the perils of rate discrimination. See Barnes 298-299. Indeed, regulated local telephone markets evolved into arenas of state-sanctioned discrimination engineered by the public utility commissions themselves in the cause of “universal service.” Huber et al. 80-85. See also Vietor 167-185. In order to hold down charges for telephone service in rural markets with higher marginal costs due to lower population densities and lesser volumes of use, urban and business users were charged subsidizing premiums over the marginal costs of providing their own service. See Huber et al. 84.
These cross subsidies between markets were not necessarily transfers between truly independent companies, however, thanks largely to the position attained by AT&T and its satellites. This was known as the “Bell system,” which by the mid-20th century had come to possess overwhelming monopoly power in all telephone markets nationwide, supplying local-exchange and long-distance services as well as equipment. Vietor 174-175. See also R. Garnet, Telephone Enterprise: Evolution of Bell System’s Horizontal Structure, 1876-1909, pp. 160-163 (1985) (Appendix A). The same pervasive market presence of Bell providers that made it simple to provide cross subsidies in aid of universal service, however, also frustrated conventional efforts to hold retail rates down. See Huber et al. 84-85. Before the Bell system’s predominance, regulators might have played competing carriers against one another to get lower rates for the public, see Cohen 47-50, but the strategy became virtually impossible once a single company had become the only provider in nearly every town and city across the country. This rejgulatory frustration led, in turn, to new thinking about just and reasonable retail rates and ultimately to these cases.
The traditional regulatory notion of the “just and reasonable” rate was aimed at navigating the straits between gouging utility customers and confiscating utility property. FPC v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S. 591, 603 (1944). See also Barnes 289-290; Bonbright 38. More than a century ago, reviewing courts charged with determining whether utility rates were sufficiently reasonable to avoid unconstitutional confiscation took as their touchstone the revenue that would be a “fair return” on certain utility property known as a “rate base.” The fair rate of return was usually set as the rate generated by similar investment property at the time of the rate proceeding, and in Smyth v. Ames, 169 U. S., at 546, the Court held that the rate base must be calculated as “the fair value of the property being used by [the utility] for the convenience of the public.” In pegging the rate base at “fair value,” the Smyth Court consciously rejected the primary alternative standard, of capital actually invested to provide the public service or good. Id., at 543-546. The Court made this choice in large part to prevent “excessive valuation or fictitious capitalization” from artificially inflating the rate base, id., at 544, lest “‘[t]he public... be subjected to unreasonable rates in order simply that stockholders may earn dividends,’” id., at 545 (quoting Covington & Lexington Turnpike Road Co. v. Sandford, 164 U. S. 578, 596 (1896)).
But Smyth proved to be a troublesome mandate, as Justice Brandéis, joined by Justice Holmes, famously observed 25 years later. Missouri ex rel. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Serv. Comm’n of Mo., 262 U. S. 276, 292 (1923) (dissenting opinion). The Smyth Court itself had described, without irony, the mind-numbing complexity of the required enquiry into fair value, as the alternative to historical investment:
“[I]n order to ascertain [fair] value, original cost of construction, the amount expended in permanent improvements, the amount and market value of its bonds and stock, the present as compared with the original cost of construction, the probable earning capacity of the property under particular rates prescribed by statute, and the sum required to meet operating expenses, are all matters for consideration, and are to be given such weight as may be just and right in each case. We do not say that there may not be other matters to be regarded in estimating the value of the property.” 169 U. S., at 546-547.
To the bewildered, Smyth simply threw up its hands, prescribing no one method for limiting use of these numbers but declaring all such facts to be “relevant.” Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 262 U. S., at 294-298, and n. 6 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). What is more, the customary checks on calculations of value in other circumstances were hard to come by for a utility’s property; its costly facilities rarely changed hands and so were seldom tagged with a price a buyer would actually pay and a seller accept, id., at 292; West v. Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Baltimore, 295 U. S. 662, 672 (1935). Neither could reviewing courts resort to a utility’s revenue as an index of fair value, since its revenues were necessarily determined by the rates subject to review, with the rate of return applied to the very property subject to valuation. Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch, 488 U. S. 299, 309, n. 5 (1989); Hope Natural Gas Co., supra, at 601.
Small wonder, then, that Justice Brandéis was able to demonstrate how basing rates on Smyth’s galactic notion of fair value could produce revenues grossly excessive or insufficient when gauged against the costs of capital. He gave the example (simplified) of a $1 million plant built with promised returns on the equity of $90,000 a year. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., supra, at 304-306. If the value were to fall to $600,000 at the time of a rate proceeding, with the rate of return on similar investments then at 6 percent, Smyth would say a rate was not confiscatory if it returned at least $36,000, a shortfall of'$54,000 from the costs of capital. But if the value of the plant were to rise to $1,750,000 at the time of the rate proceeding, and the rate of return on comparable investments stood at 8 percent, then constitutionality under Smyth would require rates generating at least $140,000, $50,000 above capital costs.
The upshot of Smyth, then, was the specter of utilities forced into bankruptcy by rates inadequate to pay off the costs of capital, even when a drop in value resulted from general economic decline, not imprudent investment; while in a robust economy, an investment no more prescient could claim what seemed a rapacious return on equity invested. Justice Brandéis accordingly advocated replacing “fair value” with a calculation of rate base on the cost of capital prudently invested in assets used for the provision of the public good or service, and although he did not live to enjoy success, his campaign against Smyth came to fruition in FPC v. Hope Natural Gas Co., 320 U. S. 591 (1944).
In Hope Natural Gas, this Court disavowed the position that the Natural Gas Act and the Constitution required fair value as the sole measure of a rate base on which “just and reasonable” rates were to be calculated. Id., at 601-602. See also FPC v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U. S. 575, 602-606 (1942) (Black, Douglas, and Murphy, JJ., concurring). In the matter under review, the Federal Power Commission had valued the rate base by using “actual legitimate cost” reflecting “sound depreciation and depletion practices,” and so had calculated a value roughly 25 percent below the figure generated by the natural-gas company’s fair-value methods using “estimated reproduction cost” and “trended original cost.” Hope Natural Gas, 320 U. S., at 596-598, and nn. 4-5. The Court upheld the Commission. “Rates which enable the company to operate successfully, to maintain its financial integrity, to attract capital, and to compensate its investors for the risks assumed certainly cannot be condemned as invalid, even though they might produce only a meager return on the so-called ‘fair value’ rate base.” Id., at 605. Although Hope Natural Gas did not repudiate everything said in Smyth, since fair value was still “the end product of the process of rate-making,” 320 U. S., at 601, federal and state commissions setting rates in the aftermath of Hope Natural Gas largely abandoned the old fair-value approach and turned to methods of calculating the rate base on the basis of “cost.” A. Kahn, Economics of Regulations: Principles and Institutions 40-41 (1988).
“Cost” was neither self-evident nor immune to confusion, however; witness the invocation of “reproduction cost” as a popular method for calculating fair value under Smyth, see n. 5, supra, and the Federal Power Commission’s rejection of “trended original cost” (apparently, a straight-line derivation from the cost of capital originally invested) in favor of “actual legitimate cost,” Hope Natural Gas, supra, at 596. Still, over time, general agreement developed on a method that was primus inter pares, and it is essentially a modern gloss on that method that the incumbent carriers say the FCC should have used to set the rates at issue here.
The method worked out is not a simple calculation of rate base as the original cost of “prudently invested” capital that Justice Brandéis assumed, presumably by reference to the utility’s balance sheet at the time of the rate proceeding. Southwestern Bell Telephone Co., 262 U. S., at 304-306. Rather, “cost” came to mean “cost of service,” that is, the cost of prudently invested capital used to provide the service. Bonbright 173; P. Garfield & W. Lovejoy, Public Utility Economics 56 (1964). This was calculated subject to deductions for accrued depreciation and allowances for working capital, see Phillips 282-283 (table 8-1) (“a typical electric utility rate base”), naturally leading utilities to minimize depreciation by using very slow depreciation rates (on the assumption of long useful lives), and to maximize working capital claimed as a distinct rate-base constituent.
This formula, commonly called the prudent-investment rule, addressed the natural temptations on the utilities’ part to claim a return on outlays producing nothing of value to the public. It was meant, on the one hand, to discourage unnecessary investment and the “fictitious capitalization” feared in Smyth, 169 U. S., at 543-546, and so to protect ratepayers from supporting excessive capacity, or abandoned, destroyed, or phantom assets. Kahn, Tardiff, & Weisman, Telecommunications Act at three years: an economic evaluation of its implementation by the Federal Communications Commission, 11 Information Economics & Policy 319, 330, n. 27 (1999) (hereinafter Kahn, Telecommunications Act). At the same time, the prudent-investment rule was intended to give utilities an incentive to make smart investments deserving a “fair” return, and thus to mimic natural incentives in competitive markets (though without an eye to fostering the actual competition by which such markets are defined). In theory, then, the prudent-investment qualification gave the ratepayer an important protection by mitigating the tendency of a regulated market’s lack of competition to support monopolistic prices.
But the mitigation was too little, the prudent-investment rule in practice often being no match for the capacity of utilities having all the relevant information to manipulate the rate base and renegotiate the rate of return every time a rate was set. The regulatory response in some markets was adoption of a rate-based method commonly called “price caps,” United States Telephone Assn. v. FCC, 188 F. 3d 521, 524 (CADC 1999), as, for example, by the FCC’s setting of maximum access charges paid to large local-exchange companies by interexchange carriers, In re Policy and Rules Concerning Rates for Dominant Carriers, 5 FCC Rcd. 6786, 6787, ¶ 1 (1990).
The price-cap scheme starts with a rate generated by the conventional cost-of-service formula, which it takes as a benchmark to be decreased at an average of some 2-3 percent a year to reflect productivity growth, Kahn, Telecommunications Act 330-332, subject to an upward adjustment if necessary to reflect inflation or certain unavoidable “exogenous costs” on which the company is authorized to recover a return. 5 FCC Red., at 6787, ¶ 5. Although the price caps do not eliminate gamesmanship, since there are still battles to be fought over the productivity offset and allowable exogenous costs, United States Telephone Assn., supra, at 524, they do give companies an incentive “to improve productivity to the maximum extent possible,” by entitling those that outperform the productivity offset to keep resulting profits, 5 FCC Red., at 6787-6788, ¶¶7-9. Ultimately, the goal, as under the basic prudent-investment rule, is to encourage investment in more productive equipment.
Before the passage of the 1996 Act, the price cap was, at the federal level, the final stage in a century of developing ratesetting methodology. What had changed throughout the era beginning with Smyth v. Ames was prevailing opinion on how to calculate the most useful rate base, with the disagreement between fair-value and cost advocates turning on whether invested capital was the key to the right balance between investors and ratepayers, and with the price-cap scheme simply being a rate-based offset to the utilities’ advantage of superior knowledge of the facts employed in cost-of-service fatemaking. What is remarkable about this evolution of just and reasonable ratesetting, however, is what did not change. The enduring feature of ratesetting from Smyth v. Ames to the institution of price caps was the idea that calculating a rate base and then allowing a fair rate of return on it was a sensible way to identify a range of rates that would be just and reasonable to investors and ratepayers. Equally enduring throughout the period was dissatisfaction with the successive rate-based variants. From the constancy of this dissatisfaction, one possible lesson was drawn by Congress in the 1996 Act, which was that regulation using the traditional rate-based methodologies gave monopolies too great an advantage and that the answer lay in moving away from the assumption common to all the rate-based methods, that the monopolistic structure within the discrete markets would endure.
Under the local-competition provisions of the Act, Congress called for ratemaking different from any historical practice, to achieve the entirely new objective of uprooting the monopolies that traditional rate-based methods had perpetuated. H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 104-230, p. 113 (1996). A leading backer of the Act in the Senate put the new goal this way:
“This is extraordinary in the sense of telling private industry that this is what they have to do in order to let the competitors come in and try to beat your economic brains out....
“It is kind of almost a jump-start.... I will do everything I have to let you into my business, because we used to be a bottleneck; we used to be a monopoly; we used to control everything.
“Now, this legislation says you will not control much of anything. You will have to allow for nondiserimina-tory access on an unbundled basis to the network functions and services of the Bell operating companies network that is at least equal in type, quality, and price to the access [a] Bell operating company affords to itself.” 141 Cong. Rec. 15572 (1995) (remarks of Sen. Breaux (La.) on Pub. L. 104-104).
For the first time, Congress passed a ratesetting statute with the aim not just to balance interests between sellers and buyers, but to reorganize markets by rendering regulated utilities’ monopolies vulnerable to interlopers, even if that meant swallowing the traditional federal reluctance to intrude into local telephone markets. The approach was deliberate, through a hybrid jurisdictional scheme with the FCC setting a basic, default methodology for use in setting rates when carriers fail to agree, but leaving it to state utility commissions to set the actual rates.
While the Act is like its predecessors in tying the methodology to the objectives of “just and reasonable” and nondiscriminatory rates, 47 U. S. C. § 252(d)(1), it is radically unlike all previous statutes in providing that rates be set “without reference to a rate-of-return or other rate-based proceeding,” § 252(d)(l)(A)(i). The Act thus appears to be an explicit disavowal of the familiar public-utility model of rate regulation (whether in its fair-value or cost-of-service incarnations) presumably still being applied by many States for retail sales, see In re Implementation of Local Competition in Telecommunications Act of 1996,11 FCC Rcd. 15499, 15857, ¶704 (1996) (First Report and Order), in favor of novel ratesetting designed to give aspiring competitors every possible incentive to enter local retail telephone markets, short of confiscating the incumbents’ property.
B
The physical incarnation of such a market, a “local exchange,” is a network connecting terminals like telephones, faxes, and modems to other terminals within a geographical area like a city. From terminal network interface devices, feeder wires, collectively called the “local loop,” are run to local switches that aggregate traffic into common “trunks.” The local loop was traditionally, and is still largely, made of copper wire, though fiber-optic cable is also used, albeit to a far lesser extent than in long-haul markets. Just as the loop runs from terminals to local switches, the trunks run from the local switches to centralized, or tandem, switches, originally worked by hand but now by computer, which operate much like railway switches, directing traffic into other trunks. A signal is sent toward its destination terminal on these common ways so far as necessary, then routed back down another hierarchy of switches to the intended telephone or other equipment. A local exchange is thus a transportation network for communications signals, radiating like a root system from a “central office” (or several offices for larger areas) to individual telephones, faxes, and the like.
It is easy to see why a company that owns a local exchange (what the Act calls an “incumbent local exchange carrier,” 47 U. S. C. § 251(h)) would have an almost insurmountable competitive advantage not only in routing calls within the exchange, but, through its control of this local market, in the markets for terminal equipment and long-distance calling as well. A newcomer could not compete with the incumbent carrier to provide local service without coming close to replicating the incumbent’s entire existing network, the most costly and difficult part of which would be laying down the “last mile” of feeder wire, the local loop, to the thousands (or millions) of terminal points in individual houses and businesses. The incumbent company could also control its local-loop plant so as to connect only with terminals it manufactured or selected, and could place conditions or fees (called “access charges”) on long-distance carriers seeking to connect with its network. In an unregulated world, another telecommunications carrier would be forced to comply with these conditions, or it could never reach the customers of a local exchange.
II
The 1996 Act both prohibits state and local regulation that impedes the provision of “telecommunications service,” § 253(a), and obligates incumbent carriers to allow competitors to enter their local markets, § 251(c). Section 251(c) addresses the practical difficulties of fostering local competition by recognizing three strategies that a potential competitor may pursue. First, a competitor entering the market (a “requesting” carrier, § 251(c)(2)) may decide to engage in pure facilities-based competition, that is, to build its own network to replace or supplement the network of the incumbent. If an entrant takes this course, the Act obligates the incumbent to “interconnect” the competitor’s facilities to its own network to whatever extent is necessary to allow the competitor’s facilities to operate. §§ 251(a) and (c)(2). At the other end of the spectrum, the statute permits an entrant to skip construction and instead simply to buy and resell “telecommunications service,” which the incumbent has a duty to sell at wholesale. §§ 251(b)(1) and (e)(4). Between these extremes, an entering competitor may choose to lease certain of an incumbent’s “network elements,” which the incumbent has a duty to provide “on an unbundled basis” at terms that are “just, reasonable, and nondiseriminatory.” § 251(c)(3).
Since wholesale markets for companies engaged in resale, leasing, or interconnection of facilities cannot be created without addressing rates, Congress provided for rates to be set either by contracts between carriers or by state utility commission rate orders. §§ 252(a)-(b). Like other federal utility statutes that authorize contracts approved by a regulatory agency in setting rates between businesses, e. g., 16 U. S. C. § 824d(d) (Federal Power Act); 15 U. S. C. §717c(c) (Natural Gas Act), the Act permits incumbent and entering carriers to negotiate private rate agreements, 47 U. S. C. § 252(a); see also § 251(c)(1) (duty to negotiate in good faith). State utility commissions are required to accept any such agreement unless it discriminates against a carrier not a party to the contract, or is otherwise shown to be contrary.to the public interest. §§ 252(e)(1) and (e)(2)(A). Carriers, of course, might well not agree, in which case an entering carrier has a statutory option to request mediation by a state commission, § 252(a)(2). But the option comes with strings, for mediation subjects the parties to the duties specified in §251 and the pricing standards set forth in § 252(d), as interpreted by the FCC’s regulations, § 252(e)(2)(B). These regulations are at issue here.
As to pricing, the Act provides that when incumbent and requesting carriers fail to agree, state commissions will set a “just and reasonable” and “nondiscriminatory” rate for interconnection or the lease of network elements based on “the cost of providing the... network element,” which “may include a reasonable profit.” §252(d)(1). In setting these rates, the state commissions are, however, subject to that important limitation previously unknown to utility regulation: the rate must be “determined without reference to a rate-of-return or other rate-based proceeding.” Ibid. In AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366, 384-385 (1999), this Court upheld the FCC’s jurisdiction to impose a new methodology on the States when setting these rates. The attack today is on the legality and logic of the particular methodology the Commission chose.
As the Act required, six months after its effective date the FCC implemented the local-competition provisions in its First Report and Order, whieh included as an appendix the new regulations at issue. Challenges to the order, mostly by incumbent local-exchange carriers and state commissions, were consolidated in the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Iowa Utilities Bd. v. FCC, 120 F. 3d 753, 792 (1997), aff’d in part and rev’d in part, 525 U. S. 366, 397 (1999). See also California v. FCC, 124 F. 3d 934, 938 (1997), rev’d in part, 525 U. S. 366, 397 (1999) (challenges to In re Implementation of Local Competition Provisions in Telecommunications Act of 1996, 11 FCC Red. 19392 (1996) (Second Report and Order)).
So far as it bears on where we are today, the initial decision by the Eighth Circuit held that the FCC had no authority to control the methodology of state commissions setting the rates incumbent local-exchange carriers could charge entrants for network elements, 47 CFR § 51.505(b)(1) (1997). Iowa Utilities Bd. v. FCC, supra, at 800. The Eighth Circuit also held that the FCC misconstrued the plain language of § 251(c)(3) in implementing a set of “combination” rules, 47 CFR §§51.315(b)-(f) (1997), the most important of which provided that “an incumbent LEC shall not separate requested network elements that the incumbent LEC currently combines,” § 51.315(b). 120 F. 3d, at 813. On the other hand, the Court of Appeals accepted the FCC’s view that the Act required no threshold ownership of facilities by a requesting carrier, First Report and Order ¶¶ 328-340, and upheld Rule 319, 47 CFR §51.319 (1997), which read “network elements” broadly, to require incumbent carriers to provide not only equipment but also services and functions, such as operations support systems (e. g., billing databases), § 51.319(f)(1), operator services and directory assistance, § 51.319(g), and vertical switching features like call-waiting and caller I. D., First Report and Order ¶ ¶ 263, 413. 120 F. 3d, at 808-810.
This Court affirmed in part and in larger part reversed. AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S., at 397. We reversed in upholding, the FCC’s jurisdiction to “design a pricing methodology” to bind state ratemaking commissions, id., at 385, as well as one of the FCC’s combination rules, Rule 315(b), barring incumbents from separating currently combined network elements when furnishing them to entrants that request them in a combined form, id., at 395. We also reversed in striking down Rule 319, holding that its provision for blanket access to network elements was inconsistent with the “necessary” and “impair” standards of 47 U.S.C. § 251(d)(2), 525 U. S., at 392. We affirmed the Eighth Circuit, however, in upholding the FCC’s broad definition of network elements to be provided, id., at 387, and the FCC’s understanding that the Act imposed no facilities-ownership requirement, id., at 392-393. The case then returned to
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.
Appellee Mark Avrech was convicted by a special court-martial on charges of having violated Art. 80 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, 10 U. S. C. § 880. The specification under Art. 80, which punishes attempts to commit offenses otherwise punishable under the UCMJ, charged an attempt to commit an offense under the first and second clauses of Art. 134, 10 U. S. C. § 934, namely, an attempt to publish a statement disloyal to the United States to members of the Armed Forces “with design to promote disloyalty and disaffection among the troops.”
Upon conviction, appellee was sentenced to reduction in rank to the lowest enlisted grade, forfeiture of three months’ pay, and confinement at hard labor for one month. The commanding officer suspended the confinement, but the remainder of the sentence was sustained by the Staff Judge Advocate and the Judge Advocate General of the Navy. Appellee was subsequently given a bad-conduct discharge after an unrelated second court-martial conviction.
In December 1970, appellee brought this action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, asserting jurisdiction under 5 U. S. C. §§ 701-706, 28 U. S. C. § 1331, and 28 U. S. C. § 1361. He claimed that Art. 134 was unconstitutionally vague and over-broad on its face and as applied, that his statement was protected speech, and that he was convicted without sufficient evidence of criminal intent. He sought an order declaring his Art. 80 conviction invalid and requiring the Secretary of the Navy to expunge any record of his conviction and to restore all pay and benefits lost because of the conviction. After the District Court denied relief, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Art. 134 is unconstitutionally vague. 155 U. S. App. D. C. 352, 477 F. 2d 1237 (1973). We noted probable jurisdiction. 414 U. S. 816 (1973). Following oral argument on the merits, we directed counsel to file supplemental briefs on the issues of the jurisdiction of the District Court and the exhaustion of remedies.
Without the benefit of further oral argument, we are unwilling to decide the difficult jurisdictional issue which the parties have briefed. Assuming, arguendo, that the District Court had jurisdiction under the circumstances of this case to review the decision of the court-martial, our decision in Parker v. Levy, 417 U. S. 733 (1974), would require reversal of the Court of Appeals’ decision on the merits of appellee’s constitutional challenge to Art. 134. We believe that even the most diligent and zealous advocate could find his ardor somewhat dampened in arguing a jurisdictional issue where the decision on the merits is thus foreordained. We accordingly leave to a future case the resolution of the jurisdictional issue, and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals on the authority of Parker v. Levy, supra. See United States v. Augenblick, 393 U. S. 348 (1969); Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U. S. 218, 249 (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: | 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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Naughten was tried in an Oregon state court for the crime of armed robbery. The State’s principal evidence consisted of testimony by the owner of the grocery store that respondent had robbed the store at gunpoint and of corroborative testimony by another eyewitness. In addition, two police officers testified that respondent had been found near the scene of the robbery and that the stolen money was located near his car in a neighboring parking lot. A few items of clothing, identified as belonging to respondent, and the stolen money were also introduced. Respondent neither took the stand himself nor called any witnesses to testify in his behalf.
The trial judge charged the jury that respondent was presumed innocent “until guilt is proved beyond a reasonable doubt,” and then continued:
“Every witness is presumed to speak the truth. This presumption may be overcome by the manner in which the witness testifies, by the nature of his or her testimony, by evidence affecting his or her character, interest, or motives, by contradictory evidence, or by a presumption.” App. 16.
The trial judge also instructed the jury as to the State's burden of proof, defining in detail the concept of reasonable doubt; later, at the respondent's request, he gave an additional instruction on the presumption of innocence. The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and respondent was sentenced to a term in the state penitentiary.
The Oregon Court of Appeals affirmed respondent’s conviction, finding that inclusion of the “presumption of truthfulness” instruction in the judge’s charge to the jury was not error. The Supreme Court of Oregon denied a petition for review. His state remedies thus exhausted, respondent sought federal habeas corpus relief in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, asserting that the presumption-of-truthfulness charge shifted the State’s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and forced respondent instead to prove his innocence. The District Court noted that similar instructions had met with disfavor in the federal courts of appeals, but observed that “[those] cases [did] not involve appeals from State Court convictions.” Recognizing that the instruction was “proper under Oregon law,” the District Court stated:
“In any event, the giving of the instruction did not deprive petitioner of a federally protected constitutional right.”
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. That court, noting that the instruction in question “has been almost universally condemned” and that Naughten had not testified or called witnesses in his own behalf, went on to say:
“Thus, the clear effect of the challenged instruction was to place the burden on Naughten to prove his innocence. This is so repugnant to the American concept that it is offensive to any fair notion of due process of law.” 476 F. 2d 845, 847.
We granted certiorari to consider whether the giving of this instruction in a state criminal trial so offended established notions of due process as to deprive the respondent of a constitutionally fair trial.
Although the presumption-of-truthfulness instruction apparently became increasingly used in federal criminal prosecutions following the publication of Judge Mathes’ Jury Instructions and Forms for Federal Criminal Cases, 27 F. R. D. 39, 67 (1961), the instruction appears to have had quite an independent origin in Oregon practice. The instruction given in Naughten’s trial was directly based on § 44.370 of the Oregon Revised Statutes, a provision first passed in 1862. Only four years ago, the Oregon Supreme Court upheld the validity of the instruction against constitutional attack. State v. Kessler, 254 Ore. 124, 458 P. 2d 432 (1969). At that time the court noted the extensive criticism of similar instructions in the federal courts of appeals and the possible effect of such instructions on the presumption of innocence. Nonetheless, though the court stated that “it might be preferable not to instruct the jury in criminal cases where defendant does not take the stand that a witness is presumed to speak the truth,” it concluded that there was no error in giving the instruction “if accompanied by an explanation of how the presumption can be overcome.” Id., at 128, 458 P. 2d, at 435. The Oregon Court of Appeals followed that holding in affirming respondent's conviction in this case.
The criticism of the instruction by the federal courts has been based on the idea that the instruction may “dilute,” “conflict with,” “seem to collide with,” or “impinge upon” a criminal defendant's presumption of innocence; “clash with” or “shift” the prosecution’s burden of proof; or “interfere” with or “invade” the province of the jury to determine credibility. In fact, in some cases, the courts of appeals have determined that a presumption-of-truthfulness instruction is so undesirable that the defendant may be entitled to a new trial on that ground alone. A reading of these cases, however, indicates that the courts of appeals were primarily concerned with directing inferior courts within the same jurisdiction to refrain from giving the instruction because it was thought confusing, of little positive value to the jury, or simply undesirable. The appellate courts were, in effect, exercising the so-called supervisory power of an appellate court to review proceedings of trial courts and to reverse judgments of such courts which the appellate court concludes were wrong.
Within such a unitary jurisdictional framework the appellate court will, of course, require the trial court to conform to constitutional mandates, but it may likewise require it to follow procedures deemed desirable from the viewpoint of sound judicial practice although in nowise commanded by statute or by the Constitution. Thus even substantial unanimity among federal courts of appeals that the instruction in question ought not to be given in United States district courts within their respective jurisdictions is not, without more, authority for declaring that the giving of the instruction makes a resulting conviction invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment. Before a federal court may overturn a conviction resulting from a state trial ’in which this instruction was used, it must be established not merely that the instruction is undesirable, erroneous, or even “universally condemned,” but that it violated some right which was guaranteed to the defendant by the Fourteenth Amendment.
In determining the effect of this instruction on the validity of respondent’s conviction, we accept at the outset the well-established proposition that a single instruction to a jury may not be judged in artificial isolation, but must be viewed in the context of the overall charge. Boyd v. United States, 271 U. S. 104, 107 (1926). While this does not mean that an instruction by itself may never rise to the level of constitutional error, see Cool v. United States, 409 U. S. 100 (1972), it does recognize that a judgment of conviction is commonly the culmination of a trial which includes testimony of witnesses, argument of counsel, receipt of exhibits in evidence, and instruction of the jury by the judge. Thus not only is the challenged instruction but one of many such instructions, but the process of instruction itself is but one of several components of the trial which may result in the judgment of conviction.
The Court of Appeals in this case stated that the effect of the instruction was to place the burden on respondent to prove his innocence. But the trial court gave, not once but twice, explicit instructions affirming the presumption of innocence and declaring the obligation of the State to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The Court of Appeals, recognizing that these other instructions had been given, nevertheless declared that “there was no instruction so specifically directed to that under attack as can be said to have effected a cure.” 476 F. 2d, at 847. But we believe this analysis puts the cart before the horse; the question is not whether the trial court failed to isolate and cure a particular ailing instruction, but rather whether the ailing instruction by itself so infected the entire trial that the resulting conviction violates due process.
This Court has recently held that the Due Process Clause requires the State in criminal prosecutions to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358 (1970). In that case the judge, presiding over the trial of a juvenile charged with stealing $112 from a woman’s pocketbook, specifically found that the evidence was sufficient to convict under a “preponderance of the evidence” standard but insufficient to convict under a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard. Id., at 360 and n. 2. Since the judge found that a New York statute compelled evaluation under the more lenient standard, the defendant was found guilty. This Court reversed, stating that “[t]he reasonable-doubt standard plays a vital role in the American scheme of criminal procedure,” id., at 363, and holding explicitly “that the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.” Id., at 364.
We imply no retreat from the doctrine of Winship when we observe that it was a different case from that before us now. There the trial judge made an express finding that the State was not required to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; in this case the State’s burden of proof was emphasized and re-emphasized in the course of the complete jury instructions. Respondent nevertheless contends that, despite the burden of proof and reasonable-doubt instructions given by the trial court, the charge as to presumption of truthfulness impliedly placed the burden of proof on him. We do not agree.
Certainly the instruction by its language neither shifts the burden of proof nor negates the presumption of innocence accorded under Oregon law. It would be possible perhaps as a matter of abstract logic to contend that any instruction suggesting that the jury should believe the testimony of a witness might in some tangential respect “impinge” upon the right of the defendant to have his guilt proved beyond a reasonable doubt. But instructions bearing on the burden of proof, just as those bearing on the weight to be accorded different types of testimony and other familiar subjects of jury instructions, are in one way or another designed to get the jury off dead center and to give it some guidance by which to evaluate the frequently confusing and conflicting testimony which it has heard. The well-recognized and long-established function of the trial judge to assist the jury by such instructions is not emasculated by such abstract and conjectural. emanations from Winship.
It must be remembered that “review by this Court of state action expressing its notion of what will best further its own security in the administration of criminal justice demands appropriate respect for the deliberative, judgment of a state in so basic an exercise of its jurisdiction.” McNabb v. United States, 318 U. S. 332, 340 (1943). In this case, while the jury was informed about the presumption of truthfulness, it was also specifically instructed to consider the manner of the witness, the nature of the testimony, and any other matter relating to the witness’ possible motivation to speak falsely. It thus remained free to exercise its collective judgment to reject what it did not find trustworthy or plausible. Furthermore, by acknowledging that a witness could be discredited by his own manner or words, the instruction freed respondent from any undue pressure to take the witness stand himself or to call witnesses under the belief that only positive testimony could engender disbelief of the State’s witnesses.
The jury here was charged fully and explicitly about the presumption of innocence and the State’s duty to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Whatever tangential undercutting of these clearly stated propositions may, as a theoretical matter, have resulted from the giving of the instruction on the presumption of truthfulness is not of constitutional dimension. The giving of that instruction, whether judged in terms of the reasonable-doubt requirement in In re Winship, supra, or of offense against “some principle of justice so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental,” Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U. S. 97, 105 (1934), did not render the conviction constitutionally invalid.
Reversed.
The judge also instructed the jury that respondent did not have to testify and that the jury was to draw no inference of guilt from his failure to do so.
Alternatively, the District Court held that assuming there had been error of constitutional proportions in the charge, the error was harmless in view of the overwhelming evidence of guilt. Harrington v. California, 395 U. S. 250 (1969). The Court of Appeals, without detailing its reasoning, disagreed, stating that the State had not met its burden of showing that the error was harmless. In view of our disposition of this case, we do not reach that issue.
476 F. 2d 845, 846 (1972). The court then denied a petition for rehearing by an equally divided vote.
The court cited nine cases from various federal courts of appeals, all of which had expressed disapproval of the presumption-of-truthfulness instruction. See United States v. Birmingham, 447 F. 2d 1313 (CA10 1971); United States v. Stroble, 431 F. 2d 1273 (CA6 1970); McMillen v. United States, 386 F. 2d 29 (CA1 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 1031 (1968); United States v. Dichiarinte, 385 F. 2d 333 (CA7 1967); United States v. Johnson, 371 F. 2d 800 (CA3 1967); United States v. Persico, 349 F. 2d 6 (CA2 1965). See also United States v. Safley, 408 F. 2d 603 (CA4 1969); Harrison v. United States, 387 F. 2d 614 (CA5 1968); Stone v. United States, 126 U. S. App. D. C. 369, 379 F. 2d 146 (1967) (Burger, J.). None of these cases, however, dealt with review of a state court proceeding.
Judge Mathes’ original instruction was modified in W. Mathes & E. Devitt, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 9.01 (1965), and is not included in E. Devitt & C. Blackmar, Federal Jury Practice and Instructions (2d ed. 1970). See id., vol. 1, § 12.01, and accompanying note.
See, e. g., United States v. Johnson, supra, at 804; United States v. Stroble, supra, at 1278; United States v. Dichiarinte, supra, at 339; Stone v. United States, supra, at 370, 379 F. 2d at 147.
See, e. g., United States v. Meisch, 370 F. 2d 768, 774 (CA3 1966); United States v. Birmingham, supra, at 1315.
See, e. g., United States v. Stroble, supra; United States v. Birmingham, supra.
See, e. g., United States v. Birmingham, supra. However, the instruction given in Birmingham was somewhat different from the instruction given here. The jury there was told that the presumption of truthfulness controlled “[u]nless and until outweighed by evidence to the contrary.” 447 F. 2d, at 1315. Apparently no additional instruction was given regarding consideration of the manner or nature of the witnesses’ testimony or of the witnesses’ possible motivations to speak falsely. See also Johnson, 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.
Per Curiam.
In United States v. First National Bank, 376 U. S. 665, this Court held that the merger of First National Bank and Trust Co. of Lexington, Kentucky, with Security Trust Co. of Lexington to form First Security National Bank and Trust Co. violated § 1 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U. S. C. § 1. The Court’s judgment remanded the case to the District Court “for further proceedings in conformity with the opinion of this Court.” Thereafter, on July 1, 1964, the District Court ordered the parties “to report to the court the progress made in complying with the judgment” of the Supreme Court. On application of the parties, the reporting date was thrice postponed to permit negotiations between First Security and the Government concerning an appropriate plan of divestiture. When, on the final date for reporting, February 16, 1965, the parties jointly presented only a proposed interlocutory decree providing that the detailed plan for divestiture would be submitted within six months, the District Court held First Security, its executive officers and directors in contempt. Although there is some indication that the District' Court was dissatisfied with the compliance of the bank with the District Court’s order of July 1, 1964, the contempt judgment itself was entered because the delay in submitting a final plan of divestiture was a failure “to comply with the mandate of the Supreme Court . . . .” The court imposed a fine of $100 per day until the contempt had been purged by “full compliance with the mandate of the Supreme Court.”
The District Judge’s interpretation of this Court’s judgment was erroneous. We remanded the case for further proceedings in the District Court consistent with this Court’s opinion. Neither the opinion nor the judgment of this Court expressly dealt with the matter of remedy and neither ordered divestiture within any particular period of time. Compare United States v. El Paso Natural Gas Co., 376 U. S. 651, 662 (decided the same day as the prior appeal in this case and directing the District Court to order divestiture without delay). No order of divestiture was entered in the District Court until March 18, 1965, a month after the bank had been held in contempt. The District Court has the authority to require obedience and to punish disobedience of its lawful orders and decrees, .18 U. S. C. § 401, but this record reveals nothing the bank did or failed to do which violated the judgment of this Court. The judgment holding the bank, its executive officers and directors in contempt is
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Fortas 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: | 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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
At the first trial in this case the District Court, having heard the evidence, granted petitioner’s motion to dismiss the information for failure to provide adequate notice of the crime charged. Petitioner was retried and convicted. The question is whether the second trial violated the Double Jeopardy Clause.
I
On December 21, 1973, petitioner Phillip Jerome Lee stole two billfolds from the blind operator of a newsstand and candy concession in the lobby of the United States Post Office in Fort Wayne, Ind. A security guard saw Lee take the billfolds and apprehended him as he tried to escape. In an information filed on February 6, 1974, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, the Government charged Lee with the crime of theft, in violation of the Assimilative Crimes Act, 18 U. S. C. § 13, and the applicable Indiana statute, Ind. Code Ann. § 10-3030 (1971 ). Although the defect did not come to light before trial, the allegations of the information were incomplete. The Indiana statute requires proof that the theft be committed knowingly and with intent to deprive the victim of his property. The information made no mention of knowledge or intent and charged only that Lee “did take and steal” the billfolds in violation of the statute. App. 4.
Some two months before trial, Lee’s lawyer withdrew and another was appointed to represent him. Lee waived his right to a jury trial and on July 16, 1974, a bench trial began as scheduled. After the prosecutor’s opening statement, Lee’s new lawyer moved to dismiss the information. The court remarked that the timing of the motion would make full consideration difficult:
“Well, I will consider it, but you certainly were in the case before this morning. It is difficult to deal with a motion to dismiss if you raise any technical questions, and you don’t give me the opportunity in advance of trial to research them. So I will hear you, but you have that problem.” Id., at 8.
Counsel then called the court’s attention to the lack of any allegation of knowledge or intent in the information. Referring the court to the Indiana case of Miller v. State, 250 Ind. 338, 236 N. E. 2d 173 (1968), he argued that if an information failed to charge the specific intent required by § 10-3030, “then the Information must be dismissed.” App. 9. The court tentatively denied the motion:
“Well, since I have had no opportunity to study this at all, I will deny the motion at this time, but at my first opportunity I will check your citation and give consideration as appears to be warranted.
“Is there anything further by way of opening statement?” Ibid.
Defense counsel proceeded to outline Lee’s defense. He offered no objection to going forward with the trial subject to the court’s further study of his motion to dismiss.
The trial lasted less than two hours. After the Government had presented its case, consisting of the testimony of the security guard and the victim, the court recessed for 15 minutes. After the recess Lee moved for a judgment of acquittal on the ground that the prosecution had failed to establish the required intent to deprive the victim of his property. Taking care to distinguish this motion from the earlier motion to dismiss on which it had “reserved the right to do some research,” the court found sufficient evidence of intent to withstand any motion “directed to the Government’s proof.” Id., at 12-13.
The defense then rested without presenting any evidence, and the court returned to the defense motions, again distinguishing between them. Speaking to defense counsel, the court said:
“Your motion addressed to the Government’s proof borders on being frivolous. Your client has been proven [sic] beyond any reasonable doubt in the world, there is no question about his guilt; none whatsoever.” Id., at 13.
The court nonetheless found it necessary to grant the motion to dismiss because of the failure of the information to charge either knowledge or intent:
“The Federal law cases are legion that the sufficiency of the charges is dependent upon its containing the allegations of all of the elements, and all of the elements here are established by the state statute.
“As much as I dislike doing so, I have no alternative but to grant your original motion of dismissal and the charge is dismissed.” Id., at 14.
On September 25, 1974, Lee again was charged with the theft, this time in an indictment alleging all of the elements of the assimilated Indiana crime. On substantially the same evidence as had been presented at the first trial, he was convicted. On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed, rejecting Lee’s claim that the second trial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. 539 F. 2d 612 (1976). We granted certiorari to consider the double jeopardy issue. 429 U. S. 1037 (1977).
II
In urging that his second trial was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause, petitioner directs his principal arguments to the conduct of the first proceeding. He contends (i) that he should never have had to undergo the first trial because the court was made aware of the defective information before jeopardy had attached; and (ii) that once the court had' determined to hear evidence despite the defective charge, he was entitled to have the trial proceed to a formal finding of guilt or innocence. The Government responds that petitioner had only himself to blame in both respects. By the last-minute timing of his motion to dismiss, he virtually assured the attachment of jeopardy; and by failing to withdraw the motion after jeopardy had attached, he virtually invited the court to interrupt the proceedings before formalizing a finding on the merits. We think that the Government has the better of the argument on both points under the principles explained in our decision in United States v. Dinitz, 424 U. S. 600 (1976).
A
The arguments of both sides proceed from the premise that the result in this case would be no different had the District Court characterized its termination of the first trial as a declaration of mistrial rather than a dismissal of the information. We too begin with this premise, although we think it requires qualification in light of United States v. Jenkins, 420 U. S. 358 (1975).
In Jenkins the District Court, having heard the evidence in a bench trial, dismissed an indictment charging refusal to submit to induction into the Armed Services. Under the law of the Second Circuit as it stood at the time of the offense, the induction order was improper and the defendant could not be convicted, although a subsequent decision of this Court had held otherwise. Reasoning that retroactive application of the intervening decision would be unfair, the District Court held that it could not “permit the criminal prosecution of the defendant . . . without seriously eroding fundamental and basic equitable principles of law.” 349 F. Supp. 1068, 1073 (EDNY 1972), quoted at 420 U. S., at 362. On this basis, and without entering any general finding of guilt or innocence, the District Court dismissed the indictment and discharged the defendant.
The issue before this Court was whether a Government appeal from the District Court’s order would violate the Double Jeopardy Clause. Because of the absence of any general finding of guilt, it was clear that if the Government prevailed on the merits of its appeal, further trial proceedings would be needed to resolve “factual issues going to the elements of the offense charged.” Id., at 370. We held that such proceedings would violate the double jeopardy guarantee: “The trial, which could have resulted in a judgment of conviction, has long since terminated in respondent’s favor.” Ibid. In resting our decision on this ground, we recognized that it was “of critical importance” that the proceedings in the trial court had terminated “in the defendant’s favor” rather than in a mistrial. Id., at 365 n. 7.
The distinction drawn by Jenkins does not turn on whether the District Court labels its action a “dismissal” or a “declaration of mistrial.” The critical question is whether the order contemplates an end to all prosecution of the defendant for the offense charged. A mistrial ruling invariably rests on grounds consistent with reprosecution, see United States v. Jorn, 400 U. S. 470, 476 (1971) (plurality opinion), while a dismissal may or may not do so. Where a midtrial dismissal is granted on the ground, correct or not, that the defendant simply cannot be convicted of the offense charged, Jenkins establishes that further prosecution is barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
In the present case, the proceedings against Lee cannot be said to have terminated in his favor. The dismissal clearly was not predicated on any judgment that Lee could never be prosecuted for or convicted of the theft of the two wallets. To the contrary, the District Court stressed that the only obstacle to a conviction was the fact that the information had been drawn improperly. The error, like any prosecutorial or judicial error that necessitates a mistrial, was one that could be avoided — absent any double jeopardy bar — by beginning anew the prosecution of the defendant. And there can be little doubt that the court granted the motion to dismiss in this case in contemplation of just such a second prosecution. In short, the order entered by the District Court was functionally indistinguishable from a declaration of mistrial.
We conclude that the distinction between dismissals and mistrials has no significance in the circumstances here presented and that established double jeopardy principles governing the permissibility of retrial after a declaration of mistrial are fully applicable.
B
When the District Court terminated the first trial in this case it did not act sua sponte but in response to a motion by defense counsel. In United States v. Dinitz, we examined the permissibility of retrial in an analogous situation where the trial court had granted a defense motion for mistrial.
In that case, after jeopardy had attached but well before verdict, the trial judge had excluded one of the defendant’s lawyers from the courtroom for repeatedly disregarding his instructions. The defendant’s remaining lawyer moved for a mistrial and the court granted the motion. The defendant was indicted again on the same charge, his double jeopardy claims were rejected, and he was convicted. When the double jeopardy issue reached this Court, we held that the defendant’s second trial on the same charge did not violate the Fifth Amendment.
Writing for the Court, Mr. Justice Stewart reiterated the rule that “ 'where circumstances develop not attributable to prosecutorial or judicial overreaching, a motion by the defendant for mistrial is ordinarily assumed to remove any barrier to reprosecution, even if the defendant’s motion is necessitated by prosecutorial or judicial error.’ ” 424 U. S., at 607, quoting United States v. Jorn, supra, at 485 (plurality opinion). Recognizing that a prejudicial error committed by court or prosecutor generally presents the defendant with a “Hobson’s choice,” Mr. Justice Stewart nevertheless stressed the importance of preserving the defendant’s “primary control over the course to be followed in the event of such error.” 424 U. S., at 609.
“Even when judicial or prosecutorial error prejudices a defendant’s prospects of securing an acquittal, he may nonetheless desire 'to go to the first jury and, perhaps, end the dispute then and there with an acquittal.’ United States v. Jorn, supra, at 484. Our prior decisions recognize the defendant’s right to pursue this course in the absence of circumstances of manifest necessity requiring a sua sponte judicial declaration of mistrial. But it is evident that when judicial or prosecutorial error seriously prejudices a defendant, he may have little interest in completing the trial and obtaining a verdict from the first jury. The defendant may reasonably conclude that a continuation of the tainted proceeding would result in a conviction followed by a lengthy appeal and, if a reversal is secured, by a second prosecution. In such circumstances, a defendant’s mistrial request has objectives not unlike the interests served by the Double Jeopardy Clause — the avoidance of the anxiety, expense, and delay occasioned by multiple prosecutions.” Id., at 608.
Where the defendant, by requesting a mistrial, exercised his choice in favor of terminating the trial, the Double Jeopardy Clause generally would not stand in the way of reprosecution. Only if the underlying error was “motivated by bad faith or undertaken to harass or prejudice/’ id., at 611, would there be any barrier to retrial:
“The Double Jeopardy Clause does protect a defendant against governmental actions intended to provoke mistrial requests and thereby to subject defendants to the substantial burdens imposed by multiple prosecutions. It bars retrials where ‘bad-faith conduct by judge or prosecutor/ United States v. Jorn, supra, at 485, threatens the ‘[h]arassment of an accused by successive prosecutions or declaration of a mistrial so as to afford the prosecution a more favorable opportunity to convict’ the defendant. Downum v. United States, 372 U. S. [734, 736 (1963)]....” Ibid.
It remains only to apply these principles to the present case.
C
In this case, as in Dinitz, the proceedings were terminated at the defendant’s request and with his consent. Although petitioner’s motion to dismiss the information was initially denied in the course of opening arguments just before the attachment of jeopardy, the court’s remarks left little doubt that the denial was subject to further consideration at an available opportunity in the proceedings — a fact of which the court reminded counsel after the close of the prosecution’s evidence. Counsel for petitioner made no effort to withdraw the motion, either after the initial denial or after the court’s reminder that the motion was still under consideration. And counsel offered no objection when the court, having expressed its views on petitioner’s guilt, decided to terminate the proceedings without having entered any formal finding on the general issue.
It follows under Dinitz that there was no double jeopardy barrier to petitioner’s retrial unless the judicial or prosecu-torial error that prompted petitioner’s motion was “intended to provoke” the motion or was otherwise “motivated by bad faith or undertaken to harass or prejudice” petitioner. Supra, at 33. Here, two underlying errors are alleged: the prosecutor’s failure to draft the information properly and the court’s denial of the motion to dismiss prior to the attachment of jeopardy. Neither error — even assuming the court’s action could be so characterized — was the product of the kind of overreaching outlined in Dinitz. The drafting error was at most an act of negligence, as prejudicial to the Government as to the defendant. And the court’s failure to postpone the taking of evidence until it could give full consideration to the defendant’s motion, far from evidencing bad faith, was entirely reasonable in light of the last-minute timing of the motion and the failure of counsel to request a continuance or otherwise impress upon the court the importance to petitioner of not being placed in jeopardy on a defective charge.
We hold that petitioner’s retrial after dismissal of the defective information at his request did not violate the Double Jeopardy Clause.
Affirmed.
The statute provides in pertinent part that a person commits theft when he “knowingly . . . obtains or exerts unauthorized control over property of the owner . . . and . . . intends to deprive the owner of the use or benefit of the property This provision has been repealed effective July 1, 1977.
Federal Rule Crim. Proe. 7 (e) provides that a district court “may permit an information to be amended at any time béfore verdict or finding if no additional or different offense is charged and if substantial rights of the defendant are not prejudiced.”
At no time in the course of the first trial did either the' defense or the prosecution raise the possibility that the information might be amended under this provision.
As this was a bench trial, jeopardy did not attach until the court began to hear evidence. Serfass v. United States, 420 U. S. 377, 388 (1975).
Both sides assume that the District Court’s statements, made to justify denial of Lee’s motion for judgment of acquittal, that he had been “proven [sic] beyond any reasonable doubt in the world” and that there was “no question about his guilt; none whatsoever,” supra, at 26, do not amount to a general finding of guilt. We agree that the court’s comments, in the context in which they were made, cannot be viewed fairly as a general finding of guilt analogous to a jury verdict. See n. 7, infra.
In a single footnote to his main brief, petitioner appears to rely on a distinction “between an action terminated by mistrial and one terminated by dismissal.” Brief for Petitioner 18 n. 25. But in the text of that brief petitioner consistently assumes that the permissibility of retrial is controlled by the same considerations in either case. Id., at 14r-25. And at oral argument, counsel conceded that “whether [the termination of the first trial] is characterized as a mis-trial or characterized as a dismissal, the result in this case must be the same.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 17.
The findings and conclusions accompanying the District Court’s order left it unclear whether the court had ruled only that the intervening decision was not retroactive or had found, in addition, that the defendant’s reliance on prior law had deprived him of the required criminal intent. See 420 U. S., at 362 n. 3, and 367-368.
In United States v. Wilson, 420 U. S. 332 (1975), we held that the Double Jeopardy Clause would permit a Government appeal from a post-verdict ruling because the only result of reversal would be reinstatement of the verdict. But in Jenkins the District Court had not reached a general finding of guilt that could be reinstated if the Government prevailed on the merits of its appeal. We noted that “[e]ven if the District Court were to receive no additional evidence, it would still be necessary for it to make supplemental findings.” 420 U. S., at 370.
The Court of Appeals had held that the order dismissing the indictment was an acquittal since the District Court had relied on facts developed at trial and had concluded that the statute should not be applied to Jenkins “as a matter of fact.” 490 P. 2d 868, 878 (CA2 1973), quoted at 420 U. S., at 364. Our disposition made it unnecessary to address the validity of this reasoning. We recently made it clear that a trial court's ruling in favor of the defendant is an acquittal only if it "actually represents a resolution, correct or not, of some or all of the factual elements of the offense charged.” United States v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 430 U. S. 564, 571 (1977). In this case, petitioner concedes, as he must, that the District Court's termination of the first trial was not an acquittal.
In Illinois v. Somerville, 410 U. S. 458 (1973), a state prosecutor made precisely the same mistake as was made in this case in drafting an indictment for theft. Discovery of the defect in the course of trial led the trial court to declare a mistrial over the defendant’s objection. We held that termination of the trial was dictated by “manifest necessity” under the standard first articulated in United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579, 580 (1824). There is no reason to believe that Somerville would have been analyzed differently if the trial judge, like the District Court here, had labeled his action a “dismissal” rather than a mistrial. In Jenkins we referred specifically to Somerville in distinguishing proceedings that end in mistrials from those that end “in the defendant’s favor.” 420 U. S., at 365 n. 7.
What has been said is sufficient to dispose of petitioner’s further claim that his retrial violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Cf. Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U. S. 319, 328 (1937).
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 leave to file a conditional petition for rehearing is granted and the petition for rehearing is also granted. The order of December 16, 1963, 375 U. S. 954, denying the petition for writ of certiorari is vacated, and the petition for writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is reversed in conformity with our decision in Maryland for the use of Levin et al. v. United States, 381 U. S. 41, and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for further proceedings with respect to the unresolved issues tendered in respondents’ bill of complaint.
R ü g0 ordere±
Mr. Justice Clark and Mr. Justice Harlan, believing that a remand is legally unjustified, dissent from that part of the Court’s order.
Mr. Justice Fortas 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: | 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.
We granted the writ of certiorari in this case to consider whether the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had erred in holding that the petitioner had properly been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in order to avoid apprehension for the robbery of a federally insured bank. The Court of Appeals purported to uphold a conviction for this offense, though there was no evidence that the petitioner knew of the plan to commit murder, and he had been confined in prison for several months prior to the date the murder was committed. The memorandum for the United States in opposition to the granting of the writ urged that the petitioner was “responsible for the actions of his co-conspirators in killing one member of the group/’ and as to this issue, relied on the opinion of the Court of Appeals.
It now appears that these statements in the opinion of the Court of Appeals and in the memorandum of the United States were erroneous, and that the facts are not as we believed them to be at the time we granted the writ. The record shows that the petitioner was neither charged with nor convicted of the offense of conspiracy to commit murder. The conspiracy count on which the petitioner was convicted did not include any charge of conspiracy to murder. Indeed, in his closing argument to the jury the prosecutor stated that the petitioner had left the conspiracy prior to the murder, when he was returned to the penitentiary.
Inasmuch as our grant of the writ of certiorari in this case was predicated on the mistaken representation that the petitioner had been convicted of the offense of conspiracy to commit murder, we now dismiss the writ as improvidently granted.
It is so ordered.
400 U. S. 991.
424 F. 2d 951. The opinion recites that the conspiracy count on which the petitioner was convicted “alleged a conspiracy to rob federally insured banks with dangerous weapons and to commit murder to avoid apprehension for same.” 424 F. 2d, at 953. The court went on to say, “As to Bostic, although he had been returned to the penitentiary sometime before Ferguson’s murder, there is no evidence that he had renounced or withdrawn from the conspiracy.” 424 F. 2d, at 964.
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 Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Two cases, consolidated by the trial court and raising related issues, are here involved. In United States v. Cargill, Inc., the Government asked that parties responsible for the allegedly negligent sinking of a vessel in an inland waterway be declared responsible for removing the impediment to navigation thus created. In United States v. Wyandotte Transportation Co. the United States had itself removed a sunken vessel; claiming that the vessel had been negligently sunk, it sought reimbursement for the costs of removal. The question now before us for decision is whether the relief requested in these cases is available to the United States.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana concluded that such relief is not available. After the cases were consolidated, that court granted summary judgment against the United States in each instance. The court decided that the Government has no in personam rights against those responsible for having- negligently sunk a vessel. In its view, the United States is limited to an in rem right against the cargo of the negligently sunk vessel and against the vessel itself. United States v. Cargill, Inc., 1964 A. M. C. 1742.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed. It held that under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, 30 Stat. 1151 et seg., as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 401 et seq., the United States may assert in personam rights — to in-junctive or declaratory relief or damages — against those responsible for the negligent sinking of a vessel. United States v. Cargill, Inc., 367 F. 2d 971 (1966). Because of a conflict among the circuits and because of the important question regarding interpretation of a statute of the United States, we granted certiorari. 386 U. S. 906 (1967). We affirm the judgment below.
The crucial facts of both cases occurred in March 1961. The Cargill libel alleges that, at that time, a supertanker bound up the Mississippi for Baton Rouge, Louisiana, collided with two barges moored by a tug. The barges were owned by petitioner Cargo Carriers, Inc., and petitioner Jeffersonville Boat and Machine Co., respectively. The Government was notified immediately after the accident that the two barges had sunk. A few days later, it was served with notice that the barges were being abandoned. The United States refused, however, to accept abandonment or to assume responsibility for removing the wrecks. In December 1962, it brought suit against the owners, managers, charterers, and insurers of the two barges, seeking a decree that the respondents were responsible for removing the sunken vessels. The Government charged that negligence in the equipping, manning, and mooring of the barges had caused the sinking. To this date, the barges involved in this case remain in the Mississippi.
The Wyandotte libel is founded on facts more dramatic. A barge loaded with 2,200,000 pounds of liquid chlorine sank while being pushed in the Mississippi near Yidalia, Louisiana. Wyandotte, the owner of the barge, at first made some attempts to locate and raise the wreck. But then, in November 1961, Wyandotte informed the Army Corps of Engineers that it believed further efforts to raise the barge would be unsuccessful. Wyandotte stated that it was abandoning the vessel. The Government began a study of the danger posed by such a substantial load of chlorine at the bottom of the Mississippi. It was feared that if any chlorine escaped it would be in the form of lethal chlorine, gas, which might cause a large number of casualties. The Government demanded that Wyandotte remove the barge. Wyandotte refused to do this.
The United States then moved to avert a catastrophe by locating and raising the barge and its deadly cargo. In October 1962, the President proclaimed the presence of the barge to be a major disaster under the Disaster Relief Act, 64 Stat. 1109, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1855-1855g. Safety precautions on a grand scale were taken, and a team of experienced divers sought gingerly to raise Wy-andotte’s barge. These operations, costing the United States some $3,081,000, proved successful.
The United States demanded that the owners and operators of the barge reimburse the Government for its expenses. This demand was rejected. In January 1963, the Government brought suit, in rem against the barge and her cargo, and in personam against the owner of the barge, the owner of the boat that had been pushing the barge when it sank, and the owner of the chlorine cargo. The libel charged these parties with negligence and fault in the design, towing, manning, mooring, and equipping of the barge. The Government sought a decree for the costs it incurred in removing the wreck.
I.
Although the Government has advanced several discrete grounds for affirmance, we do not pause to examine each of them. We agree that § 15 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, 33 U. S. C. § 409, read in light of our decision in United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482 (1960), controls the issues here presented. Section 15 reads in relevant part as follows:
“It shall not be lawful... to voluntarily or carelessly sink, or permit or cause to be sunk, vessels or other craft in navigable channels.... And whenever a vessel, raft or other craft is wrecked and sunk in a navigable channel, accidentally or otherwise, it shall be the duty of the owner of such sunken craft to immediately mark it with a buoy or beacon during the day and a lighted lantern at night, and to maintain such marks until the sunken craft is removed or abandoned, and the neglect or failure of the said owner so to do shall be unlawful; and it shall be the duty of the owner of such sunken craft to commence the immediate removal of the same, and prosecute such removal diligently, and failure to do so shall be considered as an abandonment of such craft, and subject the same to removal by the United States as provided for in sections 411-416, 418, and 502 of this title.” 33 U. S. C. §409.
Petitioners do not dispute, as indeed they could not, that the negligent sinking of a vessel falls within the prohibition of the first above-quoted clause of § 15. They contend, however, that the Act contains specific remedies for such a violation of § 15, and that those remedies were meant by Congress to be exclusive of all others. Petitioners point to the § 16 duty of the owner to mark and remove a sunken craft. They note that failure to remove “shall be considered as an abandonment of such craft, and subject the same to removal by the United States.” And petitioners call our attention to §§ 19 and 20 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. §§ 414-415, which set forth the procedure whereby the United States may remove a sunken craft that “shall be considered as” abandoned under § 15. Section 19 provides that whenever a sunken vessel exists as an obstruction to any navigable waters of the United States for a period longer than 30 days, or whenever the abandonment of such obstruction can be legally established in a shorter time, the sunken vessel “shall be subject to be broken up, removed, sold, or otherwise disposed of by the Secretary of the Army at his discretion, without liability for any damage to the owners of the same.” That section further contemplates “[t]hat any money received from the sale of any such wreck... shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States.” 33 U. S. C. § 414. Section 20, an emergency provision applicable only when a sunken vessel obstructs a waterway “in such manner as to stop, seriously interfere with, or specially endanger navigation,” 33 U. S. C. § 415, is similar in structure to § 19.
Finally, petitioners emphasize that § 16 of the Act provides criminal penalties for “[e]very person and every corporation that shall violate, or that shall knowingly aid, abet, authorize, or instigate a violation of the provisions [of § 15].” 33 U. S. C. § 411. They point out that § 12 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 406, which provides penalties for violations of § 10, 33 U. S. C. § 403, expressly authorizes the injunctive remedy. They argue that the lack of such an authorization in § 16 should be taken to mean that Congress did not intend the United States to be able to obtain what is, in effect, injunctive relief as a remedy for a violation of § 15.
The position of petitioners is, therefore, that in the case of a negligently sunk vessel, the Government may require the owner to mark it; it may expect him to remove it or forfeit his interest in the vessel; and if the Government proceeds to remove the vessel, it possesses the right to sell vessel and cargo and retain the proceeds of these sales. Moreover, the Government may proceed criminally, under § 16, against those responsible for the negligent sinking. But, petitioners argue, the Government may do no more. Under their view, the very detail of the Rivers and Harbors Act negates the possibility that Congress intended the Government to be able to recover removal expenses exceeding the value of the vessel and its cargo. Petitioners would apply the same analysis to a government action for declaratory or injunctive relief. Indeed, petitioners believe that authorization of the injunction remedy in another, analogous, section of the Act indicates congressional intent to withhold declaratory or injunctive relief as a means of enforcing § 15.
We do not agree. Petitioners’ interpretation of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 would ascribe to Congress an intent at variance with the purpose of that statute. Petitioners’ proposal is, moreover, in disharmony with our own prior construction of the Act, with our decisions on analogous issues of statutory construction, and with a major maritime statute of the United States. If there were no other reasonable interpretation of the statute, or if petitioners could adduce some persuasive indication that their interpretation accords with the congressional intent, we might be more disposed to accept that interpretation. But our reading of the Act does not lead us to the conclusion that Congress must have intended the statutory remedies and procedures to be exclusive of all others. There is no indication anywhere else — in the legislative history of the Act, in the predecessor statutes, or in nonstatu-tory law — that Congress might have intended that a party who negligently sinks a vessel should be shielded from personal responsibility. We therefore hold that the remedies and procedures specified by the Act for the enforcement of § 15 were not intended to be exclusive. Applying the principles of our decision in Republic Steel, we conclude that other remedies, including those here sought, are available to the Government.
II.
Article I, § 8, of the Constitution grants to Congress the power to regulate commerce. For the exercise of this power, the navigable waters of the United States are to be deemed the “public property of the nation, and subject to all the requisite legislation by Congress.” Gilman v. Philadelphia, 3 Wall. 713, 725 (1866). The Federal Government is charged with ensuring that navigable waterways, like any other routes of commerce over which it has assumed control, remain free of obstruction. Cf. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564, 586 (1895). The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, an assertion of the sovereign power of the United States, Sanitary District v. United States, 266 U. S. 405 (1925), was obviously intended to prevent obstructions in the Nation’s waterways. Despite some difficulties with the wording of the Act, we have consistently found its coverage to be broad. See, e. g., Sanitary District v. United States, supra; United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482 (1960). And we have found that a principal beneficiary of the Act, if not the principal beneficiary, is the Government itself. United States v. Republic Steel Corp., supra, at 492.
Our decisions have established, too, the general rule that the United States may sue to protect its interests. Cotton v. United States, 11 How. 229 (1851); United States v. San Jacinto Tin Co., 125 U. S. 273 (1888); Sanitary District v. United States, supra. This rule is not necessarily inapplicable when the particular governmental interest sought to be protected is expressed in a statute carrying criminal penalties for its violation. United States v. Republic Steel Corp., supra. Our decisions in cases involving civil actions of private parties based on the violation of a penal statute so indicate. Texas & Pacific R. Co. v. Rigsby, 241 U. S. 33 (1916); J. I. Case Co. v. Borak, 377 U. S. 426 (1964). In those cases we concluded that criminal liability was inadequate to ensure the full effectiveness of the statute which Congress had intended. Because the interest of the plaintiffs in those cases fell within the class that the statute was intended to protect, and because the harm that had occurred was of the type that the statute was intended to forestall, we held that civil actions were proper. That conclusion was in accordance with a general rule of the law of torts. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 286. We see no reason to distinguish the Government, and to deprive the United States of the benefit of that rule.
The inadequacy of the criminal penalties explicitly provided by § 16 of the Rivers and Harbors Act is beyond dispute. That section contains only meager monetary penalties. In many cases, as here, the combination of these fines and the Government’s in rem rights would not serve to reimburse the United States for removal expenses. It is true that § 16 also provides for prison terms, but this punishment is hardly a satisfactory remedy for the pecuniary injury which the negligent shipowner may inflict upon the sovereign. Cf. United States v. Acme Process Equipment Co., 385 U. S. 138 (1966).
It was a similar process of reasoning that underlay our decision in United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482 (1960). That case concerned the deposit of industrial solids which, we believed, created an “obstruction... to the navigable capacity” of a waterway of the United States, within the meaning of § 10 of the Act. We decided that the Government might seek injunctive relief to compel removal of such an obstruction, even though such relief was nowhere specifically authorized in the Act. We concluded that the authorization of injunctive relief in § 12, which is applicable only to a limited category of § 10 obstructions (structures), should not be read to exclude injunctions to compel removal of other types of § 10 obstructions. In referring to the Act, we noted that “Congress has legislated and made its purpose clear; it has provided enough federal law in § 10 from which appropriate remedies may be fashioned even though they rest on inferences. Otherwise we impute to Congress a futility inconsistent with the great design of this legislation.” 362 U. S., at 492.
Although we do not approach the instant cases in the context of § 10, we believe the principles of Republic Steel apply, by analogy, to the issues now before us. The Government may, in our view, seek an order that a negligent party is responsible for rectifying the wrong done to maritime commerce by a § 15 violation. Denial of such a remedy to the United States would permit the result, extraordinary in our jurisprudence, of a wrongdoer shifting responsibility for the consequences of his negligence onto his victim. It might in some cases permit the negligent party to benefit from commission of a criminal act. We do not believe that Congress intended to withhold from the Government a remedy that ensures the full effectiveness of the Act. We think we correctly divine the congressional intent in inferring the availability of that remedy from the prohibition of § 15.
It is but a small step from declaratory relief to a civil action for the Government’s expenses incurred in removing a negligently sunk vessel. See United States v. Perma Paving Co., 332 F. 2d 754 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1964). Having properly chosen to remove such a vessel, the United States should not lose the right to place responsibility for removal upon those who negligently sank the vessel. See Restatement of Restitution § 115; United States v. Moran Towing & Transportation Co., 374 F. 2d 656, 667 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1967). No issue regarding the propriety of the Government’s removal of Wyandotte’s barge is now raised. Indeed, the facts surrounding that sinking constitute a classic case in which rapid removal by someone was essential. Wyandotte was unwilling to effectuate removal itself. It would be surprising if Congress intended that, in such a situation, the Government’s commendable performance of Wyandotte’s duty must be at Government expense. Indeed, in any case in which the Act provides a right of removal in the United States, the exercise of that right should not relieve negligent parties of the responsibility for removal. Otherwise, the Government would be subject to a financial penalty for the correct performance of its duty to prevent impediments in inland waterways. See United States v. Perma Paving Co., supra, at 758.
We note, moreover, that under the Limitation of Shipowners’ Liability Act of 1851, 9 Stat. 635, as amended, 46 U. S. C. § 181 et seg., the liability of a shipowner “for any loss, damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture” may be limited to “the interest of such owner in such vessel, and her freight then pending”; but this limitation is available only if the act or damage occurred “without the privity or knowledge of such owner.” 46 U. S. C. § 183. “For his own fault, neglect and contracts the owner remains liable.” American Car & Foundry Co. v. Brassert, 289 U. S. 261, 264 (1933). The reading that petitioners would place on the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 would create an additional right of limitation, applicable in the special case of a sinking even though the owner is himself negligent. Yet Congress gave no indication, in passing the Rivers and Harbors Act, that it intended to alter or qualify the 1851 Act. In the congressional failure to connect these two statutes, we find at least some evidence that petitioners’ discovery of a limitation of liability in the Rivers and Harbors Act is unwarranted.
III.
Petitioners contend that, despite our prior decisions and the silence of the Rivers and Harbors Act on this point, that statute authorizes them simply to abandon their negligently sunk vessels, without further responsibility for those vessels. We find in the Act no support for such an absolute right of abandonment. The provision upon which petitioners place most reliance, the final clause of § 16, creates a “duty of the owner of [a] sunken craft to commence the immediate removal of the same, and prosecute such removal diligently.”' Because “failure to do so shall be considered as an abandonment of such craft, and subject the same to removal by the United States as provided for in sections [19 and 20],” petitioners contend that such failure in no case has other consequences. But the duty imposed by and the remedy provided in the final clause of § 15 and §§19 and 20 are not prescribed only for owners of negligently sunk ves-seis. Those provisions apply “whenever a vessel... is wrecked and sunk in a navigable channel, accidentally or otherwise....” Unlike a negligent sinking, a non-negligent sinking is not declared by the Act to be unlawful. It seems highly unlikely that Congress, having specified that only a negligent or intentional sinking is a crime, would then employ such indirect language to grant the culpable owner a personal civil immunity from the consequences of that crime.
We believe the sections noted by petitioners are intended to protect the United States against liability for removing a sunken vessel if it chooses to do so. See Zubik v. United States, 190 F. 2d 278 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1951); Gulf Coast Transp. Co. v. Ruddock-Orleans Cypress Co., 17 F. 2d 858 (D. C. E. D. La. 1927). Section 19 speaks explicitly of the discretion of the Secretary of the Army to break up, remove, sell, or otherwise dispose of a sunken vessel that has obstructed a waterway “without liability for any damage to the owners of the same.” These sections do not negate the rights of the United States to obtain declaratory relief or to recover removal expenses. It is true that a proviso to § 19 states “[t]hat any money received from the sale of any such wreck... shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States.” But that proviso does not indicate that the United States, having chosen to remove a sunken vessel, shall receive no other monies. At most, the proviso establishes the proposition that, if the United States chooses to sell a wreck, the owner of the vessel has no right to any monies received. Section 20, the emergency section, closely parallels § 19. It adds nothing to petitioners' argument.
Petitioners also claim that a substantial body of non-statutory law establishes the rule that a shipowner who has negligently sunk a vessel may abandon it and be insulated from all but in rem liability. They argue that Congress must have intended to codify this rule in the Rivers and Harbors Act. We do not accept petitioners’ claim. Although several modern courts have assumed the existence of such a common-law rule, see, e. g., United States v. Moran Towing & Transportation Co., 374 F. 2d 656, 667 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1967); United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 319 F. 2d 512, 518-519 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963), the rule evaporates upon close analysis. We do not believe Congress intended the Rivers and Harbors Act to embody this illusory nonstatutory law.
IV.
These cases were decided in the District Court on petitioners’ motions for summary judgment. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for further proceedings. As we have noted, the Government’s libels were based on a theory of negligence, and the award of the Court of Appeals called for a determination whether the acts of the various petitioners constituted negligence. We agree with that disposition.
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Marshall took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
There is some dispute as to whether the United States ever agreed to remove the owner’s barge. The Court of Appeals was cognizant of this issue but concluded that its resolution of the cases made a decision on this point unnecessary. We agree. We therefore do not pass on the questions whether the United States asserted the right to remove Wyandotte’s barge or whether the Government, once it has asserted such a right, is precluded from seeking declaratory relief.
Upon motion of the United States, the District Court ordered that the chlorine and its containers be sold and that the proceeds be paid into court pending final disposition of the litigation. The proceeds of this sale were $85,000. Petitioners do not dispute the right of the United States to this sum. See n. 12, infra.
On petition for rehearing, the Court of Appeals affirmed the summary judgment entered in favor of Union Carbide Co., the owner of the chlorine, on the ground that there was no allegation or proof of negligence on its part. That decision is not now before us.
Of the expenses incurred by the United States, approximately $1,565,000 was for engineering costs; the remainder, some $1,516,000, was for public health and safety measures, including allegedly necessary precautions against a possible rupture of the chlorine containers during salvage operations. We do not, of course, pass on the questions whether all of these expenses were necessary to remove the barge or whether the Government may recover all of them.
Thus, we intimate no view as to whether a negligently sunt vessel may be an “obstruction... to the navigable capacity of any of the waters of the United States,” prohibited by § 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899, 33 U. S. C. § 403. This was the ground upon which the Court of Appeals rested its decision. We do not assess any of the Court of Appeals’ conclusions, nor do we decide whether petitioners may be subject to the criminal and other remedies of § 12 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 406, which applies to violations of § 10.
Nor, finally, do we decide whether nonstatutory public nuisance law may form a basis for the relief here sought by the Government. See, e. g., Mayor of Georgetown v. Alexandria Canal Co., 12 Pet. 91, 97 (1838); United States v. Hall, 63 F. 472, 474 (C. A. 1st Cir. 1894); The Ella, [1915] P. Ill (1914); Comment, Substantive and Remedial Problems in Preventing Interferences with Navigation: The Republic Steel Case, 59 Col. L. Rev. 1065, 1067 (1959); Wisdom, Obstructions in Rivers, 119 Just. P. 846 (1955). We therefore do not pass either on the question whether such a nonstatutory right of the sovereign has ever existed in the United States, cf. Willamette Iron Bridge Co. v. Hatch, 125 U. S. 1, 8 (1888); United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482, 486 (1960); or on whether such a right, if it ever did exist, survived the series of enactments beginning with the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1890, 26 Stat. 426, 454, in which Congress asserted the general interest of the United States in the removal of sunken vessels obstructing navigable waters. Cf. In re Debs, 158 U. S. 564 (1895).
It bears emphasis that we are here concerned with the careless or negligent sinking of a vessel, which is specifically declared not to be lawful by the first above-quoted clause of § 15. Negligence is the sole theory of recovery in the Government’s libels. Questions involving a non-negligent sinking, which is not forbidden by § 15, are not now before us and we do not mean to indicate what relief, if any, may be available to the Government in that situation.
The determination of the applicability of § 20 is left by that section to “the opinion of the Secretary of the Army, or any agent of the United States to whom the Secretary may delegate proper authority.” Once the determination is made, the Secretary or his agent may “take immediate possession” of a sunken vessel “so far as to remove or to destroy it and to clear immediately” the obstructed waterway. See n. 20, infra.
Violation is a misdemeanor, punishable by “a fine not exceeding $2,500 nor less than $500, or by imprisonment (in the case of a natural person) for not less than thirty days nor more than one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court...
See n. 5, supra.
As noted, the United States sought declaratory relief in the Cargill action.
The Government notes, in regard to petitioners’ contention that these remedies are exclusive, that they apply only to the owner of a vessel. The Government argues that the position of those allegedly negligent petitioners who are not owners is substantially weaker. But see United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 319 F. 2d 512, 521 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963). We note that the prohibition of § 15 against the negligent sinking of a vessel and the criminal penalties of •§ 16 are not limited to owners. Our disposition of these cases makes it unnecessary for us to pass on the Government’s contention.
Petitioners concede the in rem right of the United States against a negligently sunk vessel and its cargo, see Brief for Petitioners, p. 12, despite the fact that the right of the Government to proceed against cargo is by no means clearly granted by the statute. See § 19, 33 U. S. C. § 414; United States v. Cargo Salvage Corp., 228 F. Supp. 145 (D. C. S. D. N. Y. 1964). See also §16, 33 U. S. C. § 412.
In this conclusion we have been supported by similarly broad readings of similar statutes predating this one. See, e. g., United States v. Rio Orande Irrigation Co., 174 U. S. 690 (1899).
See North Bloomfield, Gravel Min. Co. v. United States, 88 F. 664, 678-679 (C. A. 9th Cir.1898). See also Dann v. Studebaker-Packard Corp., 288 F. 2d 201, 208-209 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1961); Reitmeister v. Reitmeister, 162 F. 2d 691, 694 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1947).
Petitioners would distinguish Republic Steel on the ground that, in that ease, “if... injunctive relief... was not available, the free navigability of the channel would be seriously impaired and Republic Steel Corp., by repeatedly paying the fine imposed [by § 12], would, in effect, be operating under a license.” See Brief for Petitioners, p. 29; United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 319 F. 2d 512, 518 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963). This ground of distinction will not do, for at least three reasons. First, the criminal provisions of § 12 include not only a fine but a prison term. See United States v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 319 F. 2d 512, 523 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963) (dissenting opinion). Second, if fines were in practice the only deterrent in § 12 and § 16, it might well be worthwhile to risk fines rather than take necessary safety measures for tows. Third, the proposed ground of distinction concentrates upon the injunction in Republic Steel against future violations of the Act; it does not explain the mandatory injunction in that case to compel removal of the obstruetion that had already been created at the time of the Government’s suit.
Indeed, the argument for exclusivity was stronger in Republic Steel than it is here. In that case, we decided that injunctive relief was a proper enforcement measure against a violation of the very section to which § 12 (but not the statutory provision of injunctive process) applies.
Wyandotte, noting that Government funds spent in removal operations were provided under the Disaster Relief Act, 42 U. S. C. §§ 1855-1855g, argues that nothing in that Act authorizes the United States to recover disaster relief expenditures from private parties. We agree, but the argument misses the point. We believe the United States may recover its expenses under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. We see nothing in the Disaster Relief Act to the contrary.
We do not, of course, pass on the applicability of the Limitation Act, before or after passage of the Rivers and Harbors Act, to the facts of the case now before us. We only note that the principle for which petitioners are contending is very much like the principle of limitation of liability, known to the statutory maritime law of the United States almost 50 years prior to passage of the Rivers and Harbors Act.
Petitioners’ theory is, moreover, in conflict with the administrative interpretation of the statute. A regulation promulgated by the Department of the Army provides that “a person who... negligently permits a vessel to sink in navigable waters of the United States... may... be compelled to remove the wreck as a public nuisance or to pay for its removal.” 33 CFR § 209.410. The origins of this regulation go back to 1901. Letter from William Cary Sanger, Acting Secretary of War, to William L. Hughes, July 31, 1901. See United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S. 482, 490, n. 5 (1960).
This rule is not unfair. See 41 Tulane L. Rev. 459, 464, n. 29 (1967). The shipowner should know the value of his vessel and cargo. If he believes that value is greater than the cost of removal, he may, within 30 days after the obstruction is created, raise the vessel himself. See § 19, 33 U. S. C. § 414.
Thus, §20 concludes with the proviso “[t]hat the expense of removing any such obstruction as aforesaid shall be a charge against such craft and cargo; and if the owners thereof fail or refuse to reimburse the United States for such expense within thirty days after notification, then the officer or agent aforesaid may sell the craft or cargo, or any part thereof that may not have been destroyed in removal, and the proceeds of such sale shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States.” Petitioners rely heavily on the phrase “shall be a charge against such craft and cargo.” But that phrase does not lead to the conclusion that the Government possesses no other right to recover. The phrase merely describes the lien interest of the United States. See United States v. Moran Towing & Transportation Co., 374 F. 2d 656, 671 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1967) (dissenting opinion). Such a provision is necessary in a § 20 case because, under the terms of that section, the owner is not given a statutory period in which to decide whether the value of his vessel and cargo exceeds the cost of removal and to effectuate removal himself.
Petitioners do not appear to claim that the legislative history of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 clearly indicates the intent of Congress to create or codify this rule. To the extent that any intent appears in the legislative history of the 1899 Act, it is the intent not to alter pre-existing statutory law. Thus, the House conferees said of the statute that it was a “codification of existing laws pertaining to rivers and harbors, though containing no essential changes in the existing law.” 32 Cong. Rec. 2923 (1899); see United States v. Republic Steel Corp., 362 U. S., at 486. The legislative history of prior statutes is scant. And the prior Acts themselves lend no support to petitioners. See Rivers and Harbors Act of 1880, 21 Stat
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
As the result of multiemployer, multistate collective bargaining with the Central States Drivers Council, comprising local unions of truck drivers affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers, a collective bargaining agreement, the “Central States Area Over-the-Road Motor Freight Agreement,” effective February 1, 1955, and expiring January 31, 1961, was entered into by the locals and motor carriers in interstate commerce who operate under the authority of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 12 midwestern States, including Ohio. Article XXXII of this collective bargaining agreement prescribes terms and conditions which regulate the minimum rental and certain other terms of lease when a motor vehicle is leased to a carrier by an owner who drives his vehicle in the carrier’s service. The Ohio courts enjoined the petitioner, Ohio’s Teamsters Local 24 and its president, and the respondent carriers, A. C. E. Transportation Company, Inc., and Interstate Truck Service, Inc., Ohio employers, from giving effect to the provisions of Article XXXII. The Ohio courts held that the Article violates the Ohio antitrust law, known as the Valentine Act. The question is whether the fact that the Article was contained in an agreement which was the fruit of the exercise of collective bargaining rights under the National Labor Relations Act precluded the Ohio courts from applying the Ohio antitrust law to prohibit the parties from carrying out the terms of the Article they had agreed upon in bargaining. No claim is made that Article XXXII violates any provision of federal law.
The Article is in express terms made applicable only to a lessor-driver when he himself drives his vehicle in the business of the lessee-carrier. § 1. The Article, at least in words, constitutes the lessor-driver an employee of the carrier at such times: “The employer [the carrier] expressly reserves the right to control the manner, means and details of, and by which, the owner-operator performs his services, as well as the ends to be accomplished.” § 4. His wages, hours and working conditions are then to be those applied to the carrier’s drivers of carrier-owned vehicles, and he has “seniority as a driver only.” § 2. He must operate his vehicle at such times “exclusively in... [the carrier’s] service and for no other interests.” § 1. The carrier “agrees to pay... social security tax, compensation insurance, public liability and property damage insurance, bridge tolls” and various other fees imposed on motor freight transportation, except “that the owner-driver shall pay license fees in the state in which title is registered.” § 10. The lessor-driver must be compensated by “separate checks... for driver’s wages and equipment rental.” § 6. The wage payment must be in the amount of “the full wage rate and supplementary allowances” payable to carrier drivers similarly circumstanced who drive carrier-owned vehicles. § 12 (a). The equipment rental payment must be in' an amount not less than “the minimum rates” specified by the Article which “result from the joint determination of the parties that such rates represent only the actual cost of operating such [leased] equipment. The parties have not attempted to negotiate a profit for the owner-driver.” § 12 (b). All leases by union members who drive their vehicles for carriers in effect on the operative date of the collective bargaining agreement are to “be dissolved or modified within thirty (30) days” to conform to the terms and conditions of the Article. § 15. The parties declare that “the intent of this clause [the Article]... is to assure the payment of the Union scale of wages... and to prohibit [a carrier from] the making and carrying out of any plan, scheme or device to circumvent or defeat the payment of wage scales provided in this Agreement.... [and] to prevent the continuation of or formation of combinations or corporations or so-called lease of fleet arrangements whereby the driver [of his own vehicle] is required to and does periodically pay losses sustained by the corporation or fleet arrangement, or is required to accept less than the actual cost of the running of his equipment, thus, in fact, reducing his scale of pay.” § 16.
The respondent, Revel Oliver, a member of the union, is the owner of motor equipment which, at the time the collective bargaining agreement was negotiated, was subject to written lease agreements with the carrier respondents, A. C. E. Transportation Company, Inc., and Interstate Truck Service, Inc. The terms and conditions of the leases, particularly in regard to rental compensation, differ substantially from those provided in Article XXXII.
Oliver brought this action on January 20, 1955, in the Court of Common Pleas, Summit County, Ohio, for an injunction restraining the petitioners and the respondent carriers from carrying out the terms of Article XXXII. He obtained a temporary restraining order upon sworn allegations. At the trial the respondent carriers joined with Oliver in making the attack on the Article. The petitioners defended on the ground that the State could not lawfully exercise power to apply its antitrust law to cause a forfeiture of the product of the exercise of federally sanctioned collective bargaining rights. The union justified the Article as necessary to prevent undermining of the negotiated drivers’ wage scale said to result from a practice of carriers of leasing a vehicle from an owner-driver at a rental which returned to the owner-driver less than his actual costs of operation, so that the driver’s wage received by him, although nominally the negotiated wage, was actually a wage reduced by the excess of his operating expenses over the rental he received. The Court of Common Pleas held in an unreported opinion that the National Labor Relations Act could not “be reasonably construed to permit this remote and indirect approach to the subject of wages,” and that Article XXXII was in violation of the State’s antitrust law because “there are restrictions and restraints imposed upon articles [the leased vehicles] that are widely used in trade and commerce.... [and] preclude an owner of property from reasonable freedom of action in dealing with it.” On the petitioners’ appeal to Ohio’s Ninth Judicial District Court of Appeals that court heard the case de novo and affirmed the judgment of the Court of Common Pleas, adopting its opinion. The Court of Appeals entered a permanent injunction perpetually restraining the petitioners and the respondent carriers (1) “from entering into any agreements... or carrying out the... requirements... of any such agreement, which will require the alteration” of Revel Oliver’s “existing lease or leasing agreement”; (2) “from entering into any... agreement or stipulation in the future, or the negotiation therefor, the... tendency of which is to... determine in any manner the rate to be charged for the use of” Revel Oliver’s equipment; (3) “from giving force and effect to Section 32 [sic] of the Contract... or any modification... thereof, the... tendency of which shall attempt to fix the rates” for the use of Revel Oliver’s equipment. Petitioners’ appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court was dismissed for want of a debatable constitutional question. 167 Ohio St. 299, 147 N. E. 2d 856. We granted certiorari to consider the important question raised of the interaction of state and federal power arising from the petitioners’ claim that the Ohio regulation abridges rights protected by federal statute. 356 U. S. 966.
Article XXXII did not originate with the 1955 agreement. The carriers and the union have disputed since 1938 the terms of a carrier’s hire of a lessor’s driving services with his leased vehicle. The usual lease is by the owner of a single vehicle who hires out his services as driver with his vehicle. A carrier’s representative who has participated in all contract negotiations since those leading to the 1938 agreement testified to the history. According to him, the nub of the union’s position over the two decades has been that the carriers abuse the leasing practice, particularly by paying inadequate rentals for the use of leased vehicles, with the result “that part of the men’s wages for driving was being used for the upkeep of their vehicles.... They [the union] claimed that the leased people were breaking down the rate structure....” The union’s demands for contract provisions to safeguard against the alleged abuse were designed also to “secure a living wage [for the lessor] plus an adequate rental for his equipment.” A minimum rental clause first appeared in the 1938 agreement which also contained provisions comparable to §§ 8, 10 and 14 of present Article XXXII. In 1939, after the union claimed that “there was a lot of people that was transferring their title into other people’s name to avoid the conditions of the contract,” § 3 was added to provide that “certificate and title to the equipment must be in the name of the actual owner.” When the dispute brought the parties to the verge of a strike in 1941, the note to § 1 and §§ 13, 15, 16, 17 and 18 came into the agreement. But by 1946 the controversy reached a pitch where the union demanded agreement from the carriers to abolish the leasing practice: “The unions were going to refuse the addition of any individual owners, and the unions also desired to make certain restrictions on the use of owner-operators, again claiming that the... company operators were taking advantage of certain provisions of the contract.” This demand was compromised by the addition of § 19 restricting leasing to carriers “who will agree to submit all grievances pertaining to owner-operators to joint Employer-Union grievance committees in each respective state”; the section “represented the compromise between the union position that it should abolish all owner-operators and the companies’ contention there should be no limitation.”
First. The Ohio courts rejected the petitioners’ contention that the evidence conclusively established that Article XXXII dealt with subject matter within the scope of “collective bargaining” in which federal law gave petitioners the right to engage. The state courts rested their judgments principally on the minimum rental regulations of § 12 of the Article. The principal discussion occurs in the opinion of the Court of Common Pleas. These regulations were held to constitute the Article a price-fixing arrangement violating the Ohio antitrust law in that they evidenced “concerted action of the Union combining with a non-labor third party in a formal contract.... [the] effect [of which] is to oppress and destroy competition.... [and] preclude an owner of property from reasonable freedom of action in dealing with it.”
It seems to us that in considering whether the Article deals with a subject matter within the scope of collective bargaining as defined by federal law the Ohio courts did not give proper significance to the Article’s narrowly restricted application to the times when the owner drives his leased vehicle for the carrier, and to the adverse effects upon the negotiated wage scale which might result when the rental for the use of the leased vehicle was unregulated at these times. Since no claim was presented to the Ohio courts that the petitioners sought to apply these regulations to Revel Oliver’s arrangements with the respondent carriers except on the very infrequent and irregular occasions when Oliver drove one of his vehicles for a carrier, we take it that the Ohio courts’ opinions and judgments relate only to the validity of the Article as applied at such times. This would necessarily be the case as the text of the Article, and that text as illumined by its history, conclusively establish that the regulations in no wise apply to the terms of lease of a vehicle when driven by a driver not the owner of the vehicle; the wages, hours and working conditions to be observed by contracting employers of non-owner drivers are governed by the general provisions in that regard found in other articles of the collective bargaining agreement.
In the light of the Article’s history and purpose, we cannot agree with the Court of Common Pleas that its regulations constitute a “remote and indirect approach to the subject of wages,” outside the range of matters on which the federal law requires the parties to bargain. The text of the Article and its unchallenged history show that its objective is to protect the negotiated wage scale against the possible undermining through diminution of the owner’s wages for driving which might result from a rental which did not cover his operating costs. This is thus but an instance, as this Court said of a somewhat similar union demand in another case, in which a union seeks to protect lawful employee interests against what is believed, rightly or wrongly, to be “a scheme or device utilized for the purpose of escaping the payment of union wages and the assumption of working conditions commensurate with those imposed under union standards.” Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union v. Lake Valley Farm Products, Inc., 311 U. S. 91, 98-99. Looked at in this light, as on the evidence it must be, to determine its relevance to the collective bargaining rights under the Federal Act, the point of the Article is obviously not price fixing but wages. The regulations embody not the “remote and indirect approach to the subject of wages” perceived by the Court of Common Pleas but a direct frontal attack upon a problem thought to threaten the maintenance of the basic wage structure established by the collective bargaining contract. 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. Cf. Bakery Drivers Local v. Wohl, 315 U. S. 769, 771. It is not necessary to attempt to set precise outside limits to the subject matter properly included within the scope of mandatory collective bargaining, cf. Labor Board v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342, to hold, as we do, that the obligation under § 8 (d) on the carriers and their employees to bargain collectively “with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment” and to embody their understanding in “a written contract incorporating any agreement reached/’ found an expression in the subject matter of Article XXXII. See Timken Roller Bearing Co., 70 N. L. R. B. 500, 518, reversed on other grounds, 161 F. 2d 949. And certainly bargaining on this subject through their representatives was a right of the employees protected by § 7 of the Act.
Second. We must decide whether Ohio’s antitrust law may be applied to prevent the contracting parties from carrying out their agreement upon a subject matter as to which federal law directs them to bargain. Little extended discussion is necessary to show that Ohio law cannot be so applied. We need not concern ourselves today with a contractual provision dealing with a subject matter that the parties were under no obligation to discuss; the carriers as employers were under a duty to bargain collectively with the union as to the subject matter of the Article, as we have shown. The goal of federal labor policy, as expressed in the Wagner and Taft-Hart-ley Acts, is the promotion of collective bargaining; to encourage the employer and the representative of the employees to establish, through collective negotiation, their own charter for the ordering of industrial relations, and thereby to minimize industrial strife. See Labor Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 45; Labor Board v. American National Ins. Co., 343 U. S. 395, 401-402. Within the area in which collective bargaining was required, Congress was not concerned with the substantive terms upon which the parties agreed. Cf. Terminal Railroad Assn. v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 318 U. S. 1, 6. The purposes of the Acts are served by bringing the parties together and establishing conditions under which they are to work out their agreement themselves. To allow the application of the Ohio antitrust law here would wholly defeat the full realization of the congressional purpose. The application would frustrate the parties’ solution of a problem which Congress has required them to negotiate in good faith toward solving, and in the solution of which it imposed no limitations relevant here. Federal law here created the duty upon the parties to bargain collectively; Congress has provided for a system of federal law applicable to the agreement the parties made in response to that duty, Textile Workers Union v. Lincoln Mills, 353 U. S. 448; and federal law sets some outside limits (not contended to be exceeded here) on what their agreement may provide, see Allen Bradley Co. v. Local Union, 325 U. S. 797; cf. United States v. Employing Plasterers Assn., 347 U. S. 186, 190. We believe that there is no room in this scheme for the application here of this state policy limiting the solutions that the parties’ agreement can provide to the problems of wages and working conditions. Cf. California v. Taylor, 353 U. S. 553, 566-567. Since the federal law operates here, in an area where its authority is paramount, to leave the parties free, the inconsistent application of state law is necessarily outside the power of the State. Hill v. Florida, 325 U. S. 538, 542-544. Cf. International Union v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454, 457; Amalgamated Assn. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 340 U. S. 383; Plankinton Packing Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 338 U. S. 953. The solution worked out by the parties was not one of a sort which Congress has indicated may be left to prohibition by the several States. Cf. Algoma Plywood & Veneer Co. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Board, 336 U. S. 301, 307-312. Of course, the paramount force of the federal law remains even though it is expressed in the details of a contract federal law empowers the parties to make, rather than in terms in an enactment of Congress. See Railway Employes’ Dept. v. Hanson, 351 U. S. 225, 232. Clearly it is immaterial that the conflict is between federal labor law and the application of what the State characterizes as an antitrust law. “... Congress has sufficiently expressed its purpose to... exclude state prohibition, even though that with which the federal law is concerned as a matter of labor relations be related by the State to the more inclusive area of restraint of trade.” Weber v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc., 348 U. S. 468, 481. We have not here a case of a collective bargaining agreement in conflict with a local health or safety regulation; the conflict here is between the federally sanctioned agreement and state policy which seeks specifically to adjust relationships in the world of commerce. If there is to be this sort of limitation on the arrangements that unions and employers may make with regard to these subjects, pursuant to the collective bargaining provisions of the Wagner and Taft-Hartley Acts, it is for Congress, not the States, to provide it.
Reversed.
The Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Stewart took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Mr. Justice Whittaker,
believing that respondent Oliver, while driving his own tractor in the performance of his independent contract with the respondent carriers, was not an employee of those carriers, but was an independent contractor, United States v. Silk, 331 U. S. 704, and that, as such, he was expressly excluded from the coverage of the National Labor Relations Act by 61 Stat. 137, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (3), would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Judicial District of Ohio.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF THE COURT.
Article XXXII of the Central States Area Over-the-Road Motor Freight Agreement.
Owner-Operators.
Section 1. Owner-operators (See Note), other than certificated or permitted carriers, shall not be covered by this Agreement unless affiliated by lease with a certificated or permitted carrier which is required to operate in full compliance with all the provisions of this Agreement and holding proper ICC and state certificates and permits. Such owner-operators shall operate exclusively in such service and for no other interests.
(NOTE: Whenever “owner-operator” is used in this article, it means owner-driver only, and nothing in this article shall apply to any equipment leased except where owner is also employed as a driver.)
Section 2. This type of operator’s compensation for wages and working conditions shall be in full accordance with all the provisions of this Agreement. The owner-operator shall have seniority as a driver only.
Section 3. Certificate and title to the equipment must be in the name of the actual owner.
Section 4. In all cases, hired or leased equipment shall be operated by an employee of the certificated or permitted carrier. The employer expressly reserves the right to control the manner, means and details of, and by which, the owner-operator performs his services, as well as the ends to be accomplished.
Section 5. Certificated or permitted carriers shall use their own available equipment, together with all leased equipment under minimum thirty-day bona fide lease arrangements, on a rotating board, before hiring any extra equipment.
Section 6. Separate checks shall be issued by the certificated or permitted carriers for driver’s wages and equipment rental. At no time shall the equipment check be for less than actual miles operated. Separate checks for drivers shall not be deducted from the minimum truck rental revenue. The driver shall turn in time direct to the certificated or permitted carrier. All monies due the owner-operator may be held no longer than two weeks, except where the lease of equipment agreement is terminated and in such cases all monies due the operator may be held no longer than thirty (30) days from the date of the termination of the operation of the equipment.
Section 7. Payment for equipment service shall be handled by the issuance of a check for the full mileage operated, tonnage or percentage, less any agreed advances. A statement of any charges by the certificated or permitted carrier shall be issued at the same time, but shall not be deducted in advance.
Section 8. The owner-operator shall have complete freedom to purchase gasoline, oil, grease, tires, tubes, etc., including repair work, at any place where efficient service and satisfactory products can be obtained at the most favorable prices.
Section 9. There shall be no deduction pertaining to equipment operation for any reason whatsoever.
Section 10. The Employer or certificated or permitted carrier hereby agrees to pay road or mile tax, social security tax, compensation insurance, public liability and property damage insurance, bridge tolls, fees for certificates, permits and travel orders, fines and penalties for inadequate certificates, license fees, weight tax and wheel tax, and for loss of driving time due to waiting at state lines, and also cargo insurance. It is expressly understood that the owner-driver shall pay the license fees in the state in which title is registered.
All tolls, no matter how computed, must be paid by the Employer regardless of any agreement to the contrary.
All taxes or additional charges imposed by law relating to actual truck operation and use of highways, no matter how computed or named, shall be paid by the Carrier, excepting only vehicle licensing as such, in the state where title is registered.
Section 11. There shall be no interest or handling charge on earned money advanced prior to the regular pay day.
Section 12. (a) All certificated or permitted carriers hiring or leasing equipment owned and driven by the owner-driver shall file a true copy of the lease agreement covering the owner-driven equipment with the Joint State Committees. The terms of the lease shall cover only the equipment owned and driven by the owner-driver and shall be in complete accord with the minimum rates and conditions provided herein, plus the full wage rate and supplementary allowances for drivers as embodied elsewhere in this Agreement.
(b) The minimum rate for leased equipment owned and driven by the owner-driver shall be:
Per Mile
Single axle, tractor only. 9%0
Tandem axle, tractor only. 100
Single axle, trailer only. 30
Tandem axle, trailer only. 40
75% of the above rates to apply for deadheading, if and when ordered, provided, however, that the 75% rate will apply only on first empty dispatch away from the home terminal; thereafter the full equipment rental rate to apply until driver is redispatched from home terminal; the above rates to be based on 23,000-pound load limit. On load limits over 23,000 pounds, there shall be one-half (y2) cent additional per mile for each 1,000 pounds or fraction thereof in excess of 23,000 pounds. There shall be a minimum guarantee of 24,000 pounds for leased equipment owned and driven by the owner-driver. Nothing herein shall apply to leased equipment not owned by a driver.
The minimum rates set forth above result from the joint determination of the parties that such rates represent only the actual cost of operating such equipment. The parties have not attempted to negotiate a profit for the owner-driver.
Section 13. Driver-owner mileage scale does not include use of equipment for pickup or delivery at point of origin terminal or at point of destination terminal, but shall be subject to negotiations between the Local Union and Company. Failure to agree shall be submitted to the grievance procedure.
Section 14. There shall be no reductions where the present basis of payment is higher than the minimums established herein for this type of operation. Where owner-operator is paid on a percentage or tonnage basis and the operating company reduces its tariff, the percentage or tonnage basis of payment shall be automatically adjusted so that the owner-operator suffers no reduction in equipment rental or wages, or both.
Section 15. It is further understood and agreed that any arrangements which have heretofore been entered into between members of this Union, either among themselves or with the Employer or with the aid of the Employer, applicable to owner-driver equipment contrary to the terms hereof, shall be dissolved or modified within thirty (30) days after the signing of this Agreement so that such arrangements shall apply only to equipment of the owner-driver while being driven by such owner-driver. In the event that the parties cannot agree on a method of dissolution or modification of such arrangement to make the same conform to this Agreement, the question of dissolution or modification shall be submitted to arbitration, each party to select one member of the arbitration board, and the two so selected to choose a third member of said board. If the two cannot agree upon the third within five (5) days, he shall be appointed by the Joint State Committee. The decision of said board to be final and binding.
Section 16. It is further agreed that the intent of this clause and this entire Agreement is to assure the payment of the Union scale of wages as provided in this Agreement and to prohibit the making and carrying out of any plan, scheme or device to circumvent or defeat the payment of wage scales provided in this Agreement. This clause is intended to prevent the continuation of or formation of combinations or corporations or so-called lease of fleet arrangements whereby the driver is required to and does periodically pay losses sustained by the corporation or fleet arrangement, or is required to accept less than the actual cost of the running of his equipment, thus, in fact, reducing his scale of pay.
Section 17. It is further agreed that if the Employer or certificated or permitted carrier requires that the “driver-owner-operator” sell his equipment to the Employer or certificated or permitted carrier, directly or indirectly, the “driver-owner-operator” shall be paid the fair true value of such equipment. Copies of the instruments of sale shall be filed with the Union and unless objected to within ten (10) days shall be deemed satisfactory. If any question is raised by the Union as to such value, the same shall be submitted to arbitration, as above set forth, for determination. The decision of the arbitration board shall be final and binding.
Section 18. It is further agreed that the Employer or certificated or permitted carrier will not devise or put into operation any scheme, whether herein enumerated or not, to defeat the terms of this Agreement, wherein the provisions as to compensation for services on and for use of equipment owned by owner-driver shall be lessened, nor shall any owner-driver lease be cancelled for the purpose of depriving Union employees of employment, and any such complaint that should arise pertaining to such cancellation of lease or violation under this section shall be subject to ARTICLE X.
Section 19. (a) The use of individual owner-operators shall be permitted by all certificated or permitted carriers who will agree to submit all grievances pertaining to owner-operators to joint Employer-Union grievance committees in each respective state. It is understood and agreed that all such grievances will be promptly heard and decided with the specific purpose in mind of
(1) protecting provisions of the Union contract;
(2) prohibiting any and all violations directly or indirectly of contract provisions relating to the proper use of individual owners;
(3) prohibiting any attempts by any certificated or permitted carrier in changing his operation which will affect the rights of drivers under the terms of the contract, and generally the certificated or permitted carriers agree to assume responsibility in policing and doing everything within their power to eliminate all alleged abuses in the use of owner-drivers which resulted in the insertion of Section 19 (Article XXXIII) in the original 1945-47 Over-the-Road contract;
(4) owner-driver operations to be terminal to terminal, except where no local employees to make such deliveries or otherwise agreed to in this contract;
(5) the certificated or permitted carriers agree that they will, with a joint meeting of the Unions, set up uniform rules and practices under which all such cases will be heard;
(6) it shall be considered a violation of the contract should any operator deduct from rental of equipment the increases provided for by the 1955 Amendments or put into effect any means of evasion to circumvent actual payment of increases agreed upon effective for the period starting February 1, 1955, and ending January 31, 1961.
(b) No owner-operator shall be permitted to drive or hold seniority where he owns three or more pieces of leased equipment. This provision shall not apply to present owner-operators having three or more pieces of equipment under lease agreement, but such owner-operator shall not be permitted to put additional equipment in service so long as he engages in work covered by this Agreement or holds seniority. Where owner-operator drives, he can hold seniority where he works sixty (60) per cent or more of time.
Certificates of convenience and necessity are issued to common carriers pursuant to §§ 206-208 of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 Stat. 551, 552, as amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 306-308; permits are issued to contract carriers pursuant to § 209, 49 Stat. 552, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 309.
The agreement covers between 3,000 and 3,500 employers and between 45,000 and 50,000 truck drivers. Those covered in Ohio consist of approximately 500 employers and 6,000 drivers. Upwards of 90% of the Ohio drivers drive equipment owned by carriers who operate under I. C. C. certificates or permits. The rest of the covered drivers own their own equipment, usually one vehicle, but since they are not holders of I. C. C. certificates or permits, they lease their equipment to, and drive it for, certificated or permitted carriers.
For the text of Article XXXII, see Appendix, post, p. 298.
For details of I. C. C. regulations governing the relationship between certificated carriers and the lessors of motor vehicle equipment, see the discussion in American Trucking Assns., Inc., v. United States, 344 U. S. 298.
The specific provision involved, Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 1331.01, provides as follows:
“As used in sections 1331.01 to 1331.14, inclusive, of the Revised Code:
“(A) ‘Person’ includes corporations, partnerships, and associations existing under or authorized by any state or territory of the United States, or a foreign country.
“(B) ‘Trust’ is a combination of capital, skill, or acts by two or more persons for any of the following purposes:
“(1) To create or carry out restrictions in trade or commerce;
“(2) To limit or reduce the production, or increase or reduce the price of merchandise or a commodity;
“(3) To prevent competition in manufacturing, making, transportation, sale, or purchase of merchandise, produce, or a commodity;
“(4) To fix at a standard or figure, whereby its price to the public or consumer is in any manner controlled or established, an article or commodity of merchandise, produce, or commerce intended for sale, barter, use, or consumption in this state;
“(5) To make, enter into, execute, or carry out contracts, obligations, or agreements of any kind by which they bind or have bound themselves not to sell, dispose of, or transport an article or commodity, or an article of trade, use, merchandise, commerce, or consumption below a common standard figure or fixed value, or by which they agree in any manner to keep the price of such article, commodity, or transportation at a fixed or graduated figure, or by which they shall in any manner establish or settle the price of an article, commodity, or transportation between them or themselves and others, so as directly or indirectly to preclude a free and unrestricted competition among themselves, purchasers, or consumers in the sale or transportation of such article or commodity, or by which they agree to pool, combine, or directly or indirectly unite any interests which they have connected with the sale or transportation of such article or commodity, that its price might in any manner be affected.
“A trust as defined in division (B) of this section is unlawful and void.”
Involved are §§ 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended and re-enacted by the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. §§ 157, 158. Section 7 is as follows:
“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).”
Sections 8 (a) (5) and 8 (b) (3) require employers and labor organizations to bargain collectively. Section 8 (d), in pertinent part, provides:
“For the purposes of this section, to bargain collectively is the performance of the mutual obligation of the employer and the representative of the employees to meet at reasonable times and confer in good faith with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, or the negotiation of an agreement, or any question arising thereunder, and the execution of a written contract incorporating any agreement reached if requested by either party....”
Oliver is rather unusual among Ohio owner-drivers because he owns not one vehicle but a fleet, six trucks and four trailers, each of which is under a lease agreement with one or the other of the carrier respondents. Oliver drove only occasionally, “every month or so for A. C. E. and every eight months or so for Interstate,” and Article XXXII applied to his leases only as to the vehicle he drove on those occasions.
Accordingly, § 15 of Art. XXXII required the carriers to take steps to modify both agreements. The Interstate Truck Service lease with Oliver was for a fixed term, but contained a five-day cancellation clause. The agreement between A. C. E. and Oliver was not for any fixed term and was brought into effect by the issuance of individual waybills and manifests for particular hauls.
The restraints entered by the judgment and order of the Court of Appeals filed September 30, 1957, are:
“(a) That the defendants-appellees, A. C. E
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.
Per Curiam.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
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. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari, 436 U. S. 943, to consider whether federal patent law pre-empts state contract law so as to pre-elude enforcement of a contract to pay royalties to a patent applicant, on sales of articles embodying the putative invention, for so long as the contracting party sells them, if a patent is not granted.
(1)
In October 1955 the petitioner, Mrs. Jane Aronson, filed an application, Serial No. 542677, for a patent on a new form of keyholder. Although ingenious, the design was so simple that it readily could be copied unless it was protected by patent. In June 1956, while the patent application was pending, Mrs. Aronson negotiated a contract with the respondent, Quick Point Pencil Co., for the manufacture and sale of the keyholder.
The contract was embodied in two documents. In the first, a letter from Quick Point to Mrs. Aronson, Quick Point agreed to pay Mrs. Aronson a royalty of 5% of the selling price in return for “the exclusive right to make and sell keyholders of the type shown in your application, Serial No. 542677.” The letter further provided that the parties would consult one another concerning the steps to be taken “[i]n the event of any infringement.”
The contract did not require Quick Point to manufacture the keyholder. Mrs. Aronson received a $750 advance on royalties and was entitled to rescind the exclusive license if Quick Point did not sell a million keyholders by the end of 1957. Quick Point retained the right to cancel the agreement whenever “the volume of sales does not meet our expectations.” The duration of the agreement was not otherwise prescribed.
A contemporaneous document provided that if Mrs. Aron-son’s patent application was “not allowed within five (5) years, Quick Point Pencil Co. [would] pay . . . two and one half percent (2%%) of sales ... so long as you [Quick Point] continue to sell same.”
In June 1961, when Mrs. Aronson had failed to obtain a patent on the keyholder within the five years specified in the agreement, Quick Point asserted its contractual right to reduce royalty payments to 2%% of sales. In September of that year the Board of Patent Appeals issued a final rejection of the application on the ground that the keyholder was not patentable, and Mrs. Aronson did not appeal. Quick Point continued to pay reduced royalties to her for 14 years thereafter.
The market was more receptive to the keyholder’s novelty and utility than the Patent Office. By September 1975 Quick Point had made sales in excess of $7 million and paid Mrs. Aronson royalties totaling $203,963.84; sales were continuing to rise. However, while Quick Point was able to pre-empt the market in the earlier years and was long the only manufacturer of the Aronson keyholder, copies began to appear in the late 1960’s. Quick Point’s competitors, of course, were not required to pay royalties for their use of the design. Quick Point’s share of the Aronson keyholder market has declined during the past decade.
(2)
In November 1975 Quick Point commenced an action in the United States District Court for a declaratory judgment, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2201, that the royalty agreement was unenforceable. Quick Point asserted that state law which might otherwise make the contract enforceable was preempted by federal patent law. This is the only issue presented to us for decision.
Both parties moved for summary judgment on affidavits, exhibits, and stipulations of fact. The District Court concluded that the “language of the agreement is plain, clear and unequivocal and has no relation as to whether or not a patent is ever granted.” Accordingly, it held that the agreement was valid, and that Quick Point was obliged to pay the agreed royalties pursuant to the contract for so long as it manufactured the keyholder.
The Court of Appeals reversed, one judge dissenting. 567 F. 2d 757. It held that since the parties contracted with reference to a pending patent application, Mrs. Aronson was estopped from denying that patent law principles governed her contract with Quick Point. Although acknowledging that this Court had never decided the precise issue, the Court of Appeals held that our prior decisions regarding patent licenses compelled the conclusion that Quick Point’s contract with Mrs. Aronson became unenforceable once she failed to obtain a patent. The court held that a continuing obligation to pay royalties would be contrary to “the strong federal policy favoring the full and free use of ideas in the public domain,” Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653, 674 (1969). The court also observed that if Mrs. Aronson actually had obtained a patent, Quick Point would have escaped its royalty obligations either if the patent were held to be invalid, see ibid., or upon its expiration after 17 years, see Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964). Accordingly, it concluded that a licensee should be relieved of royalty obligations when the licensor’s efforts to obtain a contemplated patent prove unsuccessful.
(3)
On this record it is clear that the parties contracted with full awareness of both the pendency of a patent application and the possibility that a patent might not issue. The clause de-escalating the royalty by half in the event no patent issued within five years makes that crystal clear. Quick Point apparently placed a significant value on exploiting the basic novelty of the device, even if no patent issued; its success demonstrates that this judgment was well founded. Assuming, arguendo, that the initial letter and the commitment to pay a 5% royalty was subject to federal patent law, the provision relating to the 2y2% royalty was explicitly independent of federal law. The cases and principles relied on by the Court of Appeals and Quick Point do not bear on a contract that does not rely on a patent, particularly where, as here, the contracting parties agreed expressly as to alternative obligations if no patent should issue.
Commercial agreements traditionally are the domain of state law. State law is not displaced merely because the contract relates to intellectual property which may or may not be patentable; the states are free to regulate the use of such intellectual property in any manner not inconsistent with federal law. Kewanee Oil Co. v. Bicron Corp., 416 U. S. 470, 479 (1974); see Goldstein v. California, 412 U. S. 546 (1973). In this as in other fields, the question of whether federal law pre-empts state law “involves a consideration of whether that law 'stands as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress.5 Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52, 67 (1941).” Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 479. If it does not, state law governs.
In Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 480-481, we reviewed the purposes of the federal patent system. First, patent law seeks to foster and rewaxd invention; second, it promotes disclosure of inventions to stimulate further innovation and to permit the public to practice the invention once the patent expires; third, the stringent requirements for patent protection seek to assure that ideas in the public domain remain there for the free use of the public.
Enforcement of Quick Point's agreement with Mrs. Aronson is not inconsistent with any of these aims. Permitting inventors to make enforceable agreements licensing the use of their inventions in return for royalties provides an additional incentive to invention. Similarly, encouraging Mrs. Aronson to make arrangements for the manufacture of her keyholder furthers the federal policy of disclosure of inventions; these simple devices display the novel idea which they embody wherever they are seen.
Quick Point argues that enforcement of such contracts conflicts with the federal policy against withdrawing ideas from the public domain and discourages recourse to the federal patent system by allowing states to extend “perpetual protection to articles too lacking in novelty to merit any patent at all under federal constitutional standards." Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376 U. S. 225, 232 (1964).
We find no merit in this contention. Enforcement of the agreement does not withdraw any idea from the public domain. The design for the keyholder was not in the public domain before Quick Point obtained its license to manufacture it. See Kewanee Oil Co., supra, at 484. In negotiating the agreement, Mrs. Aronson disclosed the design in confidence. Had Quick Point tried to exploit the design in breach of that confidence, it would have risked legal liability. It is equally clear that the design entered the public domain as a result of the manufacture and sale of the keyholders under the contract.
Requiring Quick Point to bear the burden of royalties for the use of the design is no more inconsistent with federal patent law than any of the other costs involved in being the first to introduce a new product to the market, such as outlays for research and development, and marketing and promotional expenses. For reasons which Quick Point’s experience with the Aronson keyholder demonstrate, innovative entrepreneurs have usually found such costs to be well wotth paying.
Finally, enforcement of this agreement does not discourage anyone from seeking a patent. Mrs. Aronson attempted to obtain a patent for over five years. It is quite true that had she succeeded, she would have received a 5% royalty only on keyholders sold during the 17-year life of the patent. Offsetting the limited terms of royalty payments, she would have received twice as much per dollar of Quick Point’s sales, and both she and Quick Point could have licensed any others who produced the same keyholder. Which course would have produced the greater yield to the contracting parties is a matter of speculation; the parties resolved the uncertainties by their bargain.
(4)
No decision of this Court relating to patents justifies relieving Quick Point of its contract obligations. We have held that a state may not forbid the copying of an idea in the public domain which does not meet the requirements for federal patent protection. Compco Corp. v. Day-Brite Lighting, Inc., 376 U. S. 234 (1964); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., supra. Enforcement of Quick Point’s agreement, however, does not prevent anyone from copying the keyholder. It merely requires Quick Point to pay the consideration which it promised in return for the use of a novel device which enabled it to pre-empt the market.
In Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653 (1969), we held that a person licensed to use a patent may challenge the validity of the patent, and that a licensee who establishes that the patent is invalid need not pay the royalties accrued under the licensing agreement subsequent to the issuance of the patent. Both holdings relied on the desirability of encouraging licensees to challenge the validity of patents, to further the strong federal policy that only inventions which meet the rigorous requirements of patentability shall be withdrawn from the public domain. Id., at 670-671, 673-674. Accordingly, neither the holding nor the rationale of Lear controls when no patent has issued, and no ideas have been withdrawn from public use.
Enforcement of the royalty agreement here is also consistent with the principles treated in Brulotte v. Thys Co., 379 U. S. 29 (1964). There, we held that the obligation to pay royalties in return for the use of a patented device may not extend beyond the life of the patent. The principle underlying that holding was simply that the monopoly granted under a patent cannot lawfully be used to “negotiate with the leverage of that monopoly.” The Court emphasized that to “use that leverage to project those royalty payments beyond the life of the patent is analogous to an effort to enlarge the monopoly of the patent. . . .” Id., at 33. Here the reduced royalty which is challenged, far from being negotiated “with the leverage” of a patent, rested on the contingency that no patent would issue within five years.
No doubt a pending patent application gives the applicant some additional bargaining power for purposes of negotiating a royalty agreement. The pending application allows the inventor to hold out the hope of an exclusive right to exploit the idea, as well as the threat that the other party will be prevented from using the idea for 17 years. However, the amount of leverage arising from a patent application depends on how likely the parties consider it to be that a valid patent will issue. Here, where no patent ever issued, the record is entirely clear that the parties assigned a substantial likelihood to that contingency, since they specifically provided for a reduced royalty in the event no patent issued within five years.
This case does not require us to draw the line between what constitutes abuse of a pending application and what does not. It is clear that whatever role the pending application played in the negotiation of the 5% royalty, it played no part in the contract to pay the 2%% royalty indefinitely.
Our holding in Kewanee Oil Co. puts to rest the contention that federal law pre-empts and renders unenforceable the contract made by these parties. There we held that state law forbidding the misappropriation of trade secrets was not preempted by federal patent law. We observed:
“Certainly the patent policy of encouraging invention is not disturbed by the existence of another form of incentive to invention. In this respect the two systems [patent and trade secret law] are not and never would be in conflict.” 416 U. S., at 484.
Enforcement of this royalty agreement is even less offensive to federal patent policies than state law protecting trade secrets. The most commonly accepted definition of trade secrets is restricted to confidential information which is not disclosed in the normal process of exploitation. See Restatement of Torts § 757, Comment b, p. 5 (1939). Accordingly, the exploitation of trade secrets under state law may not satisfy the federal policy in favor of disclosure, whereas disclosure is inescapable in exploiting a device like the Aronson keyholder.
Enforcement of these contractual obligations, freely undertaken in arm’s-length negotiation and with no fixed reliance on a patent or a probable patent grant, will
“encourage invention in areas where patent law does not reach, and will prompt the independent innovator to proceed with the discovery and exploitation of his invention. Competition is fostered and the public is not deprived of the use of valuable, if not quite patentable, invention.” (Footnote omitted.) 416 U. S., at 485.
The device which is the subject of this contract ceased to have any secrecy as soon as it was first marketed, yet when the contract was negotiated the inventiveness and novelty were sufficiently apparent to induce an experienced novelty manufacturer to agree to pay for the opportunity to be first in the market. Federal patent law is not a barrier to such a contract.
Reversed.
In April 1961, while Mrs. Aronson’s patent application was pending, her husband sought a patent on a different keyholder and made plans to license another company to manufacture it. Quick Point's attorney wrote to the couple that the proposed new license would violate the 1956 agreement. He observed that
“your license agreement is in respect of the disclosure of said Jane [Aronson’s] application (not merely in respect of its claims) and that even if no patent is ever granted on the Jane [Aronson] application, Quick Point Pencil Company is obligated to pay royalties in respect of any keyholder manufactured by it in accordance with any disclosure of said application.” (Emphasis added.)
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.
Appellants, qualified and registered electors of Kent County, Michigan, brought this suit in the Federal District Court to enjoin the Board of Education of Kent County from detaching certain schools from the city of Grand Rapids and attaching them to Kent County, to declare the county board to be unconstitutionally constituted, and to enjoin further elections until the electoral system is redesigned. Attack is also made on the adequacy of the statutory standards governing decisions of the county board in light of the requirements of due process. We need not bother with the intricate problems of state law involved in the dispute. For the federal posture of the case is a very limited one. The people of Michigan (qualified school electors) elect the local school boards. No constitutional question is presented as respects those elections. The alleged constitutional questions arise when it comes to the county school board. It is chosen, not by the electors of the county, but by delegates from the local boards. Each board sends a delegate to a biennial meeting and those delegates elect a county board of five members, who need not be members of the local boards, from candidates nominated by school electors. It is argued that this system of choosing county board members parallels the county-unit system which we invalidated under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368, and violates the principle of “one man, one vote” which we held in that case and in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, was constitutionally required in state elections. A vast array of facts is assembled showing alleged inequities in a system which gives one vote to every local school board (irrespective of population, wealth, etc.) in the selection of the county board. A three-judge court was convened, and it held by a divided vote that the method of constitution of the county board did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. 254 F. Supp. 17. We noted probable jurisdiction, 385 U. S. 966.
We conclude that a three-judge court was properly convened, for unlike the situation in Moody v. Flowers, ante, p. 97, this is a case where the state statute that is challenged applies generally to all Michigan county school boards of the type described.
We start with what we said in Reynolds v. Sims, supra, at 575:
“Political subdivisions of States — counties, cities, or whatever — never were and never have been considered as sovereign entities. Rather, they have been traditionally regarded as subordinate governmental instrumentalities created by the State to assist in the carrying out of state governmental functions. As stated by the Court in Hunter v. City of Pittsburgh, 207 U. S. 161, 178, these governmental units are ‘created as convenient agencies for exercising such of the governmental powers of the State as may be entrusted to them/ and the ‘number, nature and duration of the powers conferred upon [them] . . . and the territory over which they shall be exercised rests in the absolute discretion of the State/ ”
We find no constitutional reason why state or local officers of the nonlegislative character involved here may not be chosen by the governor, by the legislature, or by some other appointive means rather than by an election. Our cases have, in the main, dealt with elections for United States Senator or Congressman (Gray v. Sanders, supra; Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U. S. 1) or for state officers (Gray v. Sanders, supra) or for state legislators. Reynolds v. Sims, supra; WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 377 U. S. 633; Davis v. Mann, 377 U. S. 678; Roman v. Sincock, 377 U. S. 695; Lucas v. Colorado Gen. Assembly, 377 U. S. 713; Marshall v. Hare, 378 U. S. 561.
They were all cases where elections had been provided and cast no light on when a State must provide for the election of local officials.
A State cannot of course manipulate its political subdivisions so as to defeat a federally protected right, as for example, by realigning political subdivisions so as to deny a person his vote because of race. Gomillion v. Light- foot, 364 U. S. 339, 345. Yet as stated in Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 226 :
“The science of government is the most abstruse of all sciences; if, indeed, that can be called a science which has but few fixed principles, and practically consists in little more than the exercise of a sound discretion, applied to the exigencies of the state as they arise. It is the science of experiment.”
If we assume arguendo that where a State provides for an election of a local official or agency, the requirements of Gray v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims must be met, we are still short of an answer to the present problem and that is whether Michigan may allow its county school boards to be appointed.
When we stated “. . . the state legislatures have constitutional authority to experiment with new techniques” (Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri, 342 U. S. 421, 423), we were talking about the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, as was Mr. Justice Holmes, dissenting in Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75, when he said “. . . a constitution is not intended to embody . . . the organic relation of the citizen to the State . . . .” But as we indicated in Gomillion v. Lightfoot, supra, it is precisely that same approach that we have taken when it comes to municipal and county arrangements within the framework of a State. Save and unless the state, county, or municipal government runs afoul of a federally protected right, it has vast leeway in the management of its internal affairs.
The Michigan system for selecting members of the county school board is basically appointive rather than elective. We need not decide at the present time whether a State may constitute a local legislative body through the appointive rather than the elective process. We reserve that question for other cases such as Board of Supervisors v. Bianchi, ante, p. 97, which we have disposed of on jurisdictional grounds. We do not have that question here, as the County Board of Education performs essentially administrative functions; and while they are important, they are not legislative in the classical sense.
Viable local governments may need many innovations, numerous combinations of old and new devices, great flexibility in municipal arrangements to meet changing urban conditions. We see nothing in the Constitution to prevent experimentation. At least as respects non-legislative officers, a State can appoint local officials or elect them or combine the elective and appointive systems as was done here. If we assume arguendo that where a State provides for an election of a local official or agency — whether administrative, legislative, or judicial — the requirements of Gray v. Sanders and Reynolds v. Sims must be met, no question of that character is presented. For while there was an election here for the local school board, no constitutional complaint is raised respecting that election. Since the choice of members of the county school board did not involve an election and since none was required for these nonlegislative offices, the principle of “one man, one vote” has no relevancy.
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Hablan and Me. Justice Stewaet concur in the result.
In Michigan the members of the local school district’s board are elected by popular vote of the residents of the district. See Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3023 (1959); Mich. Stat. Ann. §§15.3027, 15.3055, 15.3056, 15.3107, 15.3148, 15.3188, 15.3511 (Supp. 1965).
Mich. Stat. Ann. §§ 15.3294 (1), 15.3295 (1) (Supp. 1965). By Mich. Stat. Ann. §§15.3294 (2)-15.3294 (6) (Supp. 1965), members of the county board may be chosen at popular elections provided the board submits the matter to a referendum and the people approve. So far as we are advised, no such referendum has been held; and the membership of the county board, here challenged, was constituted by electors chosen by the local boards.
Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3294 (1) (Supp. 1965).
The officers in Gray v. Sanders were: U. S. Senator, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Justice of the Supreme Court, Judge of the Court of Appeals, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Comptroller General, Commissioner of Labor, and Treasurer.
Nor can the restraints imposed by the Constitution on the States be circumvented by local bodies to whom the State delegates authority. Standard Computing Scale Co. v. Farrell, 249 U. S. 571, 577; Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U. S. 1, 17.
The delegates from the local school boards, not the school electors, select the members of the county school board. While the school electors elect the members of the local school boards and the local school boards, in turn, select delegates to attend the meeting at which the county board is selected, the delegates need not cast their votes in accord with the expressed preferences of the school electors. There is not even a formal method by which a delegate can determine the preferences of the people in his district. It is evident, therefore, that the membership of the county board is not determined, directly or indirectly, through an election in which the residents of the county participate. The “electorate” under the Michigan system is composed not of the people of the county, but the delegates from the local school boards.
The authority of the county board includes the appointment of a county school superintendent (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (b) (Supp. 1965)), preparation of an annual budget and levy of taxes (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (c) (Supp. 1965)), distribution of delinquent taxes (Mich. Stat. Ann. §15.3298 (l)(d) (Supp. 1965)), furnishing consulting or supervisory services to a constituent school district upon request (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (g) (Supp. 1965)), conducting cooperative educational programs on behalf of constituent school districts which request such services (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (i) (Supp. 1965)), and with other intermediate school districts (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (j) (Supp. 1965)), employment of teachers for special educational programs (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (l)(h) (Supp. 1965)), and establishing, at the direction of the Board of Supervisors, a school for children in the juvenile homes (Mich. Stat. Ann. § 15.3298 (1) (k) (Supp. 1965)). One of the board’s most sensitive functions, and the one giving rise to this litigation, is the power to transfer areas from one school district to another. Mich. Stat. Ann. §15.3461 (1959).
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 KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the immigration laws, a noncitizen who is authorized to live permanently in the United States is a lawful permanent resident-also commonly known as a green-card holder. But unlike a U.S. citizen, a lawful permanent resident who commits a serious crime may be removed from the United States.
Andre Barton is a Jamaican national and a longtime lawful permanent resident of the United States. During his time in the United States, Barton has been convicted of state crimes on three separate occasions spanning 12 years. The crimes include a firearms offense, drug offenses, and aggravated assault offenses. By law, the firearms offense and the drug offenses each independently rendered Barton eligible for removal from the United States. In September 2016, the U.S. Government sought to remove Barton, and a U.S. Immigration Judge determined that Barton was removable.
Barton applied for cancellation of removal, a form of relief that allows a noncitizen to remain in the United States despite being found removable. The immigration laws authorize an immigration judge to cancel removal, but Congress has established strict eligibility requirements. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1229b(a), (d)(1)(B). For a lawful permanent resident such as Barton, the applicant for cancellation of removal (1) must have been a lawful permanent resident for at least five years; (2) must have continuously resided in the United States for at least seven years after lawful admission; (3) must not have been convicted of an aggravated felony as defined in the immigration laws; and (4) during the initial seven years of continuous residence, must not have committed certain other offenses listed in 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(2). If a lawful permanent resident meets those eligibility requirements, the immigration judge has discretion to (but is not required to) cancel removal and allow the lawful permanent resident to remain in the United States.
Under the cancellation-of-removal statute, the immigration judge examines the applicant's prior crimes, as well as the offense that triggered his removal. If a lawful permanent resident has ever been convicted of an aggravated felony, or has committed an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) during the initial seven years of residence, that criminal record will preclude cancellation of removal. In that way, the statute operates like traditional criminal recidivist laws, which ordinarily authorize or impose greater sanctions on offenders who have committed prior crimes.
In this case, after finding Barton removable based on his state firearms and drug offenses, the Immigration Judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) concluded that Barton was not eligible for cancellation of removal. Barton had committed offenses listed in § 1182(a)(2) during his initial seven years of residence-namely, his state aggravated assault offenses in 1996. Barton's 1996 aggravated assault offenses were not the offenses that triggered his removal. But according to the BIA, and contrary to Barton's argument, the offense that precludes cancellation of removal need not be one of the offenses of removal. In re Jurado-Delgado, 24 I. & N. Dec. 29, 31 (BIA 2006). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit agreed with the BIA's reading of the statute and concluded that Barton was not eligible for cancellation of removal. The Second, Third, and Fifth Circuits have similarly construed the statute; only the Ninth Circuit has disagreed.
Barton argues that the BIA and the Eleventh Circuit misinterpreted the statute. He contends that the § 1182(a)(2) offense that precludes cancellation of removal must be one of the offenses of removal. We disagree with Barton, and we affirm the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
I
Federal immigration law governs the admission of noncitizens to the United States and the deportation of noncitizens previously admitted. See 8 U.S.C. §§ 1182(a), 1227(a), 1229a. The umbrella statutory term for being inadmissible or deportable is "removable." § 1229a(e)(2).
A noncitizen who is authorized to live permanently in the United States is a lawful permanent resident, often known as a green-card holder. When a lawful permanent resident commits a crime and is determined by an immigration judge to be removable because of that crime, the Attorney General (usually acting through an immigration judge) may cancel removal. § 1229b(a). But the comprehensive immigration law that Congress passed and President Clinton signed in 1996 tightly cabins eligibility for cancellation of removal. See Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 3009-546, 8 U.S.C. § 1101 note.
For a lawful permanent resident, the cancellation-of-removal statute provides that an immigration judge "may cancel removal in the case of an alien who is inadmissible or deportable from the United States if the alien-(1) has been an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for not less than 5 years, (2) has resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status, and (3) has not been convicted of any aggravated felony." § 1229b(a).
The statute imposes one other requirement known as the "stop-time rule." As relevant here, the statute provides that a lawful permanent resident, during the initial seven years of residence, also cannot have committed "an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title." § 1229b(d)(1)(B).
Andre Barton is a Jamaican national and a lawful permanent resident of the United States. In 1996, he was convicted in a Georgia court of a firearms offense stemming from an incident where Barton and a friend shot up the house of Barton's ex-girlfriend. In separate proceedings in 2007 and 2008, he was convicted in Georgia courts of state drug offenses. One case involved methamphetamine, and the other involved cocaine and marijuana.
In 2016, the U.S. Government charged Barton with deportability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2) based on the 1996 firearms offense and the 2007 and 2008 drug crimes. See §§ 1227(a)(2)(B)(i), (C). Barton conceded that he was removable based on his criminal convictions for the firearms offense and drug offenses, and an Immigration Judge found him removable.
Barton applied for cancellation of removal. All agree that Barton meets two of the eligibility requirements for cancellation of removal. He has been a lawful permanent resident for more than five years. And he has not been convicted of an "aggravated felony," as defined by the immigration laws.
The Immigration Judge concluded, however, that Barton had committed an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) during his initial seven years of residence. In 1996, 6½ years after his admission to this country, Barton committed aggravated assault offenses for which he was later convicted in a Georgia court. The Immigration Judge concluded that those aggravated assault offenses were covered by § 1182(a)(2) and that Barton was therefore not eligible for cancellation of removal.
The Board of Immigration Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit likewise concluded that Barton was not eligible for cancellation of removal. Barton v. United States Atty. Gen., 904 F.3d 1294, 1302 (2018). The key question was whether the offense that precludes cancellation of removal (here, Barton's 1996 aggravated assault offenses) must also be one of the offenses of removal. The Board of Immigration Appeals has long interpreted the statute to mean that "an alien need not actually be charged and found inadmissible or removable on the applicable ground in order for the criminal conduct in question to terminate continuous residence in this country" and preclude cancellation of removal. Jurado-Delgado, 24 I. & N. Dec., at 31. In this case, the Eleventh Circuit likewise indicated that the § 1182(a)(2) offense that precludes cancellation of removal need not be one of the offenses of removal. 904 F.3d at 1299-1300. And the Second, Third, and Fifth Circuits have similarly construed the statute. See Heredia v. Sessions, 865 F.3d 60, 68 (C.A.2 2017) ; Ardon v. Attorney General of United States, 449 Fed.Appx. 116, 118 (C.A.3 2011) ; Calix v. Lynch, 784 F.3d 1000, 1011 (C.A.5 2015).
But in 2018, the Ninth Circuit disagreed with those courts and with the BIA. The Ninth Circuit ruled that a lawful permanent resident's commission of an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) makes the noncitizen ineligible for cancellation of removal only if that offense was one of the offenses of removal. Nguyen v. Sessions, 901 F.3d 1093, 1097 (2018). Under the Ninth Circuit's approach, Barton would have been eligible for cancellation of removal because his § 1182(a)(2) offenses (his 1996 aggravated assault offenses) were not among the offenses of removal (his 1996 firearms offense and his 2007 and 2008 drug crimes).
In light of the division in the Courts of Appeals over how to interpret this statute, we granted certiorari. 587 U.S. ----, 139 S.Ct. 1615, 203 L.Ed.2d 755 (2019).
II
A
Under the immigration laws, when a noncitizen has committed a serious crime, the U.S. Government may seek to remove that noncitizen by initiating removal proceedings before an immigration judge. If the immigration judge determines that the noncitizen is removable, the immigration judge nonetheless has discretion to cancel removal. But the immigration laws impose strict eligibility requirements for cancellation of removal. To reiterate, a lawful permanent resident such as Barton who has been found removable because of criminal activity is eligible for cancellation of removal "if the alien-(1) has been an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence for not less than 5 years, (2) has resided in the United States continuously for 7 years after having been admitted in any status, and (3) has not been convicted of any aggravated felony." § 1229b(a).
To be eligible for cancellation of removal, the lawful permanent resident, during the initial seven years of residence after admission, also must not have committed "an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title." § 1229b(d)(1)(B).
The law therefore fashions two distinct ways in which a lawful permanent resident's prior crimes may preclude cancellation of removal.
The law precludes cancellation of removal if the lawful permanent resident has been convicted of an "aggravated felony" at any time. The statutory list of aggravated felonies is long: murder, rape, drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, obstruction of justice, treason, gambling, human trafficking, and tax evasion, among many other crimes. §§ 1101(a)(43)(A)-(U).
In addition, the law precludes cancellation of removal if the lawful permanent resident committed certain other serious crimes during the initial seven years of residence. The law defines those offenses by cross-referencing § 1182(a)(2), which specifies the offenses that can render a noncitizen "inadmissible" to the United States. Section 1182(a)(2) includes "crime[s] involving moral turpitude," which is a general category that covers a wide variety of crimes. Section 1182(a)(2) also expressly encompasses various violations of drug laws, prostitution, money laundering, and certain DUIs involving personal injury, among other crimes. §§ 1182(a)(2)(A)(i), (C), (D), (E), (I) ; see § 1101(h).
In specifying when cancellation of removal would be precluded because of prior criminal activity, Congress struck a balance that considers both the nature of the prior crime and the length of time that the noncitizen has resided in the United States. If a lawful permanent resident has been convicted at any time of certain crimes (what the immigration laws refer to as an "aggravated felony"), then the noncitizen is not eligible for cancellation of removal. If during the initial 7-year period of residence, a lawful permanent resident committed certain other offenses referred to in § 1182(a)(2), then the noncitizen likewise is not eligible for cancellation of removal.
In providing that a noncitizen's prior crimes (in addition to the offense of removal) can render him ineligible for cancellation of removal, the cancellation-of-removal statute functions like a traditional recidivist sentencing statute. In an ordinary criminal case, a defendant may be convicted of a particular criminal offense. And at sentencing, the defendant's other criminal offenses may be relevant. So too in the immigration removal context. A noncitizen may be found removable based on a certain criminal offense. In applying for cancellation of removal, the noncitizen must detail his entire criminal record on Form EOIR-42A. An immigration judge then must determine whether the noncitizen has been convicted of an aggravated felony at any time or has committed a § 1182(a)(2) offense during the initial seven years of residence. It is entirely ordinary to look beyond the offense of conviction at criminal sentencing, and it is likewise entirely ordinary to look beyond the offense of removal at the cancellation-of-removal stage in immigration cases.
It is not surprising, moreover, that Congress required immigration judges considering cancellation of removal to look in part at whether the noncitizen has committed any offenses listed in § 1182(a)(2). The offenses listed in § 1182(a)(2) help determine whether a noncitizen should be admitted to the United States. Under the cancellation-of-removal statute, immigration judges must look at that same category of offenses to determine whether, after a previously admitted noncitizen has been determined to be deportable, the noncitizen should nonetheless be allowed to remain in the United States. If a crime is serious enough to deny admission to a noncitizen, the crime can also be serious enough to preclude cancellation of removal, at least if committed during the initial seven years of residence.
Importantly, the text of the cancellation-of-removal statute does not simply say that cancellation of removal is precluded when, during the initial seven years of residence, the noncitizen was convicted of an offense referred to in § 1182(a)(2). Rather, the text says that cancellation of removal is precluded when, during the initial seven years of residence, the noncitizen "committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2)... that renders the alien inadmissible." § 1229b(d)(1)(B). That language clarifies two points of relevance here.
First, cancellation of removal is precluded if a noncitizen committed a § 1182(a)(2) offense during the initial seven years of residence, even if (as in Barton's case) the conviction occurred after the seven years elapsed. In other words, as Congress specified in the statute and as the BIA and the Courts of Appeals have recognized, the date of commission of the offense is the key date for purposes of calculating whether the noncitizen committed a § 1182(a)(2) offense during the initial seven years of residence. See In re Perez, 22 I. & N. Dec. 689, 693-694 (BIA 1999) (date of commission is controlling date); see also Heredia, 865 F.3d at 70-71 ("the date of the commission of the offense governs the computation of a lawful permanent resident's continuous residency in the United States"); Calix, 784 F.3d at 1012 ("Once he was convicted of the offense" referred to in § 1182(a)(2), "he was rendered inadmissible to the United States. His accrual of continuous residence was halted as of the date he committed that offense").
Second, the text of the law requires that the noncitizen be rendered "inadmissible" as a result of the offense. For crimes involving moral turpitude, which is the relevant category of § 1182(a)(2) offenses here, § 1182(a)(2) provides that a noncitizen is rendered "inadmissible" when he is convicted of or admits the offense. § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i). As the Eleventh Circuit explained, "while only commission is required at step one, conviction (or admission) is required at step two." 904 F.3d at 1301.
In this case, Barton's 1996 state aggravated assault offenses were crimes involving moral turpitude and therefore "referred to in section 1182(a)(2)." Barton committed those offenses during his initial seven years of residence. He was later convicted of the offenses in a Georgia court and thereby rendered "inadmissible." Therefore, Barton was ineligible for cancellation of removal.
As a matter of statutory text and structure, that analysis is straightforward. The Board of Immigration Appeals has long interpreted the statute that way. See Jurado-Delgado, 24 I. & N. Dec., at 31. And except for the Ninth Circuit, all of the Courts of Appeals to consider the question have interpreted the statute that way.
B
Barton pushes back on that straightforward statutory interpretation and the longstanding position of the Board of Immigration Appeals. Barton says that he may not be denied cancellation of removal based on his 1996 aggravated assault offenses because those offenses were not among the offenses of removal found by the Immigration Judge in Barton's removal proceeding. Rather, his 1996 firearms offense and his 2007 and 2008 drug offenses were the offenses of removal.
To succinctly summarize the parties' different positions (with the difference highlighted in italics below): The Government would preclude cancellation of removal under this provision if the lawful permanent resident committed a § 1182(a)(2) offense during the initial seven years of residence. Barton would preclude cancellation of removal under this provision if the lawful permanent resident committed a § 1182(a)(2) offense during the initial seven years of residence and if that § 1182(a)(2) offense was one of the offenses of removal in the noncitizen's removal proceeding.
To support his "offense of removal" approach, Barton advances three different arguments. A caution to the reader: These arguments are not easy to unpack.
First, according to Barton, the statute's overall structure with respect to removal proceedings demonstrates that a § 1182(a)(2) offense may preclude cancellation of removal only if that § 1182(a)(2) offense was one of the offenses of removal. We disagree. In removal proceedings, a lawful permanent resident (such as Barton) may be found "deportable" based on deportability offenses listed in § 1227(a)(2). A noncitizen who has not previously been admitted may be found "inadmissible" based on inadmissibility offenses listed in § 1182(a)(2). See §§ 1182(a), 1227(a), 1229a(e)(2). Importantly, then, § 1227(a)(2) offenses-not § 1182(a)(2) offenses-are typically the basis for removal of lawful permanent residents.
Because the offense of removal for lawful permanent residents is ordinarily a § 1227(a)(2) offense, Barton's structural argument falls apart. If Barton were correct that this aspect of the cancellation-of-removal statute focused only on the offense of removal, the statute presumably would specify offenses "referred to in section 1182(a)(2) or section 1227(a)(2)." So why does the statute identify only offenses "referred to in section 1182(a)(2)"? Barton has no good answer. At oral argument, when directly asked that question, Barton's able counsel forthrightly acknowledged: "It's a little hard to explain." Tr. of Oral Arg. 27.
This point is the Achilles' heel of Barton's structural argument. As we see it, Barton cannot explain the omission of § 1227(a)(2) offenses in the "referred to" clause for a simple reason: Barton's interpretation of the statute is incorrect. Properly read, this is not simply an "offense of removal" statute that looks only at whether the offense of removal was committed during the initial seven years of residence. Rather, this is a recidivist statute that uses § 1182(a)(2) offenses as a shorthand cross-reference for a category of offenses that will preclude cancellation of removal if committed during the initial seven years of residence.
By contrast to this cancellation-of-removal provision, some other provisions of the immigration laws do focus only on the offense of removal-for example, provisions governing mandatory detention and jurisdiction. See §§ 1226(a), (c)(1)(A), (B), 1252(a)(2)(C). But the statutory text and context of those provisions support that limitation. Those provisions use the phrase "inadmissible by reason of " a § 1182(a)(2) offense, "deportable by reason of " a § 1227(a)(2) offense, or "removable by reason of " a § 1182(a)(2) or § 1227(a)(2) offense. And the provisions make contextual sense only if the offense justifying detention or denying jurisdiction is one of the offenses of removal. The cancellation-of-removal statute does not employ similar language.
Second, moving from overall structure to precise text, Barton seizes on the statutory phrase "committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2)... that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2)." § 1229b(d)(1)(B) (emphasis added). According to Barton, conviction of an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) -for example, conviction in state court of a crime involving moral turpitude-does not itself render the noncitizen "inadmissible." He argues that a noncitizen is not rendered "inadmissible" unless and until the noncitizen is actually adjudicated as inadmissible and denied admission to the United States. And he further contends that a lawfully admitted noncitizen usually cannot be removed from the United States on the basis of inadmissibility. As Barton puts it (and the dissent echoes the point), how can a lawfully admitted noncitizen be found inadmissible when he has already been lawfully admitted?
As a matter of common parlance alone, that argument would of course carry some force. But the argument fails because it disregards the statutory text, which employs the term "inadmissibility" as a status that can result from, for example, a noncitizen's (including a lawfully admitted noncitizen's) commission of certain offenses listed in § 1182(a)(2).
For example, as relevant here, § 1182(a)(2) flatly says that a noncitizen such as Barton who commits a crime involving moral turpitude and is convicted of that offense "is inadmissible." § 1182(a)(2)(A)(i). Full stop. Similarly, a noncitizen who has two or more convictions, together resulting in aggregate sentences of at least five years, "is inadmissible." § 1182(a)(2)(B). A noncitizen who a consular officer or the Attorney General knows or has reason to believe is a drug trafficker "is inadmissible." § 1182(a)(2)(C)(i). A noncitizen who receives the proceeds of prostitution within 10 years of applying for admission "is inadmissible." § 1182(a)(2)(D)(ii). The list goes on. See, e.g., §§ 1182(a)(2)(C)(ii)-(E), (G)-(I). Those provisions do not say that a noncitizen will become inadmissible if the noncitizen is found inadmissible in a subsequent immigration removal proceeding. Instead, those provisions say that the noncitizen "is inadmissible."
Congress has in turn made that status-inadmissibility because of conviction or other proof of commission of § 1182(a)(2) offenses-relevant in several statutory contexts that apply to lawfully admitted noncitizens such as Barton. Those contexts include adjustment to permanent resident status; protection from removal because of temporary protected status; termination of temporary resident status; and here cancellation of removal. See, e.g., §§ 1160(a)(1)(C), (a)(3)(B)(ii), 1254a(a)(1)(A), (c)(1)(A)(iii), 1255(a), (l )(2). In those contexts, the noncitizen faces immigration consequences from being convicted of a § 1182(a)(2) offense even though the noncitizen is lawfully admitted and is not necessarily removable solely because of that offense.
Consider how those other proceedings work. A lawfully admitted noncitizen who is convicted of an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) is typically not removable from the United States on that basis (recall that a lawfully admitted noncitizen is ordinarily removable only for commission of a § 1227(a)(2) offense). But the noncitizen is "inadmissible" because of the § 1182(a)(2) offense and for that reason may not be able to obtain adjustment to permanent resident status. §§ 1255(a), (l )(2). So too, a lawfully admitted noncitizen who is convicted of an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) is "inadmissible" and for that reason may not be able to obtain temporary protected status. §§ 1254a(a)(1)(A), (c)(1)(A)(iii). A lawfully admitted noncitizen who is a temporary resident and is convicted of a § 1182(a)(2) offense is "inadmissible" and for that reason may lose temporary resident status. §§ 1160(a)(1)(C), (a)(3)(B)(ii).
Those statutory examples pose a major hurdle for Barton's textual argument. The examples demonstrate that Congress has employed the concept of "inadmissibility" as a status in a variety of statutes similar to the cancellation-of-removal statute, including for lawfully admitted noncitizens. Barton has no persuasive answer to those examples. Barton tries to say that some of those other statutes involve a noncitizen who, although already admitted to the United States, is nonetheless seeking "constructive admission." Reply Brief 12; Tr. of Oral Arg. 11. But that ginned-up label does not avoid the problem. Put simply, those other statutes show that lawfully admitted noncitizens who are, for example, convicted of § 1182(a)(2) crimes are "inadmissible" and in turn may suffer certain immigration consequences, even though those lawfully admitted noncitizens cannot necessarily be removed solely because of those § 1182(a)(2) offenses.
The same is true here. A lawfully admitted noncitizen who was convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude during his initial seven years of residence is "inadmissible" and for that reason is ineligible for cancellation of removal.
In advancing his structural and textual arguments, Barton insists that his interpretation of the statute reflects congressional intent regarding cancellation of removal. But if Congress intended that only the offense of removal would preclude cancellation of removal under the 7-year residence provision, it is unlikely that Congress would have employed such a convoluted way to express that intent. Barton cannot explain why, if his view of Congress' intent is correct, the statute does not simply say something like: "The alien is not eligible for cancellation of removal if the offense of removal was committed during the alien's initial seven years of residence."
Third, on a different textual tack, Barton argues that the Government's interpretation cannot be correct because the Government would treat as surplusage the phrase "or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title." Recall that the statute, as relevant here, provides that a lawful permanent resident is not eligible for cancellation of removal if, during the initial seven years of residence, he committed "an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title that renders the alien inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title or removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title." § 1229b(d)(1)(B) (emphasis added).
To begin with, all agree that under either side's interpretation, the reference to § 1227(a)(4) -as distinct from § 1227(a)(2) -is redundant surplusage. See § 1229b(c)(4) ; Brief for Petitioner 32-33 & n. 7. Under the Government's interpretation, it is true that the reference to § 1227(a)(2) also appears to be redundant surplusage. Any offense that is both referred to in § 1182(a)(2) and an offense that would render the noncitizen deportable under § 1227(a)(2) would also render the noncitizen inadmissible under § 1182(a)(2). But redundancies are common in statutory drafting-sometimes in a congressional effort to be doubly sure, sometimes because of congressional inadvertence or lack of foresight, or sometimes simply because of the shortcomings of human communication. The Court has often recognized: "Sometimes the better overall reading of the statute contains some redundancy." Rimini Street, Inc. v. Oracle USA, Inc., 586 U.S. ----, ----, 139 S.Ct. 873, 881, 203 L.Ed.2d 180 (2019) ; see Wisconsin Central Ltd. v. United States, 585 U.S. ----, ----, 138 S.Ct. 2067, 2073, 201 L.Ed.2d 490 (2018) ; Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. 371, 385, 133 S.Ct. 1166, 185 L.Ed.2d 242 (2013) ; Lamie v. United States Trustee, 540 U.S. 526, 536, 124 S.Ct. 1023, 157 L.Ed.2d 1024 (2004). So it is here. Most importantly for present purposes, we do not see why the redundant statutory reference to § 1227(a)(2) should cause us to entirely rewrite § 1229b so that a noncitizen's commission of an offense referred to in § 1182(a)(2) would preclude cancellation of removal only if it is also the offense of removal. Redundancy in one portion of a statute is not a license to rewrite or eviscerate another portion of the statute contrary to its text, as Barton would have us do.
One final point: Barton argues in the alternative that even if inadmissibility is a status, and even if the offense that precludes cancellation of removal need not be one of the offenses of removal, the noncitizen must at least have been capable of being charged with a § 1182(a)(2) inadmissibility offense as the basis for removal. The dissent seizes on this argument as well. But as we have explained, this cancellation-of-removal statute is a recidivist statute that precludes cancellation of removal if the noncitizen has committed an offense listed in § 1182(a)(2) during the initial seven years of residence. Whether the offense that precludes cancellation of removal was charged or could have been charged as one of the offenses of removal is irrelevant to that analysis.
* * *
Removal of a lawful permanent resident from the United States is a wrenching process, especially in light of the consequences for family members. Removal is particularly difficult when it involves someone such as Barton who has spent most of his life in the United States. Congress made a choice, however, to authorize removal of noncitizens-even lawful permanent residents-who have committed certain serious crimes. And Congress also made a choice to categorically preclude cancellation of removal for noncitizens who have substantial criminal records. Congress may of course amend the law at any time. In the meantime, the Court is constrained to apply the law as enacted by Congress. Here, as the BIA explained in its 2006 Jurado-Delgado decision, and as the Second, Third, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuits have indicated, the immigration laws enacted by Congress do not allow cancellation of removal when a lawful permanent resident has amassed a criminal record of this kind.
We affirm the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
It is so ordered.
Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice GINSBURG, Justice BREYER, and Justice KAGAN join, dissenting.
The stop-time rule ends a noncitizen's period of continuous residence, making him or her ineligible for certain relief from removal. But to trigger the rule, it takes more than commission of a specified criminal offense: The offense must also render a noncitizen either "inadmissible" or "deportable." In applying these important limitations, the rule directly references the two-track nature of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), a statute that has long distinguished between noncitizens seeking admission and those already admitted. Inadmissibility, of course, pertains to noncitizens seeking admission; deportability relates to noncitizens already admitted but removable.
The majority errs by conflating these two terms. It concludes that the term "inadmissible," for the purposes of the stop-time rule, refers to a status that a noncitizen could acquire even if he or she is not seeking admission. Under this logic, petitioner Andre Barton is inadmissible yet, at the same time, lawfully admitted. Neither the express language of the statute nor any interpretative canons support this paradox; Barton cannot and should not be considered inadmissible for purposes of the stop-time rule because he has already been admitted to the country. Thus, for the stop-time rule to render Barton ineligible for relief from removal, the Government must show that he committed an offense that made him deportable. Because the Government cannot meet that burden, Barton should prevail.
I respectfully dissent.
I
A
Cancellation of removal is a form of immigration relief available to lawful permanent residents (LPRs) and other noncitizens, including those who have never been lawfully admitted. 8 U.S.C. § 1229b. To obtain this relief, both groups must continuously reside in the United States for a certain amount of time. § 1229b(a)(2) (seven years for LPRs); § 1229b(b)(1)(A) (10 years for non-LPR noncitizens).
The stop-time rule ends a noncitizen's period of continuous residence (1) when the noncitizen "has committed an offense referred to in section 1182(a)(2) of this title" that either (2) "renders" the noncitizen "inadmissible to the United States under section 1182(a)(2) of this title" or (3) renders the noncitizen "removable from the United States under section 1227(a)(2) or 1227(a)(4) of this title." § 1229b(d)(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: | 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.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded for consideration in light of Elkins v. United States, ante, p. 206, decided this day.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter dissents on the basis of his dissenting opinion in Rios v. United States, ante, p. 233, and Elkins v. United States, ante, p. 233, decided this day.
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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner filed suit under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, seeking damages for an arrest that violated the Fourth Amendment. We decide whether his suit is timely.
I
On January 17,1994, John Handy was shot to death in the city of Chicago. Sometime around 8 p.m. two days later, Chicago police officers located petitioner, then 15 years of age, and transported him to a police station for questioning. After interrogations that lasted into the early morning hours the next day, petitioner agreed to confess to Handy’s murder. An assistant state’s attorney prepared a statement to this effect, and petitioner signed it, at the same time waiving his Miranda rights.
Prior to trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County, petitioner unsuccessfully attempted to suppress his station house statements as the product of an unlawful arrest. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison. On direct appeal, the Appellate Court of Illinois held that officers had arrested petitioner without probable cause, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. People v. Wallace, 299 111. App. 3d 9, 17-18, 701 N. E. 2d 87, 94 (1998). According to that court (whose determination we are not reviewing here), even assuming petitioner willingly accompanied police to the station, his presence there “escalated to an involuntary seizure prior to his formal arrest.” Id., at 18, 701 N. E. 2d, at 94. After another round of appeals, the Appellate Court concluded on August 31, 2001, that the effect of petitioner’s illegal arrest had not been sufficiently attenuated to render his statements admissible, see Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and remanded for a new trial. Judgt. order reported sub nom. People v. Wallace, 324 111. App. 3d 1139, 805 N. E. 2d 756 (2001). On April 10, 2002, prosecutors dropped the charges against petitioner.
On April 2,2003, petitioner filed this § 1983 suit against the city of Chicago and several Chicago police officers, seeking damages arising from, inter alia, his unlawful arrest. The District Court granted summary judgment to respondents and the Court of Appeals affirmed. According to the Seventh Circuit, petitioner’s § 1983 suit was time barred because his cause of action accrued at the time of his arrest, and not when his conviction was later set aside. Wallace v. Chicago, 440 F. 3d 421, 427 (2006). We granted certiorari, 547 U. S. 1205 (2006).
II
Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action, but in several respects relevant here federal law looks to the law of the State in which the cause of action arose. This is so for the length of the statute of limitations: It is that which the State provides for personal-injury torts. Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235,249-250 (1989); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 279-280 (1985). The parties agree that under Illinois law, this period is two years. 111. Comp. Stat., ch. 735, § 5/13-202 (West 2003). Thus, if the statute on petitioner’s cause of action began to run at the time of his unlawful arrest, or even at the time he was ordered held by a magistrate, his § 1983 suit was plainly dilatory, even according him tolling for the two-plus years of his minority, see §5/13-211. But if, as the dissenting judge argued below, the commencement date for running of the statute is governed by this Court’s decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), that date may be the date on which petitioner’s conviction was vacated, in which case the § 1983 suit would have been timely filed.
While we have never stated so expressly, the accrual date of a § 1983 cause of action is a question of federal law that is not resolved by reference to state law. The parties agree, the Seventh Circuit in this case so held, see 440 F. 3d, at 424, and we are aware of no federal court of appeals holding to the contrary. Aspects of § 1983 which are not governed by reference to state law are governed by federal rules conforming in general to common-law tort principles. See Heck, supra, at 483; Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 257-258 (1978). Under those principles, it is “the standard rule that [accrual occurs] when the plaintiff has ‘a complete and present cause of action,’ ” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997) (quoting Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 98 (1941)), that is, when “the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief,” Bay Area Laundry, supra, at 201. There can be no dispute that petitioner could have filed suit as soon as the allegedly wrongful arrest occurred, subjecting him to the harm of involuntary detention, so the statute of limitations would normally commence to run from that date.
There is, however, a refinement to be considered, arising from the common law’s distinctive treatment of the torts of false arrest and false imprisonment, “[t]he . . . causefs] of action [that] provid[e] the closest analogy to claims of the type considered here,” Heck, supra, at 484. See 1 D. Dobbs, Law of Torts §47, p. 88 (2001). False arrest and false imprisonment overlap; the former is a species of the latter. “Every confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison or in a private house, or in the stocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in the public streets; and when a man is lawfully in a house, it is imprisonment to prevent him from leaving the room in which he is.” M. Newell, Law of Malicious Prosecution, False Imprisonment, and Abuse of Legal Process §2, p. 57 (1892) (footnote omitted). See also 7 S. Speiser, C. Krause, & A. Gans, American Law of Torts § 27:2, pp. 940-942 (1990). We shall thus refer to the two torts together as false imprisonment. That tort provides the proper analogy to the cause of action asserted against the present respondents for the following reason: The sort of unlawful detention remediable by the tort of false imprisonment is detention without legal process, see, e. g., W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 11, p. 54, §119, pp. 885-886 (5th ed. 1984); 7 Speiser, supra, §27:2, at 943-944, and the allegations before us arise from respondents’ detention of petitioner without legal process in January 1994. They did not have a warrant for his arrest.
The running of the statute of limitations on false imprisonment is subject to a distinctive rule — dictated, perhaps, by the reality that the victim may not be able to sue while he is still imprisoned: “Limitations begin to run against an action for false imprisonment when the alleged false imprisonment ends.” 2 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions §187d(4), p. 878 (rev. 4th ed. 1916); see also 4 Restatement (Second) of Torts §899, Comment c (1977); A. Underhill, Principles of Law of Torts 202 (1881). Thus, to determine the beginning of the limitations period in this case, we must determine when petitioner’s false imprisonment came to an end.
Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process— when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges. 1 Dobbs, supra, § 39, at 74, n. 2; Keeton, supra, § 119, at 888; H. Stephen, Actions for Malicious Prosecution 120-123 (1888). Thereafter, unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the “entirely distinct” tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process. Keeton, supra, § 119, at 885-886; see 1 F. Harper, F. James, & O. Gray, Law of Torts § 3.9, p. 3:36 (3d ed. 1996); 7 Speiser, supra, § 27:2, at 943-945. “If there is a false arrest claim, damages for that claim cover the time of detention up until issuance of process or arraignment, but not more. From that point on, any damages recoverable must be based on a malicious prosecution claim and on the wrongful use of judicial process rather than detention itself.” Keeton, supra, § 119, at 888; see also Heck, supra, at 484; 8 Speiser, supra, §28:15, at 80. Thus, petitioner’s contention that his false imprisonment ended upon his release from custody, after the State dropped the charges against him, must be rejected. It ended much earlier, when legal process was initiated against him, and the statute would have begun to run from that date, but for its tolling by reason of petitioner’s minority.
Petitioner asserts that the date of his release from custody must be the relevant date in the circumstances of the present suit, since he is seeking damages up to that time. The theory of his complaint is that the initial Fourth Amendment violation set the wheels in motion for his subsequent conviction and detention: The unlawful arrest led to the coerced confession, which was introduced at his trial, producing his conviction and incarceration. As we have just explained, at common law damages for detention after issuance of process or arraignment would be attributable to a tort other than the unlawful arrest alleged in petitioner’s complaint — and probably a tort chargeable to defendants other than the respondents here. Even assuming, however, that all damages for detention pursuant to legal process could be regarded as consequential damages attributable to the unlawful arrest, that would not alter the commencement date for the statute of limitations. “Under the traditional rule of accrual... the tort cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations commences to run, when the wrongful act or omission results in damages. The cause of action accrues even though the full extent of the injury is not then known or predictable.” 1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions § 7.4.1, pp. 526-527 (1991) (footnote omitted); see also 54 C. J. S., Limitations of Actions §112, p. 150 (2005). Were it otherwise, the statute would begin to run only after a plaintiff became satisfied that he had been harmed enough, placing the supposed statute of repose in the sole hands of the party seeking relief.
We conclude that the statute of limitations on petitioner’s § 1988 claim commenced to run when he appeared before the examining magistrate and was bound over for trial. Since more than two years elapsed between that date and the filing of this suit — even leaving out of the count the period before he reached his majority — the action was time barred.
Ill
This would end the matter, were it not for petitioner’s contention that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S., at 477, compels the conclusion that his suit could not accrue until the State dropped its charges against him. In Heck, a state prisoner filed suit under §1983 raising claims which, if true, would have established the invalidity of his outstanding conviction. We analogized his suit to one for malicious prosecution, an element of which is the favorable termination of criminal proceedings. Id., at 484. We said:
“[I]n order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a §1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U. S. C. § 2254. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under §1983.” Id., at 486-487 (footnote omitted).
We rested this conclusion upon “the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., at 486. “ ‘Congress,’ ” we said, “ ‘has determined that habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of the fact or length of their confinement, and that specific determination must override the general terms of § 1983.’ ” Id., at 482 (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 490 (1973)).
As the above excerpts show, the Heck rule for deferred accrual is called into play only when there exists “a conviction or sentence that has not been . . . invalidated,” that is to say, an “outstanding criminal judgment.” It delays what would otherwise be the accrual date of a tort action until the setting aside of an extant conviction which success in that tort action would impugn. We assume that, for purposes of the present tort action, the Heck principle would be applied not to the date of accrual but to the date on which the statute of limitations began to run, that is, the date petitioner became held pursuant to legal process. See supra, at 389-390. Even at that later time, there was in existence no criminal conviction that the cause of action would impugn; indeed, there may not even have been an indictment.
What petitioner seeks, in other words, is the adoption of a principle that goes well beyond Heck: that an action which would impugn an anticipated future conviction cannot be brought until that conviction occurs and is set aside. The impractieality of such a rule should be obvious. In an action for false arrest it would require the plaintiff (and if he brings suit promptly, the court) to speculate about whether a prosecution will be brought, whether it will result in conviction, and whether the pending civil action will impugn that verdict, see Heck, 512 U. S., at 487, n. 7 — all this at a time when it can hardly be known what evidence the prosecution has in its possession. And what if the plaintiff (or the court) guesses wrong, and the anticipated future conviction never occurs, because of acquittal or dismissal? Does that event (instead of the Heck-required setting aside of the extant conviction) trigger accrual of the cause of action? Or what if prosecution never occurs — what will the trigger be then?
We are not disposed to embrace this bizarre extension of Heck. If a plaintiff files a false-arrest claim before he has been convicted (or files any other claim related to rulings that will likely be made in a pending or anticipated criminal trial), it is within the power of the district court, and in accord with common practice, to stay the civil action until the criminal case or the likelihood of a criminal case is ended. See id., at 487-488, n. 8 (noting that “abstention may be an appropriate response to the parallel state-court proceedings”); Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 730 (1996). If the plaintiff is ultimately convicted, and if the stayed civil suit would impugn that conviction, Heck will require dismissal; otherwise, the civil action will proceed, absent some other bar to suit. Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, 649 (1997); Heck, 512 U. S., at 487.
There is, however, one complication that we must address here. It arises from the fact that § 1983 actions, unlike the tort of malicious prosecution which Heck took as its model, see id., at 484, sometimes accrue before the setting aside of— indeed, even before the existence of — the related criminal conviction. That of course is the case here, and it raises the question whether, assuming that the Heck bar takes effect when the later conviction is obtained, the statute of limitations on the once valid cause of action is tolled as long as the Heck bar subsists. In the context of the present case: If petitioner’s conviction on April 19, 1996, caused the statute of limitations on his (possibly) impugning but yet-to-be-filed cause of action to be tolled until that conviction was set aside, his filing here would have been timely.
We have generally referred to state law for tolling rules, just as we have for the length of statutes of limitations. Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538-539 (1989); Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478, 484-486 (1980). Petitioner has not brought to our attention, nor are we aware of, Illinois cases providing tolling in even remotely comparable circumstances. (Indeed, petitioner did not even argue for such tolling below, though he supported its suggestion at oral argument.) Nor would we be inclined to adopt a federal tolling rule to this effect. Under such a regime, it would not be known whether tolling is appropriate by reason of the Heck bar until it is established that the newly entered conviction would be impugned by the not-yet-filed, and thus utterly indeterminate, § 1983 claim. It would hardly be desirable to place the question of tolling vel non in this jurisprudential limbo, leaving it to be determined by those later events, and then pronouncing it retroactively. Defendants need to be on notice to preserve beyond the normal limitations period evidence that will be needed for their defense; and a statute that becomes retroactively extended, by the action of the plaintiff in crafting a conviction-impugning cause of action, is hardly a statute of repose.
Justice Breyer argues in dissent that equitable tolling should apply “so long as the issues that [a § 1983] claim would raise are being pursued in state court.” Post, at 403. We know of no support (nor does the dissent suggest any) for the far-reaching proposition that equitable tolling is appropriate to avoid the risk of concurrent litigation. As best we can tell, the only rationale for such a rule is the concern that “petitioner would have had to divide his attention between criminal and civil cases.” Post, at 400. But when has it been the law that a criminal defendant, or a potential criminal defendant, is absolved from all other responsibilities that the law would otherwise place upon him? If a defendant has a breach-of-contract claim against the prime contractor for his new home, is he entitled to tolling for that as well while his criminal case is pending? Equitable tolling is a rare remedy to be applied in unusual circumstances, not a cure-all for an entirely common state of affairs. Besides its never-heard-of-before quality, the dissent’s proposal suffers from a more ironic flaw. Although the dissent criticizes us for having to develop a system of stays and dismissals, it should be obvious that the omnibus tolling solution will require the same. Despite the existence of the new tolling rule, some (if not most) plaintiffs will nevertheless file suit before or during state criminal proceedings. How does the dissent propose to handle such suits? Finally, the dissent’s contention that law enforcement officers would prefer the possibility of a later § 1983 suit to the more likely reality of an immediate filing, post, at 403-404, is both implausible and contradicted by those who know best. As no fewer than 11 States have informed us in this litigation, “States and municipalities have a strong interest in timely notice of alleged misconduct by their agents. ” Brief for State of Illinois et al. as Amici Curiae 18.
* * *
We hold that the statute of limitations upon a § 1983 claim seeking damages for a false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, where the arrest is followed by criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process. Since in the present case this occurred (with appropriate tolling for the plaintiff’s minority) more than two years before the complaint was filed, the suit was out of time. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
All of petitioner’s other state and federal claims were resolved adversely to him and are not before us. We expressly limited our grant of certiorari to the Fourth Amendment false-arrest claim. See 547 U. S. 1205 (2006). The city of Chicago is no longer a party to this suit.
We have never explored the contours of a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution suit under § 1983, see Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266,270-271,275 (1994) (plurality opinion), and we do not do so here. See generally 1 M. Schwartz, Section 1983 Litigation §3.18[C], pp. 3-605 to 3-629 (4th ed. 2004) (noting a range of approaches in the lower courts). Assuming without deciding that such a claim is cognizable under § 1983, petitioner has not made one. Petitioner did not include such a claim in his complaint. He in fact abandoned a state-law malicious-prosecution claim in the District Court, and stated, in his opposition to respondents’ first motion for summary judgment, that “Plaintiff does not seek to raise ... a malicious prosecution claim under § 1983,” Record, Doc. 17, p. 3, n. 5. In this Court, he has told us that respondents are “mistaken in characterizing petitioner’s cause of action as involving “unwarranted prosecution.’ ” Reply Brief 12.
This is not to say, of course, that petitioner could not have filed suit immediately upon his false arrest. While the statute of limitations did not begin to run until petitioner became detained pursuant to legal process, he was injured and suffered damages at the moment of his arrest, and was entitled to bring suit at that time. See Adler v. Beverly Hills Hospital, 594 S. W. 2d 153, 156 (Tex. Civ. App. 1980) (“We may concede that a person falsely imprisoned has the right to sue on the first day for his detention”).
Had petitioner filed suit upon his arrest and had his suit then been dismissed under Heck, the statute of limitations, absent tolling, would have run by the time he obtained reversal of his conviction. If under those circumstances he were not allowed to refile his suit, Heck would produce immunity from § 1983 liability, a result surely not intended. Because in the present case petitioner did not file his suit within the limitations period, we need not decide, had he done so, how much time he would have had to refile the suit once the Heck bar was removed.
Justice Stevens reaches the same result by arguing that, under Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), the Heck bar can never come into play in a § 1983 suit seeking damages for a Fourth Amendment violation, so that “a habeas remedy was never available to [petitioner] in the first place.” Post, at 399 (opinion concurring in judgment). This reads Stone to say more than it does. Under Stone, Fourth Amendment violations are generally not cognizable on federal habeas, but they are cognizable when the State has failed to provide the habeas petitioner “an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim.” 428 U. S., at 482. Federal habeas petitioners have sometimes succeeded in arguing that Stone’s general prohibition does not apply. See, e.g., Herrera v. LeMaster, 225 F. 3d 1176, 1178 (2000), aff’d on this point, 301 F. 3d 1192, 1195, n. 4 (CA10 2002) (en banc); United States ex rel. Bostick v. Peters, 3 F. 3d 1023, 1029 (CA7 1993); Agee v. White, 809 F. 2d 1487, 1490 (CA11 1987); Doescher v. Estelle, 666 F. 2d 285, 287 (CA5 1982); Boyd v. Mintz, 631 F. 2d 247, 250-251 (CA3 1980); see also 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure §§27.1-27.3, pp. 1373-1389 (5th ed. 2005). At the time of a Fourth Amendment wrong, and at the time of conviction, it cannot be known whether a prospective § 1983 plaintiff will receive a full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim. It thus remains the case that a conflict with the federal habeas statute is possible, that a Fourth Amendment claim can necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction, and that if it does it must, under Heck, be dismissed.
Insofar as Justice Stevens simply suggests that Heck has no bearing here because petitioner received a full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim in state court, the argument is equally untenable. At the time that petitioner became detained pursuant to legal process, it was impossible to predict whether this would be true. And even at the point when his limitations period ended, state proceedings on his conviction were ongoing; full and fair opportunity up to that point was not enough. Stone requires full and fair opportunity to litigate a Fourth Amendment claim “at trial and on direct review.” 428 U. S., at 494-495, n. 37 (emphasis added).
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The issue in this federal income tax case is whether an accrual-basis corporate taxpayer, by delivering its fully secured promissory demand note to the trustees of its qualified employees' profit-sharing trust, is. entitled to a deduction therefor under § 404 (a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. §404 (a).
I
The pertinent facts are stipulated. Petitioner, Don E. Williams Company (taxpayer), is an Illinois corporation with its principal office at Moline in that State. It serves as a manufacturers’ representative and wholesaler for factory tools and supplies. It keeps its books and files its federal income tax returns on the accrual method of accounting and on the basis of the fiscal year ended April 30. Don E. Williams, Jr., president of the taxpayer, owns 87.08% of its outstanding capital stock; Joseph W. Phillips, Jr., vice president, owns 4.17% thereof; and Alice It. Williams, secretary-treasurer, owns 4.58%.
In November 1963, the taxpayer’s directors adopted the Don E. Williams Company Profit Sharing Plan and Trust. The trustees are the three officers of the taxpayer and the First National Bank of Moline. The trust was “qualified” under § 401 (a) of the Code and thus, under § 501 (a), is exempt from federal income tax.
Near the end of each of its fiscal years 1967, 1968, and 1969, the taxpayer’s directors authorized a contribution of approximately $30,000 to the trust. This amount was accrued as an expense and liability on the taxpayer’s books at the close of the year. In May, the taxpayer delivered to the trustees its interest-bearing promissory demand note for the amount of the liability so accrued. The 1967 and 1968 notes bore interest and the 1969 note bore 8% interest. Each note was guaranteed by the three officer-trustees individually and, in addition, was secured by collateral consisting of Mr. Williams’ stock of the taxpayer and the interests of Mr. Williams and Mr. Phillips under the plan. The value of the collateral plus the net worth of Alice R. Williams, a guarantor, greatly exceeded the face amount of each note.
Within a year following the issuance of each note the taxpayer delivered to the trustees its check for the principal amount of the note plus interest. Each check was duly honored.
In its federal income tax return filed for each of the fiscal years 1967, 1968, and 1969 the taxpayer claimed a deduction under § 404 (a) for the liability accrued to the trustees. On audit, the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, respondent here, ruled that the accruals and the deliveries of the notes to the trustees were not contributions that were “paid,” within the meaning of §404 (a). Accordingly, he disallowed the claimed accrual deductions and, instead, allowed deductions only for the checks for the respective fiscal years in which they were delivered. These adjustments resulted in deficiencies of $15,162.87, $1,360.64, and $530.42, respectively, in the taxpayer’s income taxes for the three years.
On petition for redetermination, the United States Tax Court, in a reviewed opinion with three dissents, upheld the Commissioner. 62 T. C. 166 (1974). In so doing, it adhered to its consistent rulings since 1949 to the effect that an accrual-basis employer’s contribution to its qualified employees’ profit-sharing plan in the form of the employer’s promissory note was not something “paid,” and therefore deductible, under § 404 (a) of the 1954 Code or under the predecessor § 23 (p) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939. With the taxpayer’s case being subject to an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had not yet ruled on the issue, the Tax Court declined to follow decisions of the Third, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits that had disagreed with the Tax Court in earlier cases. 62 T. C., at 168.
On appeal, the Seventh Circuit also declined to follow its sister Circuits, and affirmed. 527 F. 2d 649 (1975). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 426 U. S. 919 (1976).
II
A. The statute. Under § 446 of the Code, 26 U. S„ C. § 446, taxable income is computed under the accounting method regularly utilized by the taxpayer in keeping its books. Subject to that requirement, “a taxpayer may compute taxable income” under the cash receipts and disbursements method or, among others, under “an accrual method.” As a consequence, the words “paid or accrued” or “paid or incurred” appear in many of the Code’s deduction provisions. The presence of these phrases reveals Congress’ general intent to give full meaning to the accrual system and to allow the accrual-basis taxpayer to deduct appropriate items that accrue, or are incurred, but are unpaid during the taxable year.
Section 404 (a),, however, quoted in n. 1, supra, stands in obvious contrast. It provides that “[i]f contributions are paid by an employer to . . . a . . . profit-sharing . . . plan,” the contributions, subject to a specified limitation in amount, shall be deductible “[i]n the taxable year when paid” (emphasis supplied). The usual alternative words, “or accrued” or “or incurred,” are missing, and their absence indicates congressional intent to permit deductions for profit-sharing plan contributions only to the extent they are actually paid and not merely accrued or incurred during the year. Congress, however, by way of addendum, provided a grace period for the accrual-basis taxpayer. Section 404 (a) (6) allowed a deduction for the taxable year with respect to a contribution on account of that year if it was a “payment . . . made” within the time prescribed for filing that year’s return. Under § 6072 (b) of the Code, this period, for petitioner-taxpayer, was two and one-half months after April 30, the close of its fiscal year, or July 15.
B. The legislative history. This history, as is to be expected, is consistent with the theme of the statute’s language. Section 404 is virtually identical with § 23 (p) of the 1939 Code, as amended by § 162 (b) of the Revenue Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 863. Committee reports at that time speak of an accrual-basis taxpayer’s deferral of paying compensation and state that, if this was done “under an arrangement having the effect of a . . . profit-sharing . . . plan . . . deferring the receipt of compensation, he will not be allowed a deduction until the year in which the compensation is paid” (emphasis supplied). H. R. Rep. No. 2333, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 106 (1942); S. Rep. No. 1631, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 141 (1942). This, however, would have created a computational problem for the accrual-basis taxpayer who wished to make the maximum contribution possible under the percentage limitations of the statute, see § 404 (a)(3)(A), n. 1, supra, but who would not be able to determine that figure until after the close of the taxable year. See Hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance on the Revenue Act of 1942, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 465 (1942). Accordingly, Congress provided the grace period, originally 60 days under § 23 (p)(l)(E) of the 1939 Code, as amended, 56 Stat. 865, for the accrual-basis taxpayer.
Six years later the House Committee on Ways and Means recommended an extension of the grace time and referred to the then-existing 60-day period for the deduction of “contributions actually paid” (emphasis supplied). H. R. Rep. No. 2087, 80th Cong., 2d Sess., 13 (1948). The Senate did not then go along. But in 1954 the grace period was lengthened to coincide with the period for filing the return, § 404 (a)(6) of the 1954 Code, and at that time a similar reference, “actually makes payment,” was repeated in the legislative history. S. Rep. No. 1622, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., 55 (1954). See, id., at 292, and H. R. Rep. No, 1337, 83d Cong., 2d Sess., A151 (1954).
The applicable Treasury Regulations since 1942 consistently have stressed payment by the accrual-basis taxpayer. See Reg. Ill, § 29.23 (p)-l (1943); Reg. 118, § 39.23 (p)-l (d) (1953); Reg. § 1.404 (a)-l (c), 26 CFR § 1.404 (a)-l (c) (1975). With the statute re-enacted in the 1954 Code, this administrative construction may be said to have received congressional approval. See Lykes v. United States, 343 U. S. 118, 127 (1952).
We thus have, in the life and development of the statute, an unbroken pattern of emphasis on payment for the accrual-basis taxpayer. Indeed, the taxpayer here concedes that more than mere accrual is necessary for the accrual-basis taxpayer to be entitled to the deduction. Tr. of Oral Arg. 17. The taxpayer would find that requirement satisfied by the issuance and delivery of its promissory note. To that aspect of the case we now turn.
Ill
In the light of the language of the statute, its legislative history, and the taxpayer’s just-mentioned concession, the controversy before us obviously comes down to the question whether the taxpayer’s issuance and delivery of its promissory note to the trustees within the grace period, unaccompanied, however, by discharge of the note within that period, made the accrued contribution one that was “paid” within the meaning of §404 (a). The obligation to make the contribution for the taxable year existed, and the liability was even formally recognized by the taxpayer by the issuance and delivery of its note of acknowledged value. But was all this a contribution “paid” to the profit-sharing plan?
Two decisions of this Court, although they concern cash-basis taxpayers, are of helpful significance. The first is Eckert v. Burnet, 283 U. S. 140 (1931). There a taxpayer had endorsed notes issued by a corporation which later became insolvent. The taxpayer and his partner took up the notes with the creditor by replacing them with their own joint note. The Court unanimously held that this did not entitle the cash-basis taxpayer to a bad-debt deduction for, as the Board of Tax Appeals observed, he had “ 'merely exchanged his note under which he was primarily liable for the corporation’s notes under which he was secondarily liable, without any outlay of cash or property having a cash value.’ ” Id., at 141. The second decision is Helvering v. Price, 309 U. S. 409 (1940). There the taxpayer argued that his giving a secured note to a bank in response to a guarantee gave rise to a deduction. The Court observed that the note “was not the equivalent of cash to entitle the taxpayer to the deduction,” and concluded that the fact the note was secured made no difference in the result. “[T]he collateral was not payment. It was given to secure respondent’s promise to pay” and “did not transform the promise into the payment required to constitute a deductible loss in the taxable year.” Id., at 413-414.
The reasoning is apparent: the note may never be paid, and if it is not paid, “the taxpayer has parted with nothing more than his promise to pay.” Hart v. Commissioner, 54 F. 2d 848, 852 (CA1 1932).
If, as was suggested, the language of § 404 (a) places all taxpayers on a cash basis with respect to payments to a qualified profit-sharing trust, the principle of Eckert and of Price clearly is controlling here. The petitioner argues, of course, that that principle is not applicable to the accrual-basis taxpayer. We are not persuaded. The statutory terms “paid” and “payment,” coupled with the grace period and the legislative history’s reference to “paid” and “actually paid,” demonstrate that, regardless of the method of accounting, all taxpayers must pay out cash or its equivalent by the end of the grace period in order to qualify for the § 404 (a) deduction.
This accords, also, with the apparent policy behind the statutory provision, namely, that an objective outlay-of-assets test would insure the integrity of the employees’ plan and insure the full advantage of any contribution which entitles the employer to a tax benefit.
Other arguments advanced by the taxpayer are also unconvincing:
1. The taxpayer argues that because its notes are acknowledged to have had value, it is entitled to a deduction equal to that value. It is suggested that such a note would qualify as income to a seller-recipient. Whatever the situation might be with respect to the recipient, the note, for the maker, even though fully secured, is still only his promise to pay. It does not in itself constitute an outlay of cash or other property. A similar argument was made in Helvering v. Price, supra, and was not availing for the taxpayer there. See Brief for Respondent, O. T. 1939, No. 559, pp. 16-17.
2. The taxpayer suggests that the transaction equates with a payment of cash to the trustees followed by a loan, evidenced by the note in return, in the amount of the cash advanced. But
“a transaction is to be given its tax effect in accord with what actually occurred and not in accord with what might have occurred.
“. . . This Court has observed repeatedly that, while a taxpayer is free to organize his affairs as he chooses, nevertheless, once having done so, he must accept the tax consequences of his choice, whether contemplated or not. . . and may not enjoy the benefit of some other route he might have chosen to follow but did not.” Commissioner v. National Alfalfa Dehydrating, 417 U. S. 134, 148-149 (1974).
See Central Tablet Mfg. Co. v. United States, 417 U. S. 673, 690 (1974). What took place here is clear, and income tax consequences follow accordingly. We do not indulge in speculating how the transaction might have been recast with a different tax result.
3. Taxpayer heavily relies on the fact that three Courts of Appeals — the only courts at that level to pass upon the issue until the present case came to the Seventh Circuit, see n. 4, supra — have resolved the issue adversely to the Commissioner. We cannot ignore those decisions or lightly pass them by. Indeed, petitioner taxpayer has a stronger argument than the taxpayers in those cases because they concerned note transactions of somewhat lesser integrity, in the sense that the notes either bore a lower interest rate or no interest at all, or were less adequately secured. After careful review of those cases, however, we conclude that their analytical structure rests on two errors:
(a) The three Courts of Appeals, in considering § 404 (a), assumed, mistakenly we feel, that the word “paid” in the statute has the same meaning it possesses in § 267 (a). The latter section disallows deductions by an accrual-basis taxpayer for certain items that are accrued but not yet paid to related cash-basis payees. The analogy the Courts of Appeals drew between § 404 (a) and § 267 (a) derives from two earlier cases, namely, Anthony P. Miller, Inc. v. Commissioner, 164 F. 2d 268 (CA3 1947), cert. denied, 333 U. S. 861 (1948), and Musselman Hub-Brake Co. v. Commissioner, 139 F. 2d 65 (CA6 1943), where it was ruled that an accrual-basis corporate taxpayer’s delivery of a demand note to one of its officers for salary or to its controlling shareholder for royalties and interest effected a payment of those items under § 24 (c) of the 1939 Code (the predecessor of § 267 (a) of the 1954 Code). But this interpretation of the term "paid” in § 267 (a) necessarily resulted from the desirability of affording simultaneously consistent treatment to the deduction and to the income inclusion. The statute’s purpose was to prevent the tax avoidance that would result if an accrual-basis corporation could claim a deduction for an accrued item its related cash-basis payee would not include in income until it was paid, if ever. See H. R. Rep. No. 1546, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 29 (1937); S. Rep. No. 1242, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 31 (1937). Because the recipient of the note was required to include its value in income at the time of receipt, disallowance of the deduction to the maker corporation sympathetically was deemed not to serve the underlying policy of § 24 (c) of the 1939 Code. Musselman, 139 F. 2d, at 68; Logan Engineering Co. v. Commissioner, 12 T. C. 860, 868 (1949). The term "paid” in the statute was thus used merely, and only insofar as, to insure that transactions between related entities received consistent tax treatment. This situation has no counterpart under § 404 (a), for the qualified plan is exempt from tax. A policy consideration that might call for equivalence on both sides of the income tax ledger plainly is not present. And one is not brought into being by the fact that the trustees must disclose the note in the information report required to be filed by § 6047 (a) of the Cbde.
(b) The three Courts of Appeals seemed to equate a promissory note with a check. The line between the two may be thin at times, but it is distinct. The promissory note, even when payable on demand and fully secured, is still, as its name implies, only a promise to pay, and does not represent the paying out or reduction of assets. A check, on the other hand, is a direction to the bank for immediate payment, is a medium of exchange, and has come to be treated for federal tax purposes as a conditional payment of cash. Estate of Spiegel v. Commissioner, 12 T. C. 524 (1949); Rev. Rul. 54-465, 1954-2 Cum. Bull. 93. The factual difference is illustrated and revealed by taxpayer’s own payment of each promissory note with a check within a year after issuance.
We therefore find ourselves in disagreement with the result reached by the Third, Ninth, and Tenth Circuits in their respective cases hereinabove cited. We agree, instead, with the Tax Court in its uniform line of decisions and with the Seventh Circuit in the present case. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Section 404 (a), as amended by § 24 of the Technical Amendments Act of 1958, 72 Stat. 1623, reads in pertinent part:
“(a) General rule.
“If contributions are paid by an employer to or under a stock bonus, pension, profit-sharing, or annuity plan, . . . such contributions . . . shall not be deductible under section 162 (relating to trade or business expenses) or section 212 (relating to expenses for the production of income) ; but, if they satisfy the conditions of either of such sections, they shall be deductible under this section, subject, however, to the following limitations as to the amounts deductible in any year:
“(3) Stock bonus and profit-sharing trusts.
“(A) Limits on deductible contributions.
“In the taxable year when paid, if the contributions are paid into a . . . profit-sharing trust, and if such taxable year ends within or with a taxable year of the trust with respect to which the trust is exempt under section 501 fa), in an amount not in excess of 15 percent of the compensation otherwise paid or accrued during the taxable year to all employees under the . . . profit-sharing plan. . .
Respondent acknowledges that a solvent taxpayer’s issuance and delivery of a check is a contribution that is “paid,” within the language of §404 (a). Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-31. See Dick Bros. v. Commissioner, 205 F. 2d 64 (CA3 1953).
Logan Engineering Co. v. Commissioner, 12 T. C. 860 (Kern, J., reviewed by the court with no dissents), appeal dismissed (CA7 1949); Slaymaker Lock Co. v. Commissioner, 18 T. C. 1001 (1952) (Bruce, J.), rev’d sub nom. Sachs v. Commissioner, 208 F. 2d 313 (CA3 1953); Time Oil Co. v. Commissioner, 26 T. C. 1061 (1956) (Withey, J.), remanded, 258 F. 2d 237 (CA9 1958), supplemental opinion, 294 F. 2d 667 (1961); Wasatch Chemical Co. v. Commissioner, 37 T. C. 817 (1962) (Fay, J., reviewed by tbe court with no dissents), remanded, 313 F. 2d 843 (CA10 1963). Memorandum decisions to the same effect are Freer Motor Transfer v. Commissioner, 8 TCM 507 (1949), ¶ 49,124 P-H Memo TC (Kern, J.); Sachs v. Commissioner, 11 TCM 882 (1952), ¶ 52,256 P-H Memo TC (LeMire, J.), remanded, 208 F. 2d 313 (CA3 1953); Lancer Clothing Corp. v. Commissioner, 34 TCM 776 (1975), ¶ 75,180 P-H Memo TC (Scott, J.), on appeal to the Second Circuit, No. 76-4012; Coastal Electric Corp. v. Commissioner, 34 TCM 1007 (1975), ¶ 75,231 P-H Memo TC (Goffe, J.), on appeal to the Fourth Circuit, No. 75-2184. See Rev. Rul. 71-95, 1971-1 Cum. Bull. 130; Rev. Rul. 55-608, 1955-2 Cum. Bull. 546, 548. See also Patmon, Young & Kirk v. Commissioner, 536 F. 2d 142 (CA6 1976), concerning a cash basis taxpayer.
Sachs v. Commissioner, 208 F. 2d 313 (CA3 1953) (negotiable interest-bearing demand notes); Time Oil Co. v. Commissioner, 258 F. 2d 237, 240 (CA9 1958) (non-interest-bearing demand notes, said to present a “close” question); Wasatch Chemical Co. v. Commissioner, 313 F. 2d 843 (CA10 1963) (unsecured interest-bearing five-year promissory notes). Accord, Advance Constr. Co. v. United States, 356 F. Supp. 1267 (ND Ill. 1972) (secured interest-bearing term promissory note).
The persistence of the Government in pursuing its position on an issue of tax law has been noted before. United States v. Foster Lumber Co., ante, at 54-55 (dissenting opinion). This time, however, the Government’s position has been consistently accepted for more than 25 years by the Tax Court. It thus has not encountered uniform judicial rejection over a substantial period, as it had on the Foster Lumber issue.
See, e. g., §§162 (a), 163(a), 164(a), 174(a)(1), 175(a), 177(a), 180 (a), 182 (a), 212, 216 (a), and 217 (a). See also § 7701 (a) (25).
Section 404 (a) (6), as it read prior to a 1974 amendment, provided:
“(6) Taxpayers on accrual basis.
“For purposes of paragraphs (1), (2), and (3), a taxpayer on the accrual basis shall be deemed to have made a payment on the last day of the year of accrual if the payment is on account of such taxable year and is made not later than the time prescribed by law for filing the return for such taxable year (including extension thereof).”
Section 1013 (c) (2) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 923, amended this section to afford the same grace period to a cash-basis taxpayer.
At least one witness at the time aptly described the law as having been “drafted in such a way that all corporations are put on a cash basis on the payment to trusts.” Statement of Richard D. Sturtevant in Hearings before the Senate Committee on Finance on the Revenue Act of 1942, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 465 (1942).
Reg. § 1.404 (a)-l (c) reads:
“Deductions under section 404 (a) are generally allowable only for the year in which the contribution or compensation is paid, regardless of the fact that the taxpayer, may make his returns on the accrual method of accounting. Exceptions are made in the case of . . . and, as provided by section 404 (a)(6), in the case of payments made by a taxpayer on the accrual method of accounting not later than the time prescribed by law for filing the return for the taxable year of accrual (including extensions thereof). This latter provision is intended to permit a taxpayer on the accrual method to deduct such accrued contribution or compensation in the year of accrual, provided payment is actually made not later than the time prescribed by law for filing. the return for the taxable year of accrual (including extensions thereof) . . . .”
Other courts have applied Eckert and Price to situations other than a claimed bad-debt deduction, Cleaver v. Commissioner, 158 F. 2d 342 (CA7 1946), cert. denied, 330 U. S. 849 (1947) (interest); Jenkins v. Bitgood, 101 F. 2d 17 (CA2), cert. denied, 307 U. S. 636 (1939) (loss); Baltimore Dairy Lunch, Inc. v. United States, 231 F. 2d 870, 875 (CA8 1956) (loss); Guren v. Commissioner, 66 T. C. 118 (1976) (charitable contribution); Petty v. Commissioner, 40 T. C. 521, 524 (1963) (Atkins, J., for seven judges, concurring) (charitable contribution).
A similar policy applies to deductions for charitable contributions under § 170 (a) of the Code. These deductions, too-, are limited to those the “payment of which is made within the taxable year,” even though the particular taxpayer is on the accrual basis. See H. R. Rep. No. 1860, 75th Cong., 3d Sess., 19 (1938), referring to §§23 (o) and (q) of the Revenue Act of 1938, 52 Stat. 463, 464.
By § 2003 (a) of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, 88 Stat. 971, § 4975 was added to the 1954 Code. It makes an employer’s issuance of its promissory note to a qualified profit-sharing plan a “prohibited transaction” subject to penalty. See §§4975 (a), (b), and (c)(1)(B). See also H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1280, p. 308 (1974). By this penalty imposition, Congress has reaffirmed the actual-payment requirement of §404 (a), and strengthened its enforceability.
Section 267 relates to items that would be deductible under §§ 162 or 212 and reads:
“(a) Deductions disallowed.
“No deduction shall be allowed—
“(2) Unpaid expenses and interest.
“In respect of expenses, otherwise deductible under section 162 or 212, or of interest, otherwise deductible under section 163,'—
“(A) If within the period consisting of the taxable year of the taxpayer and 2% months after the close thereof (i) such expenses or interest are not paid, and (ii) the amount thereof is not includible in the gross income of the person to whom the payment is to be made; and
“(B) If, by reason of the method of accounting of the person to whom the payment is to be made, the amount thereof is not, unless paid, includible in the gross income of such person for the taxable year in which or with which the taxable year of the taxpayer ends; and
“(C) If, at the close of the taxable year of the taxpayer or at any time within 2% months thereafter, both the taxpayer and the person to whom the payment is to be made are persons specified within any one of the paragraphs of subsection (b).
“(b) Relationships.
“The persons referred to in subsection (a) are:
“ (4) A grantor and a fiduciary of any trust . . . .”
Section 404 (a), on the other hand, concerns items specifically precluded as deductions under §§ 162 and 212.
Celina Mfg. Co. v. Commissioner, 142 F. 2d 449 (CA6 1944) ; Commissioner v. Mundet Cork Corp., 173 F. 2d 757 (CA2 1949); Akron Welding & Spring Co. v. Commissioner, 10 T. C. 715 (1948), are to the same effect. See Rev. Rul. 55-608, 1955-2 Cum. Bull. 546, 548.
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether Louisiana violated the Double Jeopardy Clause, as we expounded it in Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1 (1978), by prosecuting petitioner a second time after the trial judge at the first trial granted petitioner’s motion for new trial on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s verdict of guilty.
I
Petitioner Tracy Lee Hudson was tried in Louisiana state court for first-degree murder, and the jury found him guilty. Petitioner then moved for a new trial, which under Louisiana law was petitioner’s only means of challenging the sufficiency of the evidence against him. The trial judge granted the motion, stating: “I heard the same evidence the jury did[;] I’m convinced that there was no evidence, certainly not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, to sustain the verdict of the homicide committed by this defendant of this particular victim.” The Louisiana Supreme Court denied the State’s application for a writ of certiorari. State v. Hudson, 344 So. 2d 1 (1977).
At petitioner’s second trial, the State presented an eyewitness whose testimony it had not presented at the first trial. The second jury also found petitioner guilty. The Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed the conviction. State v. Hudson, 361 So. 2d 858 (1978).
Petitioner then sought a writ of habeas corpus in a Louisiana state court, contending that the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the State from trying him the second time. Petitioner relied on our decision in Burks that “the Double Jeopardy Clause precludes a second trial once the reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient” to support the guilty verdict. 437 U. S., at 18. The trial court denied a writ, and the Louisiana Supreme Court affirmed. 373 So. 2d 1294 (1979). The Supreme Court read Burks to bar a second trial only if the court reviewing the evidence — whether an appellate court or a trial court — determines that there was no evidence to support the verdict. Because it believed that the trial judge at petitioner’s first trial had granted petitioner’s motion for new trial on the ground that there was insufficient evidence to support the verdict, although some evidence, the Louisiana Supreme Court concluded that petitioner’s second trial was not precluded by the Double Jeopardy Clause.
We granted a writ of certiorari, 445 U. S. 960 (1980), and we now reverse.
II
We considered in Burks the question “whether an accused may be subjected to a second trial when conviction in a prior trial was reversed by an appellate court solely for lack of sufficient evidence to sustain the jury’s verdict.” 437 U. S., at 2. We held that a reversal “due to a failure of proof at trial,” where the State received a “fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble,” bars retrial on the same charge. Id., at 16. We also held that it makes “no difference that the reviewing court, rather than the trial court, determined the evidence to be insufficient,” id., at 11 (emphasis in original), or that “a defendant has sought a new trial as one of his remedies, or even as the sole remedy.” Id., at 17.
Our decision in Burks controls this case, for it is clear that petitioner moved for a new trial on the ground that the evidence was legally insufficient to support the verdict and that the trial judge granted petitioner’s motion on that ground. In the hearing on the motion, petitioner’s counsel argued to the trial judge that “the verdict of the jury is contrary to the law and the evidence.” After reviewing the evidence put to the jurors, the trial judge agreed with petitioner “that there was no evidence, certainly not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt, to sustain the verdict”; and he commented: “[H]ow they concluded that this defendant committed the act from that evidence when no weapon was produced, no proof of anyone who saw a blow struck, is beyond the Court’s comprehension.” The Louisiana Supreme Court recognized that the trial judge granted the new trial on the ground that the evidence was legally insufficient. The Supreme Court described the trial judge’s decision in these words: “[T]he trial judge herein ordered a new trial pursuant to LSA-C. Cr. P. art. 851 (1) solely for lack of sufficient evidence to sustain the jury’s verdict . . . .” 373 So. 2d, at 1298 (emphasis in original). This is precisely the circumstance in which Burks precludes retrials. 437 U. S., at 18. See Greene v. Massey, 437 U. S. 19, 24-26 (1978); id., at 27 (Powell, J., concurring). Nothing in Burks suggests, as the Louisiana Supreme Court seemed to believe, that double jeopardy protections are violated only when the prosecution has adduced no evidence at all of the crime or an element thereof.
The State contends that Burks does not control this case. As the State reads the record, the trial judge granted a new trial only because he entertained personal doubts about the verdict. According to the State, the trial judge decided that he, as a “13th juror/' would not have found petitioner guilty and he therefore granted a new trial even though the evidence was not insufficient as a matter of law to support the verdict. The State therefore reasons that Burks does not preclude a new trial in such a case, for the new trial was not granted “due to a failure of proof at trial.” 437 U. S., at 16.
This is not such a case, as the opinion of the Louisiana Supreme Court and the statements of the trial judge make clear. The trial judge granted the new trial because the State had failed to prove its ease as a matter of law, not merely because he, as a “13th juror,” would have decided it differently from the other 12 jurors. Accordingly, there are no significant facts which distinguish this case from Burks, and the Double Jeopardy Clause barred the State from prosecuting petitioner a second time.
Ill
The judgment of the Louisiana Supreme Court is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Louisiana’s Code of Criminal Procedure does not authorize trial Judges to enter judgments of acquittal in jury trials. La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 778 (West Supp. 1980); State v. Henderson, 362 So. 2d 1358, 1367 (La. 1978). Accordingly, a criminal defendant’s only means of challenging the sufficiency of evidence presented against him to a jury is a motion for new trial under La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 851 (West 1967 and Supp. 1980), which provides in pertinent part:
“The Court, on motion of the defendant, shall grant a new trial whenever:
“(1) The verdict is contrary to the law and the evidence;
“(2) The court’s ruling on a written motion, or an objection made during the proceedings, shows prejudicial error;
“(3) New and material evidence that, notwithstanding the exercise of reasonable diligence by the defendant, was not discovered before or during the trial, is available, and if the evidence had been introduced at the trial it would probably have changed the verdict or judgment of guilty;
“(4) The defendant has discovered, since the verdict or judgment of guilty, a prejudicial error or defect in the proceedings that, notwithstanding the exercise of reasonable diligence by the defendant, was not discovered before the verdict or judgment; or
“(5) The court is of the opinion that the ends of justice would be served by the granting of a new trial, although the defendant may not be entitled to a new trial as a matter of strict legal right.”
We think it clear that the trial judge in this case acted under paragraph (1) in granting a new trial. See infra, at 43.
We decided Burks before the Louisiana Supreme Court entered its judgment affirming petitioner’s conviction.
Burks involved a federal prosecution, but the Court held in Greene v. Massey, 437 U. S. 19, 24 (1978), that the double jeopardy principle in Burks fully applies to the States. See Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969); Crist v. Bretz, 437 U. S. 28 (1978).
The State’s contention here adopts the reasoning of Justice Tate’s concurring opinion in the Louisiana Supreme Court. Justice Tate wrote: “[The trial judge] did not grant a new trial for a reason that he did not think the state had produced sufficient evidence to prove guilt, but rather because he himself (to satisfy his doubts — not the jury’s, which had concluded otherwise) had personal doubts that the evidence was sufficient to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Commendably and conscientiously, he therefore ordered a new trial ....
“The present is not an instance where the state did not prove its case at the first trial, so that granting a new trial gave the state a second chance to produce enough evidence to convict the accused. If so, as the majority notes, re-trial offends constitutional double jeopardy.” 373 So. 2d, at 1298 (emphasis in original).
Whether a state trial judge in a jury trial may assess evidence as a “13th juror” is a question of state law. Compare People v. Noga, 196 Colo. 478, 480, 586 P. 2d 1002, 1003 (1978); State v. Bowle, 318 So. 2d 407, 408 (Fla. App. 1975), with Veitch v. Superior Court, 89 Cal. App. 3d 722, 730-731, 152 Cal. Rptr. 822, 827 (1979); People v. Ramos, 33 App. Div. 2d 344, 347, 308 N. Y. S. 2d 195, 197-198 (1970). Justice Tate’s concurring opinion for the Louisiana Supreme Court suggests that Louisiana law allows trial judges to act as “13th jurors.” We do not decide whether the Double Jeopardy Clause would have barred Louisiana from retrying petitioner if the trial judge had granted a new trial in that capacity, for that is not the case before us. We note, however, that Burks precludes retrial where the State has failed as a matter of law to prove its case despite a fair opportunity to do so. Supra, at 43. By definition, a new trial ordered by a trial judge acting as a “13th juror” is not such a case. Thus, nothing in Burks precludes retrial in such a case.
The Louisiana Supreme Court did not find it significant that the trial judge, rather than an appellate court, held the State's evidence to be insufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict: “While the case at bar involves the granting of a motion for new trial by the trial court for insufficient evidence rather than review at the appellate level, we deem the same principles are applicable to both.” 373 So. 2d, at 1297. The State does not contest this conclusion.
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.
This case rests upon a claim under the Fifth Amendment by petitioner, an identifiable group of American Indians of between 60 and 70 individuals residing in Alaska, for compensation for a taking by the United States of certain timber from Alaskan lands allegedly belonging to the group. The area claimed is said to contain over 350,000 acres of land and 150 square miles of water. The Tee-Hit-Tons, a clan of the Tlingit Tribe, brought this suit in the Court of Claims under 28 U. S. C. § 1505. The compensation claimed does not arise from any statutory direction to pay. Payment, if it can be compelled, must be based upon a constitutional right of the Indians to recover. This is not a case that is connected with any phase of the policy of the Congress, continued throughout our history, to extinguish Indian title through negotiation rather than by force, and to grant payments from the public purse to needy descendants of exploited Indians. The legislation in support of that policy has received consistent interpretation from this Court in sympathy with its compassionate purpose.
Upon petitioner’s motion, the Court of Claims under its Rule 38 (b) directed a separate trial with respect to certain specific issues of law and any related issues of fact essential to the proper adjudication of the legal issues. Only those pertinent to the nature of the petitioner’s interest, if any, in the lands are here for review. Substantial evidence, largely documentary, relevant to these legal issues was introduced by both parties before a Commissioner who thereupon made findings of fact. The Court of Claims adopted these findings and held that petitioner was an identifiable group of American Indians residing in Alaska; that its interest in the lands prior to purchase of Alaska by the United States in 1867 was “original Indian title” or “Indian right of occupancy.” Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 128 Ct. Cl. 82, 85, 87, 120 F. Supp. 202, 203-204, 205. It was further held that if such original Indian title survived the Treaty of 1867, 15 Stat. 539, Arts. Ill and VI, by which Russia conveyed Alaska to the United States, such title was not sufficient basis to maintain this suit as there had been no recognition by Congress of any legal rights in petitioner to the land in question. 128 Ct. Cl., at 92, 120 F. Supp., at 208. The court said that no rights inured to plaintiff by virtue of legislation by Congress. As a result of these conclusions, no answer was necessary to questions 2, 5 and 6. The Tee-Hit-Tons’ petition was thereafter dismissed.
Because of general agreement as to the importance of the question of compensation for congressionally approved taking of lands occupied in Alaska under aboriginal Indian use and claim of ownership, and the conflict concerning the effect of federal legislation protecting Indian occupation between' this decision of the Court of Claims, 128 Ct. Cl., at 90, 120 F. Supp., at 206-207, and the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Miller v. United States, 159 F. 2d 997,1003, we granted certiorari, 347 U. S. 1009.
The Alaskan area in which petitioner claims a com-pensable interest is located near and within the exterior lines of the Tongass National Forest. By Joint Resolution of August 8, 1947, 61 Stat. 920, the Secretary of Agriculture was authorized to contract for the sale of national forest timber located within this National Forest “notwithstanding any claim of possessory rights.” The Resolution defines “possessory rights” and provides for all receipts from the sale of timber to be maintained in a special account in the Treasury until the timber and land rights are finally determined. Section 3 (b) of the Resolution provides:
“Nothing in this resolution shall be construed as recognizing or denying the validity of any claims of possessory rights to lands or timber within the exterior boundaries of the Tongass National Forest.”
The Secretary of Agriculture, on August 20, 1951, pursuant to this authority contracted for sale to a private company of all merchantable timber in the area claimed by petitioner. This is the sale of timber which petitioner alleges constitutes a compensable taking by the United States of a portion of its proprietary interest in the land.
The problem presented is the nature of the petitioner’s interest in the land, if any. Petitioner claims a “full proprietary ownership” of the land; or, in the alternative, at least a “recognized” right to unrestricted possession, occupation and use. Either ownership or recognized possession, petitioner asserts, is compensable. If it has a fee simple interest in the entire tract, it has an interest in the timber and its sale is a partial taking of its right to “possess, use and dispose of it.” United States v. General Motors Corp., 323 U. S. 373, 378. It is petitioner’s contention that its tribal predecessors have continually claimed, occupied and used the land from time immemorial; that when Russia took Alaska, the Tlingits had a well-developed social order which included a concept of property ownership; that Russia while it possessed Alaska in no manner interfered with their claim to the land; that Congress has by subsequent acts confirmed and recognized petitioner’s right to occupy the land permanently and therefore the sale of the timber off such lands constitutes a taking pro tanto of its asserted rights in the area.
The Government denies that petitioner has any com-pensable interest. It asserts that the Tee-Hit-Tons’ property interest, if any, is merely that of the right to the use of the land at the Government’s will; that Congress has never recognized any legal interest of petitioner in the land and therefore without such recognition no compensation is due the petitioner for any taking by the United States.
I. Recognition. — The question of recognition may be disposed of shortly. Where the Congress by treaty or other agreement has declared that thereafter Indians were to hold the lands permanently, compensation must be paid for subsequent taking. The petitioner contends that Congress has sufficiently “recognized” its possessory rights in the land in question so as to make its interest compen-sable. Petitioner points specifically to two statutes to sustain this contention. The first is § 8 of the Organic Act for Alaska of May 17,1884, 23 Stat. 24. The second is § 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900, which was to provide for a civil government for Alaska, 31 Stat. 321, 330. The Court of Appeals in the Miller case, supra, felt that these Acts constituted recognition of Indian ownership. 159 F. 2d 997, 1002-1003.
We have carefully examined these statutes and the pertinent legislative history and find nothing to indicate any intention by Congress to grant to the Indians any permanent rights in the lands of Alaska occupied by them by permission of Congress. Rather, it clearly appears that what was intended was merely to retain the status quo until further congressional or judicial action was taken. There is no particular form for congressional recognition of Indian right of permanent occupancy. It may be established in a variety of ways but there must be the definite intention by congressional action or authority to accord legal rights, not merely permissive occupation. Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S. 86, 101.
This policy of Congress toward the Alaskan Indian lands was maintained and reflected by its expression in the Joint Resolution of 1947 under which the timber contracts were made.
II. Indian Title. — (a) The nature of aboriginal Indian interest in land and the various rights as between the Indians and the United States dependent on such interest are far from novel as concerns our Indian inhabitants. It is well settled that in all the States of the Union the tribes who inhabited the lands of the States held claim to such lands after the coming of the white man, under what is sometimes termed original Indian title or permission from the whites to occupy. That description means mere possession not specifically recognized as ownership by Congress. After conquest they were permitted to occupy portions of territory over which they had previously exercised “sovereignty,” as we use that term. This is not a property right but amounts to a right of occupancy which the sovereign grants and protects against intrusion by third parties but which right of occupancy may be terminated and such lands fully disposed of by the sovereign itself without any legally enforceable obligation to compensate the Indians.
This position of the Indian has long been rationalized by the legal theory that discovery and conquest gave the conquerors sovereignty over and ownership of the lands thus obtained. 1 Wheaton’s International Law, c. V. The great case of Johnson v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat. 543, denied the power of an Indian tribe to pass their right of occupancy to another. It confirmed the practice of two hundred years of American history “that discovery gave an exclusive right to extinguish the Indian title of occupancy, either by purchase or by conquest.” P. 587.
“We will not enter into the controversy, whether agriculturists, merchants, and manufacturers, have a right, on abstract principles, to expel hunters from the territory they possess, or to contract their limits. Conquest gives a title which the Courts of the conqueror cannot deny, whatever the private and speculative opinions of individuals may be, respecting the original justice of the claim which has been successfully asserted.” P. 588.
“Frequent and bloody wars, in which the whites were not always the aggressors, unavoidably ensued. European policy, numbers, and skill, prevailed. As the white population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded. The country in the immediate neighbourhood of agriculturists became unfit for them. The game fled into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the Indians followed. The soil, to which the crown originally claimed title, being no longer occupied by its ancient inhabitants, was par-celled out according to the will of the sovereign power, and taken possession of by persons who claimed immediately from the crown, or mediately, through its grantees or deputies.” Pp. 590-591. See Buttz v. Northern Pacific R. Co., 119 U. S. 55, 66; Martin v. Waddell, 16 Pet. 367, 409; Clark v. Smith, 13 Pet. 195, 201.
In Beecher v. Wetherhy, 95 U. S. 517, a tract of land which Indians were then expressly permitted by the United States to occupy was granted to Wisconsin. In a controversy over timber, this Court held the Wisconsin title good.
“The grantee, it is true, would take only the naked fee, and could not disturb the occupancy of the Indians: that occupancy could only be interfered with or determined by the United States. It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race. Be that as it may, the propriety or justice of their action towards the Indians with respect to their lands is a question of governmental policy, and is not a matter open to discussion in a controversy between third parties, neither of whom derives title from the Indians. The right of the United States to dispose of the fee of lands occupied by them has always been recognized by this court from the foundation of the government.” P. 525.
In 1941 a unanimous Court wrote, concerning Indian title, the following:
“Extinguishment of Indian title based on aboriginal possession is of course a different matter. The power of Congress in that regard is supreme. The manner, method and time of such extinguishment raise political, not justiciable, issues.” United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 347.
No case in this Court has ever held that taking of Indian title or use by Congress required compensation. The American people have compassion for the descendants of those Indians who were deprived of their homes and hunting grounds by the drive of civilization. They seek to have the Indians share the benefits of our society as citizens of this Nation. Generous provision has been willingly made to allow tribes to recover for wrongs, as a matter of grace, not because of legal liability. 60 Stat. 1050.
(b) There is one opinion in a case decided by this Court that contains language indicating that unrecognized Indian title might be compensable under the Constitution when taken by the United States. United States v. Tillamooks, 329 U. S. 40.
Recovery was allowed under a jurisdictional Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 801, that permitted payments to a few specific Indian tribes for “legal and equitable claims arising under or growing out of the original Indian title” to land, because of some unratified treaties negotiated with them and other tribes. The other tribes had already been compensated. Five years later this Court unanimously held that none of the former opinions in Vol. 329 of the United States Reports expressed the view that recovery was grounded on a taking under the Fifth Amendment. United States v. Tillamooks, 341 U. S. 48. Interest, payable on recovery for a taking under the Fifth Amendment, was denied.
Before the second Tillamook case, a decision was made on Alaskan Tlingit lands held by original Indian title. Miller v. United States, 159 F. 2d 997. That opinion holds such a title compensable under the Fifth Amendment on reasoning drawn from the language of this Court’s first Tillamook case. After the Miller decision, this Court had occasion to consider the holding of that case on Indian title in Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S. 86, 106, note 28. We there commented as to the first Tillamook case: “That opinion does not hold the Indian right of occupancy compensable without specific legislative direction to make payment.” We further declared “we cannot express agreement with that [compensability of Indian title by the Miller case] conclusion.”
Later the Government used the Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co. note in the second Tillamook case, petition for certiorari, p. 10, to support its argument that the first Tillamook opinion did not decide that taking of original Indian title was compensable under the Fifth Amendment. Thereupon this Court in the second Tillamook case, 341 U. S. 48, held that the first case was not “grounded on a taking under the Fifth Amendment.” Therefore no interest was due. This later Tillamook decision by a unanimous Court supported the Court of Claims in its view of the law in this present case. See Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 128 Ct. Cl., at 87, 120 F. Supp., at 204-205. We think it must be concluded that the recovery in the Tillamook case was based upon statutory direction to pay for the aboriginal title in the special jurisdictional act to equalize the Tillamooks with the neighboring tribes, rather than upon a holding that there had been a compensable taking under the Fifth Amendment. This leaves unimpaired the rule derived from Johnson v. McIntosh that the taking by the United States of unrecognized Indian title is not compensable under the Fifth Amendment.
This is true, not because an Indian or an Indian tribe has no standing to sue or because the United States has not consented to be sued for the taking of original Indian title, but because Indian occupation of land without government recognition of ownership creates no rights against taking or extinction by the United States protected by the Fifth Amendment or any other principle of law.
(c) What has been heretofore set out deals largely with the Indians of the Plains and east of the Mississippi. The Tee-Hit-Tons urge, however, that their stage of civilization and their concept of ownership of property takes them out of the rule applicable to the Indians of the States. They assert that Russia never took their lands in the sense that European nations seized the rest of America. The Court of Claims, however, saw no distinction between their use of the land and that of the Indians of the Eastern United States. See Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United States, 128 Ct. Cl. 82, 87, 120 F. Supp. 202, 204-205. That court had no evidence that the Russian handling of the Indian land problem differed from ours. The natives were left the use of the great part of their vast hunting and fishing territory but what Russia wanted for its use and that of its licensees, it took. The court’s conclusion on this issue was based on strong evidence.
In considering the character of the Tee-Hit-Tons’ use of the land, the Court of Claims had before it the testimony of a single witness who was offered by plaintiff. He stated that he was the chief of the Tee-Hit-Ton tribe. He qualified as an expert on the Tlingits, a group composed of numerous interconnected tribes including the Tee-Hit-Tons. His testimony showed that the Tee-Hit-Tons had become greatly reduced in numbers. Membership descends only through the female line. At the present time there are only a few women of childbearing age and a total membership of some 65.
The witness pointed out that their claim of ownership was based on possession and use. The use that was made of the controverted area was for the location in winter of villages in sheltered spots and in summer along fishing streams and/or bays. The ownership was not individual but tribal. As the witness stated, “Any member of the tribe may use any portion of the land that he wishes, and as long as he uses it that is his for his own enjoyment, and is not to be trespassed upon by anybody else, but the minute he stops using it then any other member of the tribe can come in and use that area.”
When the Russians first came to the Tlingit territory, the most important of the chiefs moved the people to what is now the location of the town of Wrangell. Each tribe took a portion of Wrangell harbor and the chief gave permission to the Russians to build a house on the shore.
The witness learned the alleged boundaries of the Tee-Hit-Ton area from hunting and fishing with his uncle after his return from Carlisle Indian School about 1904. From the knowledge so obtained, he outlined in red on the map, which petitioner filed as an exhibit, the territory claimed by the Tee-Hit-Tons. Use by other tribal members is sketchily asserted. This is the same 350,000 acres claimed by the petition. On it he marked six places to show the Indians' use of the land: (1) his great uncle was buried here, (2) a town, (3) his uncle’s house, (4) a town, (5) his mother’s house, (6) smokehouse. He also pointed out the uses of this tract for fishing salmon and for hunting beaver, deer and mink.
The testimony further shows that while membership in the tribe and therefore ownership in the common property descended only through the female line, the various tribes of the Tlingits allowed one another to use their lands. Before power boats, the Indians would put their shelters for hunting and fishing away from villages. With the power boats, they used them as living quarters.
In addition to this verbal testimony, exhibits were introduced by both sides as to the land use. These exhibits are secondary authorities but they bear out the general proposition that land claims among the Tlingits, and likewise of their smaller group, the Tee-Hit-Tons, was wholly tribal. It was more a claim of sovereignty than of ownership. The articles presented to the Court of Claims by those who have studied and written of the tribal groups agree with the above testimony. There were scattered shelters and villages moved from place to place as game or fish became scarce. There was recognition of tribal rights to hunt and fish on certain general areas, with claims to that effect carved on totem poles. From all that was presented, the Court of Claims concluded, and we agree, that the Tee-Hit-Tons were in a hunting and fishing stage of civilization, with shelters fitted to their environment, and claims to rights to use identified territory for these activities as well as the gathering of wild products of the earth. We think this evidence introduced by both sides confirms the Court of Claims’ con-elusion that the petitioner’s use of its lands was like the use of the nomadic tribes of the States Indians.
The line of cases adjudicating Indian rights on American soil leads to the conclusion that Indian occupancy, not specifically recognized as ownership by action authorized by Congress, may be extinguished by the Government without compensation. Every American schoolboy knows that the savage tribes of this continent were deprived of their ancestral ranges by force and that, even when the Indians ceded millions of acres by treaty in return for blankets, food and trinkets, it was not a sale but the conquerors’ will that deprived them of their land. The duty that rests on this Nation was adequately phrased by Mr. Justice Jackson in his concurrence, Mr. Justice Black joining, in Shoshone Indians v. United States, 324 U. S. 335, at 355, a case that differentiated “recognized” from “unrecognized” Indian title, and held the former only compensable. Id., at 339-340. His words will be found at 354-358. He ends thus:
“We agree with Mr. Justice Reed that no legal rights are today to be recognized in the Shoshones by reason of this treaty. We agree with Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Murphy as to their moral deserts. We do not mean to leave the impression that the two have any relation to each other. The finding that the treaty creates no legal obligations does not restrict Congress from such appropriations as its judgment dictates ‘for the health, education, and industrial advancement of said Indians,’ which is the position in which Congress would find itself if we found that it did create legal obligations and tried to put a value on them.” Id., at 358.
In the light of the history of Indian relations in this Nation, no other course would meet the problem of the growth of the United States except to make congressional contributions for Indian lands rather than to subject the Government to an obligation to pay the value when taken with interest to the date of payment. Our conclusion does not uphold harshness as against tenderness toward the Indians, but it leaves with Congress, where it belongs, the policy of Indian gratuities for the termination of Indian occupancy of Government-owned land rather than making compensation for its value a rigid constitutional principle.
The judgment of the Court of Claims is
Affirmed.
Apartial taking is compensable. United States v. Kansas City Lije Ins. Co., 339 U. S. 799, 809; United States v. Gerlach Live Stock Co., 339 U. S. 725, 739; United States v. General Motors Cory., 323 U. S. 373; United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 TJ. S. Ill, 118.
See Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049; Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 516, 582; Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78, 87, 89; United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 354.
“Separate Trials: The Court in furtherance of convenience or to avoid prejudice may order a separate trial of any claim, counterclaim, or of any separate issues or of any number of claims, counterclaims, or issues; and may enter appropriate orders or judgments with respect to any of such issues, claims, or counterclaims that are tried separately.”
“l. Is the plaintiff an ‘identifiable group of American Indians residing within the territorial limits of... Alaska’ within the meaning of 28 U. S. C. § 1505?”
“2. What property rights, if any, would plaintiff, after defendant’s 1867 acquisition of sovereignty over Alaska, then have had in the area, if any, which from aboriginal times it had through its members, their spouses, in-laws, and permittees used or occupied in their accustomed Indian manner for fishing, hunting, berrying, maintaining permanent or seasonal villages and other structures, or burying the dead?”
“3. What such rights, if any, would have inured to it under the Act of May 17, 1884, 23 Stat. 24, in the area, if any, which on that date was either so used or occupied by it or was claimed by it?
“4. What such rights, if any, would have inured to it under the Act of June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. 321, 330, in the area, if any, which on that date was so used or occupied by it?”
“5. In the event a decision of an affirmative nature on any of issues 2, 3, or 4, is followed by evidence indicating specific property rights on the part of plaintiff at any of those times, then would the testimony of plaintiff’s witness Paul as to recent less intensive use of the areas claimed by plaintiff [Tr. 13-14, 29-30, 44-45, 96-97] constitute prima facie evidence of termination or loss of such rights?”
“6. If any such property rights are established, and had not meanwhile been terminated or lost, then would the execution of the Timber Sale Agreement of August 20, 1951 (as admitted in paragraph 10 of defendant’s Answer), constitute a compensable taking of such rights, or would it give rise to a right to an accounting within the jurisdiction of this Court, or both?” 128 Ct. Cl. 82, 85, 120 F. Supp. 202, 204.
See Hearings before House Committee on Agriculture on H. J. Res. 205, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.; Committee Print No. 12, House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, 83d Cong., 2d Sess.
61 Stat. 921, § 2 (a).
Id., § 1: “That ‘possessory rights’ as used in this resolution shall mean all rights, if any should exist, which are based upon aboriginal occupancy or title, or upon section 8 of the Act of May 17, 1884 (23 Stat. 24), section 14 of the Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1095), or section 27 of the Act of June 6, 1900 (31 Stat. 321), whether claimed by native tribes, native villages, native individuals, or other persons, and which have not been confirmed by patent or court decision or included within any reservation.”
Id, §3 (a).
United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U. S. 103, 109-110; Shoshone Tribe v. United States, 299 U. S. 476, 497; Chippewa Indians v. United States, 301 U. S. 358, 375-376; United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U. S. 119; Sioux Tribe v. United States, 316 U. S. 317, 326.
“... That the Indians or other persons in said district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands actually in their use or occupation or now claimed by them but the terms under which such persons may acquire title to such lands is reserved for future legislation by Congress:...
“The Indians or persons conducting schools or missions in the district shall not be disturbed in the possession of any lands now actually in their use or occupation,....”
23 Stat. 24; see 15 Cong. Rec. 530-531; H. R. Rep. No. 476, 48th Cong., 1st Sess. 2; 31 Stat. 321; see 33 Cong. Rec. 5966.
61 Stat. 921, § 3 (b), see p. 276, supra; H. R. Rep. No. 873, 80th Cong., 1st Sess.
329 U. S., at p. 44.
It relies also, p. 1001, on Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, and United States v. Klamath Indians, 304 U. S. 119. These cases, however, concern Government taking of lands held under Indian title recognized by the United States as an Indian reservation. See 185 U. S., at 390, 304 U. S., at 121, 16 Stat. 707, United States v. Algoma Lumber Co., 305 U. S. 415, 420, and 329 U. S. 40, 52, note 29. See United States v. 10.95 Acres of Land, 75 F. Supp. 841.
The statement concerning the Miller case was needed to meet the Grimes Packing Company argument that Congress could not have intended to authorize the Interior Department to include an important and valuable fishing area, see Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U. S., at 95, note 10, in a permanent reservation for an Indian population of 57 eligible voters. Actual occupation of Alaskan lands by Indians authorized the creation of a reservation. 337 U. S., at 91. One created by Congress through recognition of a permanent right in the Indians from aboriginal use would require compensation to them for reopening to the public. Id., at 103-106. It was therefore important to show that there was no right arising from aboriginal occupation.
Three million dollars was involved in the Tillamook case as the value of the land, and the interest granted by the Court of Claims was $14,000,000. The Government pointed out that if aboriginal Indian title was compensable without specific legislation to that effect, there were claims with estimated interest already pending under the Indian jurisdictional act aggregating $9,000,000,000.
In Cariño v. Insular Government of the Philippine Islands, 212 U. S. 449, this Court did uphold as valid a claim of land ownership in which tribal custom and tribal recognition of ownership played a part. Petitioner was an Igorot who asserted the right to register ownership of certain land although he had no document of title from the Spanish Government and no recognition of ownership had been extended by Spain or by the United States. The United States Government had taken possession of the land for a public use and disputed the fact that petitioner had any legally recognizable title.
The basis of the Court’s decision, however, distinguishes it from applicability to the Tee-Hit-Ton claim. The Court relied chiefly upon the purpose of our acquisition of the Philippines as disclosed by the Organic Act of July 1, 1902, which was to administer property and rights “for the benefit of the inhabitants thereof.” 32 Stat. 695. This purpose in acquisition and its effect on land held by the natives was distinguished from the settlement of the white race in the United States where “the dominant purpose of the whites in America was to occupy the land.” 212 U. S., at 458. The Court further found that the Spanish law and exercise of Spanish sovereignty over the islands tended to support rather than defeat a prescriptive right. Since this was no communal claim to a vast uncultivated area, it was natural to apply the law of prescription rather than a rule of sovereign ownership or dominium. Carifio’s claim was to a 370-acre farm which his grandfather had fenced some fifty years before and was used by three generations as a pasture for livestock and some cultivation of vegetables and grain. The case bears closer analogy to the ordinary prescriptive rights situation rather than to a recognition by this Court of any aboriginal use and possession amounting to fee simple ownership.
Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (The Tlinkit Indians), pp. 93-115 and 120-122; Oberg, The Social Economy of the Tlingit Indians (a dissertation submitted to the University of Chicago, Dept, of Anthropology for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Dee. 1937); Gold-schmidt-Haas Report to Commissioner of Indian Affairs on Possessory Rights of the Natives of Southeastern Alaska, pp. i, ii, iv, 1-25, 31-33, 123-133, related statements numbered 65, 66, 67, 68 and 69, and chart 11; S. Doc. No. 152, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. (Russian Administration of Alaska and the Status of the Alaskan Natives); see Johnson v. Pacific Coast S. S. Co., 2 Alaska 224.
It is significant that even with the Pueblo Indians of the Mexican Land Sessions, despite their centuries-old sedentary agricultural and pastoral life, the United States found it proper to confirm to them a title in their lands. The area in which the Pueblos are located came under our sovereignty by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 9 Stat. 922, and the Gadsden Purchase Treaty of December 30, 1853, 10 Stat. 1031. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo contained a guarantee by the United States to respect the property rights of Mexicans located within the territory acquired. Art. VIII, 9 Stat. 929. This provision was incorporated by reference into the Gadsden Treaty. Art. V, 10 Stat. 1035. The latter treaty also contained a provision that no grants of land within the ceded territory made after a certain date would be recognized or any grants "made previously [would] be respected or be considered as obligatory which have not been located and duly recorded in the archives of Mexico.” Art. VI, 10 Stat. 1035. This provision was held to bar recognition of fee ownership in the Pueblo of Santa Rosa which claimed such by immemorial use and possession as well as by prescription against Spain and Mexico because they could produce no paper title to the lands. Pueblo of Santa Rosa v. Fall, 56 App. D. C. 259, 262, 12 F. 2d 332, 335, reversed on other grounds, 273 U. S. 315.
Disputes as to the Indian titles in the Pueblos and their position as wards required congressional action for settlement. See Brayer, Pueblo Indian Land Grants of the “Rio Abajo,” New Mexico; Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law, c. 20. These problems were put in the way of solution only by congressional recognition of the Pueblos’ title to their land and the decisions of this Court as to their racial character as Indians, subject to necessary federal tutelage. 10 Stat. 308, Creation of Office of Surveyor-General of New Mexico to report area of bona fide holdings; Report of Secretary of the Interior, covering that of the Surveyor-General of New Mexico, S. Exec. Doc. No. 5, 34th Cong., 3d Sess. 174, 411; Confirmation of titles for approved Pueblo Land Claims, 11 Stat. 374; S. Doc. No. 1117, 37th Cong.j 2d Sess. 581-582, Report of Secretary of Interior showing New Mexico Pueblos with confirmed titles.
Representative Sandidge, who reported the first Pueblo Confirmation Act to the House of Representatives, stated that the Pueblo claims, “although they are valid, are not held to be so by this Government, nor by any of its courts, until the claim shall have been acted on specifically. I will say, furthermore, that the whole land system of the Territory of New Mexico is held in abeyance until these private land claims shall have been acted on by Congress.” Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess. 2090 (1858
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act of 1940, 54 Stat. 1178, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. §501 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. Ill) (Act), suspends various civil liabilities of persons in military service. At issue in this case is the provision in § 525 that the “period of military service shall not be included in computing any period . . . provided by any law for the redemption of real property sold or forfeited to enforce any obligation, tax, or assessment.” The question presented is whether a member of the Armed Services must show that his military service prejudiced his ability to redeem title to property before he can qualify for the statutory suspension of time.
I
Petitioner is an officer in the United States Army. He was on active duty continuously from 1966 until the time of trial. In 1973, he purchased a parcel of vacant land in the town of Danforth, Maine. He paid taxes on the property for 10 years, but failed to pay the 1984,1985, and 1986 local real estate taxes. In 1986, following the Maine statutory procedures that authorize it to acquire tax-delinquent real estate, the town sold the property.
In 1987, petitioner brought suit in the Maine District Court against the town and the two purchasers. He claimed that § 525 of the Act tolled the redemption period while he was in military service, and federal law therefore prevented the town from acquiring good title to the property even though the State’s statutory procedures had been followed. The trial court rejected the claim. In an unreported opinion, it noted that some courts had construed § 525 literally, but it elected to follow a line of decisions that refused to toll the redemption period unless the taxpayer could show that “military service resulted in hardship excusing timely legal action.” It agreed with those courts that it would be “absurd and illogical” to toll limitations periods for career service personnel who had not been “handicapped by their military status.” The Supreme Judicial Court of Maine affirmed by an equally divided court. We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict in the interpretation of §525. 505 U. S. 1203 (1992).
II
The statutory command in § 525 is unambiguous, unequivocal, and unlimited. It states that the period of military service “shall not be included” in the computation of “any period now or hereafter provided by any law for the redemption of real property ....” Respondents do not dispute the plain meaning of this text. Rather, they argue that when § 525 is read in the context of the entire statute, it implicitly conditions its protection on a demonstration of hardship or prejudice resulting from military service. They make three points in support of this argument: that the history of the Act reveals an intent to provide protection only to those whose lives have been temporarily disrupted by military service; that other provisions of the Act are expressly conditioned on a showing of prejudice; and that a literal interpretation produces illogical and absurd results. Neither separately nor in combination do these points justify a departure from the unambiguous statutory text.
Respondents correctly describe the immediate cause for the statute’s enactment in 1940, the year before our entry into World War II. Congress stated its purpose to “expedite the national defense under the emergent conditions which are threatening the peace and security of the United
States ...50 U. S. C. App. § 510. That purpose undoubtedly contemplated the special hardship that military duty imposed on those suddenly drafted into service by the national emergency. Neither that emergency, nor a particular legislative interest in easing sudden transfers from civilian to military status, however, justifies the conclusion that Congress did not intend all members of the Armed Forces, including career personnel, to receive the Act’s protections. Indeed, because Congress extended the life of the Act indefinitely in 1948, well after the end of World War II, the complete legislative history confirms a congressional intent to protect all military personnel on active duty, just as the statutory language provides.
Respondents also correctly remind us to “follow the cardinal rule that a statute is to be read as a whole, see Massachusetts v. Morash, 490 U. S. 107, 115 (1989), since the meaning of statutory language, plain or not, depends on context.” King v. St. Vincent’s Hospital, 502 U. S. 215, 221 (1991). But as in King, the context of this statute actually supports the conclusion that Congress meant what §525 says. Several provisions of the statute condition the protection they offer on a showing that military service adversely affected the ability to assert or protect a legal right. To choose one of many examples, § 532(2) authorizes a stay of enforcement of secured obligations unless “the ability of the defendant to comply with the terms of the obligation is not materially affected by reason of his military service.” The comprehensive character of the entire statute indicates that Congress included a prejudice requirement whenever it considered it appropriate to do so, and that its omission of any such requirement in § 525 was deliberate.
Finally, both the history of this carefully reticulated statute, and our history of interpreting it, refute any argument that a literal construction of §525 is so absurd or illogical that Congress could not have intended it. In many respects the 1940 Act was a reenactment of World War I legislation that had, in turn, been modeled after legislation that several States adopted during the Civil War. See Boone v. Lightner, 319 U. S. 561, 565-569 (1943). The Court had emphasized the comprehensive character and carefully segregated arrangement of the various provisions of the World War I statute in Ebert v. Poston, 266 U. S. 548, 554 (1925), and it had considered the consequences of requiring a showing of prejudice when it construed the World War II statute in Boone, supra. Since we presume that Congress was familiar with those cases, we also assume that Congress considered the decision in Ebert to interpret and apply each provision of the Act separately when it temporarily reestablished the law as a whole in 1940, and then considered Boone’s analysis of a prejudice requirement when it permanently extended the Act in 1948.
Legislative history confirms that assumption. Since the enactment of the 1918 Act, Congress has expressed its understanding that absolute exemptions might save time or money for service members only at the cost of injuring their own credit, their family’s credit, and the domestic economy; it presumably required a showing of prejudice only when it seemed necessary to confer on the service member a genuine benefit. By distinguishing sharply between the two types of protections, Congress unquestionably contemplated the ways that either type of protection would affect both military debtors and their civilian creditors.
The long and consistent history and the structure of this legislation therefore lead us to conclude that — just as the language of § 525 suggests — Congress made a deliberate policy judgment placing a higher value on firmly protecting the service member’s redemption rights than on occasionally burdening the tax collection process. Given the limited number of situations in which this precisely structured statute offers such absolute protection, we cannot say that Congress would have found our straightforward interpretation and application of its words either absurd or illogical. If the consequences of that interpretation had been — or prove to be — as unjust as respondents contend, we are confident that Congress would have corrected the injustice — or will do so in the future.
The judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Thomas joins all but footnote 12 of the opinion.
The full text of § 525 presently reads as follows:
“The period of military service shall not be included in computing any period now or hereafter to be limited by any law, regulation, or order for the bringing of any action or proceeding in any court, board, bureau, commission, department, or other agency of government by or against any person in military service or by or against his heirs, executors, administrators, or assigns, whether such cause of action or the right or privilege to institute such action or proceeding shall have accrued prior to or during the period of such service, nor shall any part of such period which occurs after October 6, 1942 be included in computing any period now or hereafter provided by any law for the redemption of real property sold or forfeited to enforce any obligation, tax, or assessment.” 50 U. S. C. App. §525 (1988 ed., Supp. III).
He testified that he did not receive tax bills for those years and that his letters asking for tax bills were not answered by the town.
Under Maine law a taxing authority has a lien against real estate until properly assessed taxes are paid. If taxes remain unpaid for 30 days after a notice of lien and demand for payment has been sent to the owner, the tax collector may record a tax lien certificate to create a tax lien mortgage. The taxpayer then has an 18-month period of redemption in which he may recover his property by paying the overdue taxes plus interest and costs. See Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 36, §§ 552, 942, 943 (1990). It is stipulated that the required procedures were followed in this case and that the town’s title was perfected, unless petitioner’s objection based on § 525 requires a different result.
Pet. for Cert. 33. The court particularly relied on Parnell v. Continental Can Co., 554 F. 2d 216 (CA5 1977); Bailey v. Barranca, 83 N. M. 90, 488 P. 2d 725 (1971); King v. Zagorski, 207 So. 2d 61 (Fla. App. 1968).
Pet. for Cert. 34.
Conroy v. Danforth, 599 A. 2d 426 (1991).
Respondents emphasize that the statement of purposes refers to the ‘“temporary suspension of legal proceedings and transactions.’” Brief for Respondents 8, quoting 50 U. S. C. App. § 510. The length of a suspension that lasts as long as the period of active service is “temporary,” however, whether it applies to a short enlistment or a long career.
Section 14 of the Selective Service Act of 1948, 62 Stat. 623, provided that the 1940 Act “shall be applicable to all persons in the armed forces of the United States” until the 1940 Act “is repealed or otherwise terminated by subsequent Act of the Congress.”
Similar qualifications appear in §520(4) (applying to the reopening of judgments against an absent service member); §§521 and 523 (providing for stays of legal proceedings, attachments, and garnishments); § 526 (regulating interest rates on obligations incurred prior to military seryiee); §530(3) (covering eviction and distress proceedings); §531(3) (involving the termination of installment contracts); §535(1) (involving the assignment of insurance coverage); and § 535(2) (limiting the right to enforce liens for the storage of personal property).
See Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 696-697 (1979).
The House Report on the suspension of suits in the 1918 Act, for example, provided in part:
“The lesson of the stay laws of the Civil War teaches that an arbitrary and rigid protection against suits is as much a mistaken kindness to the soldier as it is unnecessary. A total suspension for the period of the war of all rights against a soldier defeats its own purpose. In time of war credit is of even more importance than in time of peace, and if there were a total prohibition upon enforcing obligations against one in military service, the credit of a soldier and his family would be utterly cut off. No one could be found who would extend them credit.” H. R. Rep. No. 181, 65th Cong., 1st Sess., 2-3 (1917).
And Congressman Webb, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, stated:
“Manifestly, if this Congress should undertake to pass an arbitrary stay law providing that no creditor should ever sue or bring proceedings against any soldier while in the military service of his country, that would upset business very largely in many parts of the country. In the next place, it would be unfair to the creditor as well as to the soldier. It would disturb the soldier’s credit probably in many cases and would deny the right of the creditor to his just debts from a person who was amply able to pay and whose military service did not in the least impair his ability to meet the obligation.” 55 Cong. Rec. 7787 (1917). See Boone v. Lightner, 319 U. S. 561, 566, 567, 568 (1943).
In his 11-page opinion concurring in the judgment, Justice Scalia suggests that our response to respondents’ reliance on legislative history “is not merely a waste of research time and ink,” but also “a false and disruptive lesson in the law.” Post, at 519. His “hapless law clerk,” post, at 527, has found a good deal of evidence in the legislative history that many provisions of this statute were intended to confer discretion on trial judges. That, of course, is precisely our point: It is reasonable to conclude that Congress intended to authorize such discretion when it expressly provided for it and to deny such discretion when it did not. A jurisprudence that confines a court’s inquiry to the “law as it is passed,” and is wholly unconcerned about “the intentions of legislators,” post, at 519, would enforce an unambiguous statutory text even when it produces manifestly unintended and profoundly unwise consequences. Respondents have argued that this is such a case. We disagree. Justice Scalia, however, is apparently willing to assume that this is such a case, but would nevertheless conclude that we have a duty to enforce the statute as written even if fully convinced that every Member of the enacting Congress, as well as the President who signed the Act, intended a different result. Again, we disagree. See Wisconsin Public Intervenor v. Mortier, 501 U. S. 597, 610, n. 4 (1991).
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The plaintiff-appellees in this case attack, as violative of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, that portion of § 54-524.35 of Va. Code Ann. (1974),-which provides that a pharmacist licensed in Virginia is guilty of unprofessional conduct if he “(3) publishes, advertises or promotes, directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever, any amount, price, fee, premium, discount, rebate or credit terms... for any drugs which may be dispensed only by prescription.” The three-judge District Court declared the quoted portion of the statute “void and of no effect,” Jurisdictional Statement, App. 1, and enjoined the defendant-appellants, the Virginia State Board of Pharmacy and the individual members of that Board, from enforcing it. 373 F. Supp. 683 (ED Va. 1974). We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeal. 420 U. S. 971 (1975).
I
Since the challenged restraint is one that peculiarly concerns the licensed pharmacist in Virginia, we begin with a description of that profession as it exists under Virginia law.
The “practice of pharmacy” is statutorily declared to be “a professional practice affecting the public health, safety and welfare,” and to be “subject to regulation and control in the public interest.” Va. Code Ann. § 54-524.2 (a) (1974). Indeed, the practice is subject to extensive regulation aimed at preserving high professional standards. The regulatory body is the appellant Virginia State Board of Pharmacy. The Board is broadly charged by statute with various responsibilities, including the “ [m] aintenance of the quality, quantity, integrity, safety and efficacy of drugs or devices distributed, dispensed or administered.” § 54M524.I6 (a). It also is to concern itself with “ [m] aintaining the integrity of, and public confidence in, the profession and improving the delivery of quality pharmaceutical services to the citizens of Virginia.” § 54-524.16 (d). The Board is empowered to “make such bylaws, rules and regulations... as may be necessary for the lawful exercise of its powers.” § 54-524.17.
The Board is also the licensing authority. It may issue a license, necessary for the practice of pharmacy in the State, only upon evidence that the applicant is “of good moral character,” is a graduate in pharmacy of a school approved by the Board, and has had “a suitable period of experience [the period required not to exceed 12 months] acceptable to the Board.” § 54 — 524.21. The applicant must pass the examination prescribed by the Board. Ibid. One approved school is the School of Pharmacy of the Medical College of Virginia, where the curriculum is for three years following two years of college. Prescribed prepharmacy courses, such as biology and chemistry, are to be taken in college, and study requirements at the school itself include courses in organic chemistry, biochemistry, comparative anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology. Students are also trained in the ethics of the profession, and there is some clinical experience in the school’s hospital pharmacies and in the medical center operated by the Medical College. This is “a rigid, demanding curriculum in terms of what the pharmacy student is expected to know about drugs.”
Once licensed, a pharmacist is subject to a civil monetary penalty, or to revocation or suspension of his license, if the Board finds that he “is not of good moral character,” or has violated any of a number of stated professional standards (among them that he not be “negligent in the practice of pharmacy” or have engaged in “fraud or deceit upon the consumer... in connection with the practice of pharmacy”), or is guilty of “unprofessional conduct.” §54^-524.22:1. “Unprofessional conduct” is specifically defined in § 54-524.35, n. 2, supra, the third numbered phrase of which relates to advertising of the price for any prescription drug, and is the subject of this litigation.
Inasmuch as only a licensed pharmacist may dispense prescription drugs in Virginia, § 54^-524.48, advertising or other affirmative dissemination of prescription drug price information is effectively forbidden in the State. Some pharmacies refuse even to quote prescription drug prices over the telephone. The Board’s position, however, is that this would not constitute an unprofessional publication. It is clear, nonetheless, that all advertising of such prices, in the normal sense, is forbidden. The prohibition does not extend to nonprescription drugs, but neither is it confined to prescriptions that the pharmacist compounds himself. Indeed, about 95% of all prescriptions now are filled with dosage forms prepared by the pharmaceutical manufacturer.
II
This is not the first challenge to the constitutionality of § 54^-524.35 and what is now its third-numbered phrase. Shortly after the phrase was added to the statute in 1968, a suit seeking to enjoin its operation was instituted by a drug retailing company and one of its pharmacists. Although the First Amendment was invoked, the challenge appears to have been based primarily on the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In any event, the prohibition on drug price advertising was upheld. Patterson Drug Co. v. Kingery, 305 F. Supp. 821 (WD Va. 1969). The three-judge court did find that the dispensation of prescription drugs “affects the public health, safety and welfare.” Id., at 824 — 825. No appeal was taken.
The present, and second, attack on the statute is one made not by one directly subject to its prohibition, that is, a pharmacist, but by prescription drug consumers who claim that they would greatly benefit if the prohibition were lifted and advertising freely allowed. The plaintiffs are an individual Virginia resident who suffers from diseases that require her to take prescription drugs on a daily basis, and two nonprofit organizations. Their claim is that the First Amendment entitles the user of prescription drugs to receive information that pharmacists wish to communicate to them through advertising and other promotional means, concerning the prices of such drugs.
Certainly that information may be of value. Drug prices in Virginia, for both prescription and nonprescription items, strikingly vary from outlet to outlet even within the same locality. It is stipulated, for example, that in Richmond “the cost of 40 Achromycin tablets ranges from $2.59 to $6.00, a difference of 140% [sic],” and that in the Newport News-Hampton area the cost of tetracycline ranges from $1.20 to $9.00, a difference of 650%.
The District Court seized on the identity of the plaintiff-appellees as consumers as a feature distinguishing the present case from Patterson Drug Co. v. Kingery, supra. Because the unsuccessful plaintiffs in that earlier case were pharmacists, the court said, “theirs was a prima facie commercial approach,” 373 F. Supp., at 686. The present plaintiffs, on the other hand, were asserting an interest in their own health that was “fundamentally deeper than a trade consideration.” Ibid. In the District Court’s view, the expression in Valentine v. Chrestensen, 316 U. S. 52, 54—55 (1942), to the effect that “purely commercial advertising” is not protected had been tempered, by later decisions of this Court, to the point that First Amendment interests in the free flow of price information could be found to outweigh the countervailing interests of the State. The strength of the interest in the free flow of drug price information was borne out, the court felt, by the fact that three States by court decision had struck down their prohibitions on drug price advertising. Florida Board of Pharmacy v. Webb’s City, Inc., 219 So. 2d 681 (Fla. 1969); Maryland Board of Pharmacy v. Sav-A-Lot, Inc., 270 Md. 103, 311 A. 2d 242 (1973); Pennsylvania State Board of Pharmacy v. Pastor, 441 Pa. 186, 272 A. 2d 487 (1971). The District Court recognized that this Court had upheld — against federal constitutional challenges other than on First Amendment grounds — state restrictions on the advertisement of prices for optometrists’ services, Head v. New Mexico Board, 374 U. S. 424 (1963), for eyeglass frames, Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U. S. 483 (1955), and for dentists’ services, Semler v. Dental Examiners, 294 U. S. 608 (1935). The same dangers of abuse and deception were not thought to be present, however, when the advertised commodity was prescribed by a physician for his individual patient and was dispensed by a licensed pharmacist. The Board failed to justify the statute adequately, and it had to fall. 373 F. Supp., at 686-687.
Ill
The question first arises whether, even assuming that First Amendment protection attaches to the flow of drug price information, it is a protection enjoyed by the ap-pellees as recipients of the information, and not solely, if at all, by the advertisers themselves who seek to disseminate that information.
Freedom of speech presupposes a willing speaker. But where a speaker exists, as is the case here, the protection afforded is to the communication, to its source and to its recipients both. This is clear from the decided cases. In Lament v. Postmaster General, 381 U. S. 301 (1965), the Court upheld the First Amendment rights of citizens to receive political publications sent from abroad. More recently, in Kleindienst v. Mandel, 408 U. S. 753, 762-763 (1972), we acknowledged.that this Court has referred to a First Amendment right to “receive information and ideas,” and that freedom of speech “ ‘necessarily protects the right to receive.’ ” And in Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396, 408-409 (1974), where censorship of prison inmates’ mail was under examination, we thought it unnecessary to assess the First Amendment rights of the inmates themselves, for it was reasoned that such censorship equally infringed the rights of noninmates to whom the correspondence was addressed. There are numerous other expressions to the same effect in the Court’s decisions. See, e. g„ Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 395 U. S. 367, 390 (1969); Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U. S. 557, 564 (1969); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U. S. 479, 482 (1965); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U. S. 501, 505 (1946); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516, 534 (1945); Martin v. Struthers, 319 U. S. 141, 143 (1943). If there is a right to advertise, there is a reciprocal right to receive the advertising, and it may be asserted by these appellees.
IV
The appellants contend that the advertisement of prescription drug prices is outside the protection of the First Amendment because it is “commercial speech.” There can be no question that in past decisions the Court has given some indication that commercial speech is unprotected. In Valentine v. Chrestensen, supra, the Court upheld a New York statute that prohibited the distribution of any “handbill, circular... or other advertising matter whatsoever in or upon any street.” The Court concluded that, although the First Amendment would forbid the banning of all communication by handbill in the public thoroughfares, it imposed “no such restraint on government as respects purely commercial advertising.” 316 U. S., at 54. Further support for a “commercial speech” exception to the First Amendment may perhaps be found in Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U. S. 622 (1951), where the Court upheld a conviction for violation of an ordinance prohibiting door-to-door solicitation of magazine subscriptions. The Court reasoned: “The selling... brings into the transaction a commercial feature,” and it distinguished Martin v. Struthers, supra, where it had reversed a conviction for door-to-door distribution of leaflets publicizing a religious meeting, as a case involving “no element of the commercial.” 341 U. S., at 642-643. Moreover, the Court several times has stressed that communications to which First Amendment protection was given were not “purely commercial.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254, 266 (1964); Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S., at 533; Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S. 105, 111 (1943); Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S. 413, 417 (1943).
Since the decision in Breará, however, the Court has never denied protection on the ground that the speech in issue was "commercial speech.” That simplistic approach, which by then had come under criticism or was regarded as of doubtful validity by Members of the Court, was avoided in Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376 (1973). There the Court upheld an ordinance prohibiting newspapers from listing employment advertisements in columns according to whether male or female employees were sought to be hired. The Court, to be sure, characterized the advertisements as “classic examples of commercial speech,” id., at 385, and a newspaper’s printing of the advertisements as of the same character. The Court, however, upheld the ordinance on the ground that the restriction it imposed was permissible because the discriminatory hirings proposed by the advertisements, and by their newspaper layout, were themselves illegal.
Last Term, in Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809 (1975), the notion of unprotected “commercial speech” all but passed from the scene. We reversed a conviction for violation of a Virginia statute that made the circulation of any publication to encourage or promote the processing of an abortion in Virginia a misdemeanor. The defendant had published in his newspaper the availability of abortions in New York. The advertisement in question, in addition to announcing that abortions were legal in New York, offered the services of a referral agency in that State. We rejected the contention that the publication was unprotected because it was commercial. Chrestenserís continued validity was questioned, and its holding was described as “distinctly a limited one” that merely upheld “a reasonable regulation of the manner in which commercial advertising could be distributed.” 421 U. S., at 819. We concluded that “the Virginia courts erred in their assumptions that advertising, as such, was entitled to no First Amendment protection,” and we observed that the “relationship of speech to the marketplace of products or of services does not make it valueless in the marketplace of ideas.” Id., at 825-826.
Some fragment of hope for the continuing validity of a “commercial speech” exception arguably might have persisted because of the subject matter of the advertisement in Bigelow, We noted that in announcing the availability of legal abortions in New York, the advertisement “did more than simply propose a commercial transaction. It contained factual material of clear ‘public interest.’ ” Id., at 822. And, of course, the advertisement related to activity with which, at least in some respects, the State could not interfere. See Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973); Doe v. Bolton, 410 U. S. 179 (1973). Indeed, we observed: “We need not decide in this case the precise extent to which the First Amendment permits regulation of advertising that is related to activities the State may legitimately regulate or even prohibit.” 421 U. S., at 825.
Here, in contrast, the question whether there is a First Amendment exception for “commercial speech” is squarely before us. Our pharmacist does not wish to editorialize on any subject, cultural, philosophical, or political. He does not wish to report any particularly newsworthy fact, or to make generalized observations even about commercial matters. The “idea” he wishes to communicate is simply this: “I will sell you the X prescription drug at the Y price.” Our question, then, is whether this communication is wholly outside the protection of the First Amendment.
V
We begin with several propositions that already are settled or beyond serious dispute. It is clear, for example, that speech does not lose its First Amendment protection because money is spent to project it, as in a paid advertisement of one form or another. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 35-59 (1976); Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm’n, 413 U. S., at 384; New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S., at 266. Speech likewise is protected even though it is carried in a form that is “sold” for profit, Smith v. California, 361 U. S. 147, 150 (1959) (books); Joseph Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495, 501 (1952) (motion pictures); Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 U. S., at 111 (religious literature), and even though it may involve a solicitation to purchase or otherwise pay or contribute money. New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, supra; NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415, 429 (1963); Jamison v. Texas, 318 U. S., at 417; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 306-307 (1940).
If there is a kind of commercial speech that lacks all First Amendment protection, therefore, it must be distinguished by its content. Yet the speech whose content deprives it of protection cannot simply be speech on a commercial subject. No one would contend that our pharmacist may be prevented from being heard on the subject of whether, in general, pharmaceutical prices should be regulated, or their advertisement forbidden. Nor can it be dispositive that a commercial advertisement is noneditorial, and merely reports a fact. Purely factual matter of public interest may claim protection. Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S., at 822; Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, 102 (1940).
Our question is whether speech which does “no more than propose a commercial transaction,” Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm'n, 413 U. S., at 385, is so removed from any “exposition of ideas,” Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568, 572 (1942), and from “ ‘truth, science, morality, and arts in general, in its diffusion of liberal sentiments on the administration of Government,’ ” Roth v. United States, 354 U. S. 476, 484 (1957), that it lacks all protection. Our answer is that it is not.
Focusing first on the individual parties to the transaction that is proposed in the commercial advertisement, we may assume that the advertiser’s interest is a purely economic one. That hardly disqualifies him from protection under the First Amendment. The interests of the contestants in a labor dispute are primarily economic, but it has long been settled that both the employee and the employer are protected by the First Amendment when they express themselves on the merits of the dispute in order to influence its outcome. See, e. g., NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U. S. 575, 617-618 (1969); NLRB v. Virginia Electric & Power Co., 314 U. S. 469, 477 (1941); AFL v. Swing, 312 U. S. 321, 325-326 (1941); Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S., at 102. We know of no requirement that, in order to avail themselves of First Amendment protection, the parties to a labor dispute need address themselves to the merits of unionism in general or to any subject beyond their immediate dispute.- It was observed in Thornhill that “the practices in a single factory may have economic repercussions upon a whole region and affect widespread systems of marketing.” Id., at 103. Since the fate of such a “single factory” could as well turn on its ability to advertise its product as on the resolution of its labor difficulties, we see no satisfactory distinction between the two kinds of speech.
As to the particular consumer’s interest in the free flow of commercial information, that interest may be as keen, if not keener by far, than his interest in the day’s most urgent political debate. Appellees’ case in this respect is a convincing one. Those whom the suppression of prescription drug price information hits the hardest are the poor, the sick, and particularly the aged. A disproportionate amount of their income tends to be spent on prescription drugs; yet they are the least able to learn, by shopping from pharmacist to pharmacist, where their scarce dollars are best spent. When drug prices vary as strikingly as they do, information as to who is charging what becomes more than a convenience. It could mean the alleviation of physical pain or the enjoyment of basic necessities.
Generalizing, society also may have a strong interest in the free flow of commercial information. Even an individual advertisement, though entirely “commercial,” may be of general public interest. The facts of decided cases furnish illustrations: advertisements stating that referral services for legal abortions are available, Bigelow v. Virginia, supra; that a manufacturer of artificial furs promotes his product as an alternative to the extinction by his competitors of fur-bearing mammals, see Fur Information & Fashion Council, Inc. v. E. F. Timme & Son, 364 F. Supp. 16 (SDNY 1973); and that á domestic producer advertises his product as an alternative to imports that tend to deprive American residents of their jobs, cf. Chicago Joint Board v. Chicago Tribune Co., 435 F. 2d 470 (CA7 1970), cert. denied, 402 U. S. 973 (1971). Obviously, not all commercial messages contain the same or even a very great public interest element. There are few to which such an element, however, could not be added. Our pharmacist, for example, could cast himself as a commentator on store-to-store disparities in drug prices, giving his own and those of a competitor as proof. We see little point in requiring him to do so, and little difference if he does not.
Moreover, there is another consideration that suggests that no line between publicly “interesting” or “important” commercial advertising and the opposite kind could ever be drawn. 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. See Dun & Bradstreet, Inc. v. Grove, 404 U. S. 898, 904-906 (1971) (Douglas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari). See also FTC v. Procter & Gamble Co., 386 U. S. 568, 603-604 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). And if it is indispensable to the proper allocation of resources in a free enterprise system, it is also indispensable to the formation of intelligent opinions as to how that system ought to be regulated or altered. Therefore, even if the First Amendment were thought to be primarily an instrument to enlighten public decisionmaking in a democracy, we could not say that the free flow of information does not serve that goal.
Arrayed against these substantial individual and societal interests are a number of justifications for the advertising ban. These have to do principally with maintaining a high degree of professionalism on the part of licensed pharmacists. Indisputably, the State has a strong interest in maintaining that professionalism. It is exercised in a number of ways for the consumer’s benefit. There is the clinical skill involved in the compounding of drugs, although, as has been noted, these now make up only a small percentage of the prescriptions filled. Yet, even with respect to manufacturer-prepared compounds, there is room for the pharmacist to serve his customer well or badly. Drugs kept too long on the shelf may lose their efficacy or become adulterated. They can be packaged for the user in such a way that the same results occur. The expertise of the pharmacist may supplement that of the prescribing physician, if the latter has not specified the amount to be dispensed or the directions that are to appear on the label. The pharmacist, a specialist in the potencies and dangers of drugs, may even be consulted by the physician as to what to prescribe. He may know of a particular antagonism between the prescribed drug and another that the customer is or might be taking, or with an allergy the customer may suffer. The pharmacist himself may have supplied the other drug or treated the allergy. Some pharmacists, concededly not a large number, “monitor” the health problems and drug consumptions of customers who come to them repeatedly. A pharmacist who has a continuous relationship with his customer is in the best position, of course, to exert professional skill for the customer’s protection.
Price advertising, it is argued, will place in jeopardy the pharmacist’s expertise and, with it, the customer’s health. It is claimed that the aggressive price competition that will result from unlimited advertising will make it impossible for the pharmacist to supply professional services in the compounding, handling, and dispensing of prescription drugs. Such services are time consuming and expensive; if competitors who economize by eliminating them are permitted to advertise their resulting lower prices, the more painstaking and conscientious pharmacist will be forced either to follow suit or to go out of business. It is also claimed that prices might not necessarily fall as a result of advertising. If one pharmacist advertises, others must, and the resulting expense will inflate the cost of drugs. It is further claimed that advertising will lead people to shop for their prescription drugs among the various pharmacists who offer the lowest prices, and the loss of stable pharmacist-customer relationships will make individual attention — and certainly the practice of monitoring — impossible. Finally, it is argued that damage will be done to the professional image of the pharmacist. This image, that of a skilled and specialized craftsman, attracts talent to the profession and reinforces the better habits of those who are in it. Price advertising, it is said, will reduce the pharmacist’s status to that of a mere retailer.
The strength of these proffered justifications is greatly undermined by the fact that high professional standards, to a substantial extent, are guaranteed by the close regulation to which pharmacists in Virginia are subject. And this case concerns the retail sale by the pharmacist more than it does his professional standards. Surely, any pharmacist guilty of professional dereliction that actually endangers his customer will promptly lose his license. At the same time, we cannot discount the Board’s justifications entirely. The Court regarded justifications of this type sufficient to sustain the advertising bans challenged on due process and equal protection grounds in Head v. New Mexico Board, supra; Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., supra; and Semler v. Dental Examiners, supra.
The challenge now made, however, is based on the First Amendment. This casts the Board’s justifications in a different light, for on close inspection it is seen that the State’s protectiveness of its citizens rests in large measure on the advantages of their being kept in ignorance. The advertising ban does not directly affect professional standards one way or the other. It affects them only through the reactions it is assumed people will have to the free flow of drug price information. There is no claim that the advertising ban in any way prevents the cutting of corners by the pharmacist who is so inclined. That pharmacist is likely to cut comers in any event. The only effect the advertising ban has on him is to insulate him from price competition and to open the way for him to make a substantial, and perhaps even excessive, profit in addition to providing an inferior service. The more painstaking pharmacist is also protected but, again, it is a protection based in large part on public ignorance.
It appears to be feared that if the pharmacist who wishes to provide low cost, and assertedly low quality, services is permitted to advertise, he will be taken up on his offer by too many unwitting customers. They will choose the low-cost, low-quality service and drive the “professional” pharmacist out of business. They will respond only to costly and excessive advertising, and end up paying the price. They will go from one pharmacist to another, following the discount, and destroy the pharmacist-customer relationship. They will lose respect for the profession because it advertises. All this is not in their best interests, and all this can be avoided if they are not permitted to know who is charging what.
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 assertedly 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. Virginia is free to require whatever professional standards it wishes of its pharmacists; it may subsidize them or protect them from competition in other ways. Cf. Parker v. Brown, 317 U. S. 341 (1943). But it may not do so by keeping the public in ignorance of the entirely lawful terms that competing pharmacists are offering. In this sense, the justifications Virginia has offered for suppressing the flow of prescription drug price information, far from persuading us that the flow is not protected by the First Amendment, have reinforced our view that it is. We so hold.
VI
In concluding that commercial speech, like other varieties, is protected, we of course do not hold that it can never be regulated in any way. Some forms of commercial speech regulation are surely permissible. We mention a few only to make clear that they are not before us and therefore are not foreclosed by this case.
There is no claim, for example, that the prohibition on prescription drug price advertising is a mere time, place, and manner restriction. We have often approved restrictions of that kind provided that they are justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech, that they serve a significant governmental interest, and that in so doing they leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information. Compare Grayned v. City of Rockford, 408 U. S. 104, 116 (1972); United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 377 (1968); and Kovacs v. Cooper, 336 U. S. 77, 85-87 (1949), with Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1; Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U. S. 205, 209 (1975); Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S., at 304-308; and Saia v. New York, 334 U. S. 558, 562 (1948). Whatever may be the proper bounds of time, place, and manner restrictions on commercial speech, they are plainly exceeded by this Virginia statute, which singles out speech of a particular content and seeks to prevent its dissemination completely.
Nor is there any claim that prescription drug price advertisements are forbidden because they are false or misleading in any way. Untruthful speech, commercial or otherwise, has never been protected for its own sake. Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 340 (1974); Konigsberg v. State Bar, 366 U. S. 36, 49, and n. 10 (1961). Obviously, much commercial speech is not provably false, or even wholly false, but only deceptive or misleading. We foresee no obstacle to a State’s dealing effectively with this problem. The First Amendment, as we construe it today, does not prohibit the State from insuring that the stream of commercial information flow cleanly as well as freely. See, for example, Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-216 (1975).
Also, there is no claim that the transactions proposed in the forbidden advertisements are themselves illegal in any way. Cf. Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Relations Comm’n, 413 U. S. 376 (1973); United States v. Hunter, 459 F. 2d 205 (CA4), cert. denied, 409 U. S. 934 (1972). Finally, the special problems of the electronic broadcast media are likewise not in this case. Cf. Capitol Broadcasting Co. v. Mitchell, 333 F. Supp. 582 (DC 1971), aff’d sub nom. Capitol Broadcasting Co. v. Acting Attorney General, 405 U. S. 1000 (1972).
What is at issue is whether a State may completely suppress the dissemination of concededly truthful information about entirely lawful activity, fearful of that information’s effect upon its disseminators and its recipients. Reserving other questions, we conclude that the answer to this one is in the negative.
The judgment of the District Court is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Stevens took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The First Amendment is applicable to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e. g., Bigelow v. Virginia, 421 U. S. 809, 811 (1975); Schneider v. State, 308 U. S. 147, 160 (1939).
Section 54-524.35 provides in full:
"Any pharmacist shall be considered guilty of unprofessional conduct who (1) is found guilty of any crime involving grave moral turpitude, or is guilty of fraud or deceit in obtaining a certificate of registration; or (2) issues, publishes, broadcasts by radio, or otherwise, or distributes or uses in any way whatsoever advertising matter in which statements are made about his professional service which have a tendency to deceive' or defraud the public, contrary to the public health and welfare; or (3) publishes, advertises or promotes, directly or indirectly, in any manner whatsoever, any amount, price, fee, premium, discount, rebate or credit terms for professional services or for drugs containing narcotics or for any drugs which may be dispensed only by prescription.”
The parties, also, have stipulated that pharmacy “is a profession.” Stipulation of Facts ¶ 11, App. 11.
Id., ¶8, App. 11. See generally id., ¶¶ 6-16, App. 10-12.
Exception is made for “legally qualified” practitioners of medicine, dentistry, osteopathy, chiropody, and veterinary medicine. § 54-524.53.
Stipulation of Facts ¶ 25, App. 15.
Id., ¶ 18, App. 13.
Theretofore an administrative regulation to the same effect had been outstanding. The Board, however, in 1967 was advised by the State Attorney General’s office that the regulation was unauthorized. The challenged phrase was added to the statute the following year. See Patterson Drug Co. v. Kingery, 305 F. Supp. 821, 823 n. 1 (WD Va. 1969).
Stipulation of Facts ¶ 3, App. 9.
The organizations are the Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., and the Virginia State AFL-CIO. Each has a substantial membership
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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