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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.
PER CURIAM.
The writ of certiorari is dismissed as improvidently granted.
It is so ordered.
Justice GORSUCH 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.
Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioners, a city and a local utility district, want to build a hydroelectric project on the Dosewallips River in Washington State. We must decide whether respondent state environmental agency (hereinafter respondent) properly conditioned a permit for the project on the maintenance of specific minimum stream flows to protect salmon and steelhead runs.
I
This case involves the complex statutory and regulatory scheme that governs our Nation’s waters, a scheme that implicates both federal and state administrative responsibilities. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act, commonly known as the Clean Water Act, 86 Stat. 816, as amended, 33 U. S. C. § 1251 et seq., is a comprehensive water quality statute designed to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” § 1251(a). The Act also seeks to attain “water quality which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife.” § 1251(a)(2).
To achieve these ambitious goals, the Clean Water Act establishes distinct roles for the Federal and State Governments. Under the Act, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required, among other things, to establish and enforce technology-based limitations on individual discharges into the country’s navigable waters from point sources. See §§1311, 1314. Section 303 of the Act also requires each State, subject to federal approval, to institute comprehensive water quality standards establishing water quality goals for all intrastate waters. §§ 1311(b) (1)(C), 1313. These state water quality standards provide “a supplementary basis... so that numerous point sources, despite individual compliance with effluent limitations, may be further regulated to prevent water quality from falling below acceptable levels.” EPA v. California ex rel. State Water Resources Control Bd., 426 U. S. 200, 205, n. 12 (1976).
A state water quality standard “shall consist of the designated uses of the navigable waters involved and the water quality criteria for such waters based upon such uses.” 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(2)(A). In setting standards, the State must comply with the following broad requirements:
“Such standards shall be such as to protect the public health or welfare, enhance the quality of water and serve the purposes of this chapter. Such standards shall be established taking into consideration their use and value for public water supplies, propagation of fish and wildlife, recreational [and other purposes.]” Ibid.
See also § 1251(a)(2).
A 1987 amendment to the Clean Water Act makes clear that § 303 also contains an “antidegradation policy” — that is, a policy requiring that state standards be sufficient to maintain existing beneficial uses of navigable waters, preventing their further degradation. Specifically, the Act permits the revision of certain effluent limitations or water quality standards “only if such revision is subject to and consistent with the antidegradation policy established under this section.” § 1313(d)(4)(B). Accordingly, EPA’s regulations implementing the Act require that state water quality standards include “a statewide antidegradation policy” to ensure that “[e]xisting instream water uses and the level of water quality necessary to protect the existing uses shall be maintained and protected.” 40 CFR § 131.12 (1993). At a minimum, state water quality standards must satisfy these conditions. The Act also allows States to impose more stringent water quality controls. See 33 U. S. C. §§ 1311(b)(1)(C), 1370. See also 40 CFR § 131.4(a) (1993) (“As recognized by section 510 of the Clean Water Act[, 33 U. S. C. § 1370], States may develop water quality standards more stringent than required by this regulation”).
The State of Washington has adopted comprehensive water quality standards intended to regulate all of the State’s navigable waters. See Washington Administrative Code (WAC) 173-201-010 to 173-201-120 (1986). The State created an inventory of all the State’s waters, and divided the waters into five classes. 173-201-045. Each individual fresh surface water of the State is placed into one of these classes. 173-201-080. The Dosewallips River is classified AA, extraordinary. 173-201-080(32). The water quality standard for Class AA waters is set forth at 173-201-045(1). The standard identifies the designated uses of Class AA waters as well as the criteria applicable to such waters.
In addition to these specific standards applicable to Class AA waters, the State has adopted a statewide antidegradation policy. That policy provides:
“(a) Existing beneficial uses shall be maintained and protected and no further degradation which would interfere with or become injurious to existing beneficial uses will be allowed.
“(b) No degradation will be allowed of waters lying in national parks, national recreation areas, national wildlife refuges, national scenic rivers, and other areas of national ecological importance.
“(f) In no case, will any degradation of water quality be allowed if this degradation interferes with or becomes injurious to existing water uses and causes long-term and irreparable harm to the environment.” 173-201-035(8).
As required by the Act, EPA reviewed and approved the State’s water quality standards. See 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(3); 42 Fed. Reg. 56792 (1977). Upon approval by EPA, the state standard became “the water quality standard for the applicable waters of that State.” 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(3).
States are responsible for enforcing water quality standards on intrastate waters. § 1319(a). In addition to these primary enforcement responsibilities, §401 of the Act requires States to provide a water quality certification before a federal license or permit can be issued for activities that may result in any discharge into intrastate navigable waters. 33 U. S. C. §1341. Specifically, §401 requires an applicant for a federal license or permit to conduct any activity “which may result in any discharge into the navigable waters” to obtain from the State a certification “that any such discharge will comply with the applicable provisions of sections [1311, 1312, 1313, 1316, and 1317 of this title].” 33 U. S. C. § 1341(a). Section 401(d) further provides that “[a]ny certification... shall set forth any effluent limitations and other limitations, and monitoring requirements necessary to assure that any applicant... will comply with any applicable effluent limitations and other limitations, under section [1311 or 1312 of this title]... and with any other appropriate requirement of State law set forth in such certification.” 33 U. S. C. § 1341(d). The limitations included in the certification become a condition on any federal license. Ibid.
II
Petitioners propose to build the Elkhorn Hydroelectric Project on the Dosewallips River. If constructed as presently planned, the facility would be located just outside the Olympic National Park on federally owned land within the Olympic National Forest.' The project would divert water from a 1.2-mile reach of the river (the bypass reach), run the water through turbines to generate electricity and then return the water to the river below the bypass reach. Under the Federal Power Act (FPA), 41 Stat. 1063, as amended, 16 U. S. C. § 791a et seq., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has authority to license new hydroelectric facilities. As a result, petitioners must get a FERC license to build or operate the Elkhorn Project. Because a federal license is required, and because the project may result in discharges into the Dosewallips River, petitioners are also required to obtain state certification of the project pursuant to § 401 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1341.
The water flow in the bypass reach, which is currently undiminished by appropriation, ranges seasonally between 149 and 738 cubic feet per second (cfs). The Dosewallips supports two species of salmon, coho and chinook, as well as steelhead trout. As originally proposed, the project was to include a diversion dam which would completely block the river and channel approximately 75% of the river’s water into a tunnel alongside the streambed. About 25% of the water would remain in the bypass reach, but would be returned to the original riverbed through sluice gates or a fish ladder. Depending on the season, this would leave a residual minimum flow of between 65 and 155 cfs in the river. Respondent undertook a study to determine the minimum stream flows necessary to protect the salmon and steelhead fishery in the bypass reach. On June 11, 1986, respondent issued a § 401 water quality certification imposing a variety of conditions on the project, including a minimum stream flow requirement of between 100 and 200 cfs depending on the season.
A state administrative appeals board determined that the minimum flow requirement was intended to enhance, not merely maintain, the fishery, and that the certification condition therefore exceeded respondent’s authority under state law. App. to Pet. for Cert. 55a-57a. On appeal, the State Superior Court concluded that respondent could require compliance with the minimum flow conditions. Id., at 29a-45a. The Superior Court also found that respondent had imposed the minimum flow requirement to protect and preserve the fishery, not to improve it, and that this requirement was authorized by state law. Id., at 34a.
The Washington Supreme Court held that the antidegradation provisions of the State’s water quality standards require the imposition of minimum stream flows. 121 Wash. 2d 179, 186-187, 849 P. 2d 646, 650 (1993). The court also found that § 401(d), which allows States to impose conditions based upon several enumerated sections of the Clean Water Act and “any other appropriate requirement of State law,” 33 U. S. C. § 1341(d), authorized the stream flow condition. Relying on this language and the broad purposes of the Clean Water Act, the court concluded that § 401(d) confers on States power to “consider all state action related to water quality in imposing conditions on section 401 certificates.” 121 Wash. 2d, at 192, 849 P. 2d, at 652. We granted certiorari, 510 U. S. 810 (1993), to resolve a conflict among the state courts of last resort. See 121 Wash. 2d 179, 849 P. 2d 646 (1993); Georgia Pacific Corp. v. Dept. of Environmental Conservation, 159 Vt. 639, 628 A. 2d 944 (1992) (table); Power Authority of New York v. Williams, 60 N. Y. 2d 315, 457 N. E. 2d 726 (1983). We now affirm.
Ill
The principal dispute in this case concerns whether the minimum stream flow requirement that the State imposed on the Elkhorn Project is a permissible condition of a § 401 certification under the Clean Water Act. To resolve this dispute we must first determine the scope of the State’s authority under §401. We must then determine whether the limitation at issue here, the requirement that petitioners maintain minimum stream flows, falls within the scope of that authority.
A
There is no dispute that petitioners were required to obtain a certification from the State pursuant to §401. Petitioners concede that, at a minimum, the project will result in two possible discharges — the release of dredged and fill material during the construction of the project, and the discharge of water at the end of the tailrace after the water has been used to generate electricity. Brief for Petitioners 27-28. Petitioners contend, however, that the minimum stream flow requirement imposed by the State was unrelated to these specific discharges, and that as a consequence, the State lacked the authority under §401 to condition its certification on maintenance of stream flows sufficient to protect the Dosewallips fishery.
If § 401 consisted solely of subsection (a), which refers to a state certification that a “discharge” will comply with certain provisions of the Act, petitioners’ assessment of the scope of the State’s certification authority would have considerable force. Section 401, however, also contains subsection (d), which expands the State’s authority to impose conditions on the certification of a project. Section 401(d) provides that any certification shall set forth “any effluent limitations and other limitations... necessary to assure that any applicant” will comply with various provisions of the Act and appropriate state law requirements. 33 U. S. C. § 1341(d) (emphasis added). The language of this subsection contradicts petitioners’ claim that the State may only impose water quality limitations specifically tied to a “discharge.” The text refers to the compliance of the applicant, not the discharge. Section 401(d) thus allows the State to jmpose “other limitations” on the project in general to assure compliance with various provisions of the Clean Water Act and with “any other appropriate requirement of State law.” Although the dissent asserts that this interpretation of § 401(d) renders § 401(a)(1) superfluous, post, at 726, we see no such anomaly. Section 401(a)(1) identifies the category of activities subject to certification — namely, those with discharges. And § 401(d) is most reasonably read as authorizing additional conditions and limitations on the activity as a whole once the threshold condition, the existence of a discharge, is satisfied.
Our view of the statute is consistent with EPA’s regulations implementing §401. The regulations expressly interpret § 401 as requiring the State to find that “there is a reasonable assurance that the activity will be conducted in a manner which will not violate applicable water quality standards.” 40 CFR § 121.2(a)(3) (1993) (emphasis added). See also EPA, Wetlands and 401 Certification 23 (Apr. 1989) (“In 401(d), the Congress has given the States the authority to place any conditions on a water quality certification that are necessary to assure that the applicant will comply with effluent limitations, water quality standards,... and with ‘any other appropriate requirement of State law’ ”). • EPA’s conclusion that activities — not merely discharges — must comply with state water quality standards is a reasonable interpretation of § 401, and is entitled to deference. See, e. g., Arkansas v. Oklahoma, 503 U. S. 91, 110 (1992); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984).
Although § 401(d) authorizes the State to place restrictions on the activity as a whole, that authority is not unbounded. The State can only ensure that the project complies with “any applicable effluent limitations and other limitations, under [33 U. S. C. §§ 1311, 1312]” or certain other provisions of the Act, “and with any other appropriate requirement of State law.” 33 U. S. C. § 1341(d). The State asserts that the minimum stream flow requirement was imposed to ensure compliance with the state water quality standards adopted pursuant to §303 of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S. C. §1313.
We agree with the State that ensuring compliance with § 303 is a proper function of the § 401 certification. Although § 303 is not one of the statutory provisions listed in § 401(d), the statute allows States to impose limitations to ensure compliance with §301 of the Act, 33 U. S. C. § 1311. Section 301 in turn incorporates § 303 by reference. See 33 U. S. C. § 1311(b)(1)(C); see also H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 95-830, p. 96 (1977) (“Section 303 is always included by reference where section 301 is listed”). As a consequence, state water quality standards adopted pursuant to § 303 are among the “other limitations” with which a State may ensure compliance through the § 401 certification process. This interpretation is consistent with EPA’s view of the statute. See 40 CFR § 121.2(a)(3) (1992); EPA, Wetlands and 401 Certification, swpra. Moreover, limitations to assure compliance with state water quality standards are also permitted by §401(d)’s reference to “any other appropriate requirement of State law.” We do not speculate on what additional state laws, if any, might be incorporated by this language. But at a minimum, limitations imposed pursuant to state water quality standards adopted pursuant to §303 are “appropriate” requirements of state law. Indeed, petitioners appear to agree that the State’s authority under § 401 includes limitations designed to ensure compliance with state water quality standards. Brief for Petitioners 9, 21.
B
Having concluded that, pursuant to §401, States may condition certification upon any limitations necessary to ensure compliance with state water quality standards or any other “appropriate requirement of State law,” we consider whether the minimum flow condition is such a limitation. Under §303, state water quality standards must “consist of the designated uses of the navigable waters involved and the water quality criteria for such waters based upon such uses.” 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(2)(A). In imposing the minimum stream flow requirement, the State determined that construction and operation of the project as planned would be inconsistent with one of the designated uses of Class AA water, namely “[sjalmonid [and other fish] migration, rearing, spawning, and harvesting.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 83a-84a. The designated use of the river as a fish habitat directly reflects the Clean Water Act’s goal of maintaining the “chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” 33 U. S. C. § 1251(a). Indeed, the Act defines pollution as “the man-made or man induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological integrity of water.” § 1362(19). Moreover, the Act expressly requires that, in adopting water quality standards, the State must take into consideration the use of waters for “propagation of fish and wildlife.” § 1313(c)(2)(A).
Petitioners assert, however, that §303 requires the State to protect designated uses solely through implementation of specific “criteria.” According to petitioners, the State may not require them to operate their dam in a manner consistent with a designated “use”; instead, say petitioners, under § 303 the State may only require that the project comply with specific numerical “criteria.”
We disagree with petitioners’ interpretation of the language of § 303(c)(2)(A). Under the statute, a water quality standard must “consist of the designated uses of the navigable waters involved and the water quality criteria for such waters based upon such uses.” 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(2)(A) (emphasis added). The text makes it plain that water quality standards contain two components. We think the language of § 303 is most naturally read to require that a project be consistent with both components, namely, the designated use and the water quality criteria. Accordingly, under the literal terms of the statute, a project that does not comply with a designated use of the water does not comply with the applicable water quality standards.
Consequently, pursuant to § 401(d) the State may require that a permit applicant comply with both the designated uses and the water quality criteria of the state standards. In granting certification pursuant to § 401(d), the State “shall set forth any... limitations... necessary to assure that [the applicant] will comply with any... limitations under [§ 303]... and with any other appropriate requirement of State law.” A certification requirement that an applicant operate the project consistently with state water quality standards— i. e., consistently with the designated uses of the water body and the water quality criteria — is both a “limitation” to assure “compliance] with... limitations” imposed under § 303, and an “appropriate” requirement of state law.
EPA has not interpreted §303 to require the States to protect designated uses exclusively through enforcement of numerical criteria. In its regulations governing state water quality standards, EPA defines criteria as “elements of State water quality standards, expressed as constituent concentrations, levels, or narrative statements, representing a quality of water that supports a particular use.” 40 CFR § 131.3(b) (1993) (emphasis added). The regulations further provide that “[w]hen criteria are met, water quality will generally protect the designated use.” Ibid, (emphasis added). Thus, the EPA regulations implicitly recognize that in some circumstances, criteria alone are insufficient to protect a designated use.
Petitioners also appear to argue that use requirements are too open ended, and that the Act only contemplates enforcement of the more specific and objective “criteria.” But this argument is belied by the open-ended nature of the criteria themselves. As the Solicitor General points out, even “criteria” are often expressed in broad, narrative terms, such as “ ‘there shall be no discharge of toxic pollutants in toxic amounts.’” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18. See American Paper Institute, Inc. v. EPA, 996 F. 2d 346, 349 (CADC 1993). In fact, under the Clean Water Act, only one class of criteria, those governing “toxic pollutants listed pursuant to section 1317(a)(1),” need be rendered in numerical form. See 33 U. S. C. § 1313(c)(2)(B); 40 CFR § 131.11(b)(2) (1993).
Washington’s Class A A water quality standards are typical in that they contain several open-ended criteria which, like the use designation of the river as a fishery, must be translated into specific limitations for individual projects. For example, the standards state that “[t]oxic, radioactive, or deleterious material concentrations shall be less than those which may affect public health, the natural aquatic environment, or the desirability of the water for any use.” WAC 173-201-045(l)(c)(vii) (1986). Similarly, the state standards specify that “[ajesthetic values shall not be impaired by the presence of materials or their effects, excluding those of natural origin, which offend the senses of sight, smell, touch, or taste.” 173-201-045(l)(c)(viii). We think petitioners’ attempt to distinguish between uses and criteria loses much of its force in light of the fact that the Act permits enforcement of broad, narrative criteria based on, for example, “aesthetics.”
Petitioners further argue that enforcement of water quality standards through use designations renders the water quality criteria component of the standards irrelevant. We see no anomaly, however, in the State’s reliance on both use designations and criteria to protect water quality. The specific numerical limitations embodied in the criteria are a convenient enforcement mechanism for identifying minimum water conditions which will generally achieve the requisite water quality. And, in most circumstances, satisfying the criteria will, as EPA recognizes, be sufficient to maintain the designated use. See 40 CFR § 131.3(b) (1993). Water quality standards, however, apply to an entire class of water, a class which contains numerous individual water bodies. For example, in the State of Washington, the Class AA water quality standard applies to 81 specified fresh surface waters, as well as to all “surface waters lying within the mountainous regions of the state assigned to national parks, national forests, and/or wilderness areas,” all “lakes and their feeder streams within the state,” and all “unclassified surface waters that are tributaries to Class A A waters.” WAC 173-201-070 (1986). While enforcement of criteria will in general protect the uses of these diverse waters, a complementary requirement that activities also comport with designated uses enables the States to ensure that each activity— even if not foreseen by the criteria — will be consistent with the specific uses and attributes of a particular body of water.
Under petitioners’ interpretation of the statute, however, if a particular criterion, such as turbidity, were missing from the list contained in an individual state water quality standard, or even if an existing turbidity criterion were insufficient to protect a particular species of fish in a particular river, the State would nonetheless be forced to allow activities inconsistent with the existing or designated uses. We think petitioners’ reading leads to an unreasonable interpretation of the Act. The criteria components of state water quality standards attempt to identify, for all the water bodies in a given class, water quality requirements generally sufficient to protect designated uses. These criteria, however, cannot reasonably be expected to anticipate all the water quality issues arising from every activity that can affect the State’s hundreds of individual water bodies. Requiring the States to enforce only the criteria component of their water quality standards would in essence require the States to study to a level of great specificity each individual surface water to ensure that the criteria applicable to that water are sufficiently detailed and individualized to folly protect the water’s designated uses. Given that there is no textual support for imposing this requirement, we are loath to attribute to Congress an intent to impose this heavy regulatory burden on the States.
The State also justified its minimum stream flow as necessary to implement the “antidegradation policy” of §303, 33 U. S. C. § 1313(d)(4)(B). When the Clean Water Act was enacted in 1972, the water quality standards of all 50 States had antidegradation provisions. These provisions were required by federal law. See U. S. Dept, of Interior, Federal Water Pollution Control Administration, Compendium of Department of Interior Statements on Non-degradation of Interstate Waters 1-2 (Aug. 1968); see also Hines, A Decade of Nondegradation Policy in Congress and the Courts: The Erratic Pursuit of Clean Air and Clean Water, 62 Iowa L. Rev. 643, 658-660 (1977). By providing in 1972 that existing state water quality standards would remain in force until revised, the Clean Water Act ensured that the States would continue their antidegradation programs. See 33 U. S. C. § 1313(a). EPA has consistently required that revised state standards incorporate an antidegradation policy. And, in 1987, Congress explicitly recognized the existence of an “antidegradation policy established under [§303].” § 1313(d)(4)(B).
EPA has promulgated regulations implementing §303’s antidegradation policy, a phrase that is not defined elsewhere in the Act. These regulations require States to “develop and adopt a statewide antidegradation policy and identify the methods for implementing such policy.” 40 CFR §131.12 (1993). These “implementation methods shall, at a minimum, be consistent with the... [e]xisting instream water uses and the level of water quality necessary to protect the existing uses shall be maintained and protected.” Ibid. EPA has explained that under its antidegradation regulation, “no activity is allowable... which could partially or completely eliminate any existing use.” EPA, Questions and Answers on Antidegradation 3 (Aug. 1985). Thus, States must implement their antidegradation policy in a manner “consistent” with existing uses of the stream. The State of Washington’s antidegradation policy in turn provides that “[e]xisting beneficial uses shall be maintained and protected and no further degradation which would interfere with or become injurious to existing beneficial uses will be allowed.” WAC 173-201-035(8)(a) (1986). The State concluded that the reduced stream flows would have just the effect prohibited by this policy. The Solicitor General, representing EPA, asserts, Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18-21, and we agree, that the State’s minimum stream flow condition is a proper application of the state and federal anti-degradation regulations, as it ensures that an “[ejxisting instream water us[e]” will be “maintained and protected.” 40 CFR § 131.12(a)(1) (1993).
Petitioners also assert more generally that the Clean Water Act is only concerned with water “quality,” and does not allow the regulation of water “quantity.” This is an artificial distinction. In many cases, water quantity is closely related to water quality' a sufficient lowering of the water quantity in a body of water could destroy all of its designated, uses, be it for drinking water,, recreation* navigation or, as here, as a fishery. In any event, there is recognition in the Clean Water Act itself that reduced stream flow, i. e., diminishment of water quantity, can constitute water pollution. First, the Act’s definition of pollution as “the man-made or man induced alteration of the chemical, physical, biological, and radiological integrity of water” encompasses the effects of reduced water quantity. 33 U. S. C. § 1362(19). This broad conception of pollution — one which expressly evinces Congress’ concern with the physical and biological integrity of water — refutes petitioners’ assertion that the Act draws a sharp distinction between the regulation of water “quantity” and water “quality.” Moreover, § 304 of the Act expressly recognizes that water “pollution” may result from “changes in the movement, flow, or circulation of any navigable waters..., including changes caused by the construction of dams.” 33 U. S. C. § 1314(f). This concern with the flowage effects of dams and other diversions is also embodied in the EPA regulations, which expressly require existing dams to be operated to attain designated uses. 40 CFR § 131.10(g)(4) (1992).
Petitioners assert that two other provisions of the Clean Water Act, §§ 101(g) and 510(2), 33 U. S. C. §§ 1251(g) and 1370(2), exclude the regulation of water quantity from the coverage of the Act. Section 101(g) provides “that the authority of each State to allocate quantities of water within its jurisdiction shall not be superseded, abrogated or otherwise impaired by this chapter.” 33 U. S. C. § 1251(g). Similarly, § 510(2) provides that nothing in the Act shall “be construed as impairing or in any manner affecting any right or jurisdiction of the States with respect to the waters... of such States.” 33 U. S. C. § 1370. In petitioners’ view, these provisions exclude “water quantity issues from direct regulation under the federally controlled water quality standards authorized in §303.” Brief for Petitioners 39 (emphasis deleted).
This language gives the States authority to allocate water rights; we therefore find it peculiar that petitioners argue that it prevents the State from regulating stream flow. In any event, we read these provisions more narrowly than petitioners. Sections 101(g) and 510(2) preserve the authority of each State to allocate water quantity as between users; they do not limit the scope of water pollution controls that may be imposed on users who have obtained, pursuant to state law, a water allocation. In California v. FERC, 495 U. S. 490, 498 (1990), construing an analogous provision of the Federal Power Act, we explained that “minimum stream flow requirements neither reflect nor establish ‘proprietary rights’ ” to water. Cf. First Iowa Hydro-Electric Cooperative v. FPC, 328 U. S. 152, 176, and n. 20 (1946). Moreover, the certification itself does not purport to determine petitioners’ proprietary right to the water of the Dosewallips. In fact, the certification expressly states that a “State Water Right Permit (Chapters 90.03.250 RCW and 508-12 WAC) must be obtained prior to commencing construction of the project.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 83a. The certification merely determines the nature of the use to which that proprietary right may be put under the Clean Water Act, if and when it is obtained from the State. Our view is reinforced by the legislative history of the 1977 amendment to the Clean Water Act adding § 101(g). See 3 Legislative History of the Clean Water Act of 1977 (Committee Print compiled for the Committee on Environment and Public Works by the Library of Congress), Ser. No. 95-14, p. 532 (1978) (“The requirements [of the Act] may incidentally affect individual water rights.... It is not the purpose of this amendment to prohibit those incidental effects. It is the purpose of this amendment to insure that State allocation systems are not subverted, and that effects on individual rights, if any, are prompted by legitimate and necessary water quality considerations”).
IV
Petitioners contend that we should limit the State’s authority to impose minimum flow requirements because FERC has comprehensive authority to license hydroelectric projects pursuant to the FPA, 16 U. S. C. §791a et seq. In petitioners’ view, the minimum flow requirement imposed here interferes with FERC’s authority under the FPA.
The FPA empowers FERC to issue licenses for projects “necessary or convenient... for the development, transmission, and utilization of power across, along, from, or in any of the streams... over which Congress has jurisdiction.” § 797(e). The FPA also requires FERC to consider a project’s effect on fish and wildlife. §§ 797(e), 803(a)(1). In California v. FERC, supra, we held that the California Water Resources Control Board, acting pursuant to state law, could not impose a minimum stream flow which conflicted with minimum stream flows contained in a FERC license. We concluded that the FPA did not “save” to the States this authority. Id., at 498.
No such conflict with any FERC licensing activity is presented here. FERC has not yet acted on petitioners’ license application, and it is possible that FERC will eventually deny petitioners’ application altogether. Alternatively, it is quite possible, given that FERC is required to give equal consideration to the protection of fish habitat when deciding whether to issue a license, that any FERC license would contain the same conditions as the state § 401 certification. Indeed, at oral argument the Deputy Solicitor General stated that both EPA and FERC were represented in this proceeding, and that the Government has no objection to the stream flow condition contained in the §401 certification. Tr. of Oral Arg. 43-44.
Finally, the requirement for a state certification applies not only to applications for licenses from FERC, but to all federal licenses and permits for activities which may result in a discharge into the Nation’s navigable waters. For example, a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers is required for the installation of any structure in the navigable waters which may interfere with navigation, including piers, docks, and ramps. Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899, 30 Stat. 1151, §10, 33 U. S. C. §403. Similarly, a permit must be obtained from the Army Corps of Engineers for the discharge of dredged or fill material, and from the Secretary of the Interior or Agriculture for the construction of reservoirs, canals, and other water storage systems on federal land. See 33 U. S. C. §§ 1344(a), (e); 43 U. S. C. § 1761 (1988 ed. and Supp. IV). We assume that a §401 certification would also be required for some licenses obtained pursuant to these statutes. Because §
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Reed
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner is held by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the Western State Penitentiary on sentences totalling a minimum of twenty and a maximum of forty years pronounced pursuant to his pleas of guilty to four indictments charging burglary. We granted certiorari to review a denial by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania of his petition to appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court which affirmed a dismissal of a petition for habeas corpus in the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County. Petitioner claimed in the state courts, and now claims here, that he was denied counsel in the proceedings leading to his convictions in violation of his right to counsel under the due process of law clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
From the pleadings and decisions of the Pennsylvania courts, certified to us as the record in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and without reliance upon any additional allegations in the petition for certiorari, the facts and allegations as to denial of constitutional rights may be summarized as follows: On October 27, 1938, petitioner Uveges, a youth seventeen years of age, was faced with four district attorney’s indictments charging four separate burglaries. Upon his plea of guilty to these indictments, Uveges was sentenced in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Allegheny County to from five to ten years on each indictment, the sentences to run consecutively. In his petition to the Court of Common Pleas for a writ of habeas corpus in 1946, petitioner alleged that he was not informed of his right to counsel nor was counsel offered him at any time during the period between arrest and conviction. He also alleged that “frightened by threats of dire consequences if he dared to stand trial, relator pleaded guilty under the direction of an assistant district attorney, with the understanding that- a sentence to Huntington Reformatory would be imposed.” We disregard this last allegation because it was not presented to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the petition for allowance of appeal. A rule to show cause why the writ should not issue was granted. The answer denied that petitioner was entitled to counsel but did not deny the allegation of threats by the assistant district attorney. The Court of Common Pleas, without a hearing, entered an order dismissing the petition and denying the writ. The Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed, 161 Pa. Super. 58, 53 A. 2d 894, noting that Uveges had been arrested once before for burglary and confined in,a reformatory for ten months. The State Supreme Court, on September 29, 1947, denied a petition for allowance of appeal which repeated the allegations of youth and denial of the right to counsel. 161 Pa. Super, xxv, 53 A. 2d 894. We think this record adequately raised the federal constitutional question as to denial of counsel. Pennsylvania makes no contrary contention. We granted the motion to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari, 334 U. S. 836, in order to examine the important constitutional question presented by petitioner’s claim of right to counsel.
Since our understanding is. that in Pennsylvania habeas corpus is available to an accused whose constitutional right to counsel has been denied, and since respondent does not suggest that the state bars a remedy by habeas corpus in the circumstances of this case because no appeal was taken from the original conviction, we proceed to the merits of this controversy.
Some members of the Court think that where serious offenses are charged, failure of a court to offer counsel in state criminal trials deprives an accused of rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. They are convinced that the services of counsel to protect the accused are guaranteed by the Constitution in every such instance. See Bute v. Illinois, 333 U. S. 640, dissent, 677-79. Only when the accused refuses counsel with an understanding of his rights can the court dispense with counsel. Others of us think that when a crime subject to capital punishment is not involved, each case depends on its own facts. See Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455, 462. Where the gravity of the crime and other factors — such as the age and education of the defendant, the conduct of the court or the prosecuting officials, and the complicated nature of the offense charged and the possible defenses thereto— render criminal proceedings without counsel so apt to result in injustice as to be fundamentally unfair, the latter group holds that the accused must have legal assistance under the Amendment whether he pleads guilty or elects to stand trial, whether he requests counsel or not. Only a waiver of counsel, under standingly made, justifies trial without counsel.
The philosophy behind both of these views is that the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or the Fifth Amendment requires counsel for all persons charged with serious crimes, when necessary for their adequate defense, in order that such persons may be advised how to conduct their trials. The application of the rule varies as indicated in the preceding paragraph.
Under either view of the requirements of due process, the facts in this case required the presence of counsel at petitioner’s trial. He should not have been permitted to plead guilty without an offer of the advice of counsel in his situation. If the circumstances alleged in his petition are true, the accused was entitled to an adviser to help him handle his problems. Petitioner was young and inexperienced in the intricacies of criminal procedure when he pleaded guilty to crimes which carried a maximum sentence of eighty years. There is an undenied allegation that he was never advised of his right to counsel. The record shows no attempt on the part of the court to make him understand the consequences of his plea. Whatever our decision might have been if the trial court had informed him of his rights and conscientiously had undertaken to perform the functions ordinarily entrusted to counsel, we conclude that the opportunity to have counsel in this case was a necessary element of a fair hearing.
Reversed.
Excerpts from the brief of the Commonwealth show its acceptance of the actual issue:
“3. The basic question of this ease is whether the petitioner was denied due process of law by reason of the fact that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania did not appoint Counsel to represent him in the proceedings leading to his imprisonment. It is the contention of the respondent that the federal Constitution did not require that the state appoint Counsel to represent this accused since
“(A) The requirement of the 6th Amendment to the federal constitution that the accused be represented by counsel in all criminal cases does not apply to the states and
“(B) It is only in a capital case or under other special circumstances not here present that a state is required by the 14th Amendment to the Federal Constitution to appoint counsel to represent the accused.”
“The vital question to be decided, and, in our view of the case the only significant question, is whether the accused, under such facts as are properly before this Court, must be represented by counsel in order that the process leading to his confinement may be deemed due process.”
Petitioner in his petition for certiorari bases his claim for review in part on procedural irregularities allegedly in violation of state statutes, such as the failure of the district attorney personally to sign the indictments. Since these allegations, even if true, present no federal question, we have not considered them.
See Commonwealth ex rel. McGlinn v. Smith, 344 Pa. 41, 47 — 48, 24 A. 2d 1, 4-5; Commonwealth ex rel. Penland v. Ashe, 341 Pa. 337. 341-42, 19 A. 2d 464, 466.
See Rice v. Olson, 324 U. S. 786, 788-89; Walker v. Johnston, 312 U. S. 275, 286; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U. S. 458, 468.
See e. g., Wade v. Mayo, 334 U. S. 672, 683-84; De Meerleer v. Michigan, 329 U. S. 663, 664-65; Betts v. Brady, supra, at 472, Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 51-52, 71.
See e. g., Townsend v. Burke, 334 U. S. 736, 739-41; De Meerleer v. Michigan, supra, at 665; Smith v. O’Grady, 312 U. S. 329, 332-33.
See e. g., Rice v. Olson, 324 U. S. 786, 789-91.
Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., tit. 18, § 4901.
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.
A company that is a party to a collective-bargaining agreement may have a contractual duty to make contributions to a pension fund during the term of the agreement and, in addition, may have a duty under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to continue making such contributions after the expiration of the contract and while negotiations for a new contract are in process. In 1980, Congress amended the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to provide trustees of multiemployer benefit plans with an effective federal remedy to collect delinquent contributions. The question presented in this case is whether that remedy encompasses actions based on an alleged breach of the employer’s statutory duty as well as those based on an alleged breach of contract. We agree with the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that the remedy is limited to the collection of “promised contributions.”
I
Prior to 1983, respondent was a member of the Associated General Contractors of California and a party to two multiemployer collective-bargaining agreements negotiated on its behalf by that association. The agreements included provisions requiring respondent to make monthly contributions to eight different employee benefit plans. The collective-bargaining agreements, which were executed in 1980, had an expiration date of June 15, 1983.
On April 1, 1983, respondent notified both unions that it had terminated the association’s authority to bargain on its behalf, that it would not be bound by either master agreement (or any successor agreement) after the June 15, 1983, expiration date, and that it was prepared to negotiate with the unions independently. Respondent continued to contribute to the eight trust funds until June 15, 1983, but has made no contributions since that date.
In December 1983, the trustees of the eight plans (petitioners) brought suit in the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California against respondent to collect contributions for the period after June 15,1983. Petitioners allege that respondent’s unilateral decision to change the terms and conditions of employment by discontinuing its contributions constituted a breach of its duty to bargain in good faith and violated § 8(a)(5) of the NLRA. 61 Stat. 141, 29 U. S. C. § 158(a)(5). The complaints alleged that the federal court had jurisdiction under §§ 502(g)(2) and 515 of ERISA.
Respondent’s answer to the complaint challenged the District Court’s jurisdiction and also denied that respondent had any statutory duty to make contributions to the funds because its negotiations with the unions had reached an “impasse.” The “impasse” issue has never been resolved
because the District Court granted a motion for summary-judgment based on two other grounds: That § 515 of ERISA does not apply to an employer’s obligations under § 8(a)(5) of the NLRA; and that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has exclusive jurisdiction over petitioners’ claims.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. 779 F. 2d 497 (CA9 1985). It necessarily assumed that petitioner could prove that respondent’s postcontract refusal to contribute to the funds was an unfair labor practice. It held, however, that the claims should be resolved by the NLRB rather than by a federal district court. After examining the text and the legislative history of the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980 (MPPAA), the Court concluded:
“We find no persuasive evidence in either the plain words or legislative history of ERISA or the MPPAA that Congress intended section 515 to be an exception to the general rule of NLRB preemption for that narrow category of suits seeking recovery of unpaid contributions accrued during the period between contract expiration and impasse.” Id., at 505.
We granted certiorari, 479 U. S. 1083 (1987), and now affirm.
II
In its 1980 amendments to ERISA, Congress responded to two concerns that are relevant to the question presented by this case. It was primarily concerned about the burden placed upon the remaining contributors to a multiemployer fund when one or more of them withdraw. In response to this concern Congress enacted an elaborate provision imposing “withdrawal liability” on such withdrawing employers. That liability arises when an employer ceases to have an “obligation to contribute” to the plan. That term is defined for the purposes of the withdrawal liability portion of the statute in language that unambiguously includes both the employer’s contractual obligations and any obligation imposed by the NLRA. That definition is significant because it demonstrates that Congress was aware of the two different sources of an employer’s duty to contribute to covered plans.
Congress was also concerned about the problem that had arisen because a substantial number of employers had failed to make their “promised contributions” on a regular and timely basis. Sections 515 and 502(g)(2) of ERISA, the provisions at issue in this case, were enacted in response to that concern. The text of § 515 plainly describes the employer’s contractual obligation to make contributions but omits any reference to a noncontractual obligation imposed by the NLRA. Section 515 provides:
“Every employer who is obligated to make contributions to a multiemployer plan under the terms of the plan or under the terms of a collectively bargained agreement shall, to the extent not inconsistent with law, make such contributions in accordance with the terms and conditions of such plan or such agreement.” 94 Stat. 1295, 29 U. S. C. § 1145.
The liability created by § 515 may be enforced by the trustees of a plan by bringing an action in federal district court pursuant to §502. The special remedy against employers who are delinquent in meeting their contractual obligations that is created by § 502(g)(2) includes a mandatory award of prejudgment interest plus liquidated damages in an amount at least equal to that interest, as well as attorney’s fees and costs.
The legislative history of these provisions explains that Congress added these strict remedies to give employers a strong incentive to honor their contractual obligations to contribute and to facilitate the collection of delinquent accounts. That history contains no mention of the employer’s statutory duty to make postcontract contributions while negotiations for a new contract are being conducted. Thus, both the text and the legislative history of §§ 515 and 502(g)(2) provide firm support for the Court of Appeals’ conclusion that this remedy is limited to the collection of “promised contributions” and does not confer jurisdiction on district courts to determine whether an employer’s unilateral decision to refuse to make postcontract contributions constitutes a violation of the NLRA.
Ill
Petitioners, supported by the United States as Amicus Curiae, advance two policy arguments for giving §515 a broad construction that would include postcontract delinquencies. First, they argue that the reasons for giving a district court jurisdiction of collection actions apply to post-contract delinquencies as well as those arising during the term of the contract and that it is unwise to leave a “gap” in the enforcement scheme. Second, they argue that the remedies available in NLRB proceedings are inadequate.
Our principal reason for rejecting these arguments is our conviction that Congress’ intent is so plain that policy arguments of this kind must be addressed to the body that has the authority to amend the legislation, rather than one whose authority is limited to interpreting it. We nevertheless note that there are countervailing policy arguments that make it highly unlikely that the limited reach of the statute is the consequence of inadvertence rather than deliberate choice.
With respect to the asserted “gap” in the enforcement scheme, three observations are pertinent. First, the incidence of the asserted gap is unknown. Presumably most employers who anticipate a continuing relationship with a union honor their obligations to preserve the status quo during negotiations for a new contract. If a new contract is ultimately signed, it should define the employer’s obligations during the period subsequent to the expiration of the preceding contract; therefore, any delinquency during that period would be covered by § 515. On the other hand, if no new contract is ever signed, there is at least a possibility that an impasse had been reached either before, or only a short time after, the expiration of the old contract. The fact that this type of delinquency appears not even to have been called to the attention of Congress indicates that it may not be a problem of serious magnitude.
Second, the issues that must be decided in a dispute over an employer’s refusal to make any postcontract contributions are more complex than those that are presented in a simple collection action. Whereas it is entirely appropriate to award prejudgment interest or liquidated damages as a remedy for an employer’s failure to make the payments specified in a contract, those remedies are problematic in cases in which there is a good-faith dispute over both the existence and the extent of the employer’s liability. The question whether and when an impasse has been reached is often a matter of judgment based on an evaluation of the parties’ bargaining history against standards that are imprecise at best.
Third, whether an employer’s unilateral decision to discontinue contributions to a pension plan constitutes a violation of the statutory duty to bargain in good faith is the kind of question that is routinely resolved by the administrative agency with expertise in labor law. There are situations in which district judges must occasionally resolve labor issues, but they surely represent the exception rather than the rule. In cases like this, which involve either an actual or an “arguable” violation of §8 of the NLRA, federal courts typically defer to the judgment of the NLRB. See San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245 (1959).
Petitioners may be correct in contending that the remedies available in an NLRB proceeding are less effective than an ERISA action would be. Under ERISA they are entitled to attorney’s fees, prejudgment interest, and liquidated damages, whereas the scope of relief available in an NLRB proceeding is often a matter of agency discretion. Moreover, an unfair labor practice charge must be filed within a 6-month period and the general counsel has discretion to refuse to issue a complaint if she is not persuaded that the charge has merit or is of sufficient importance to justify prosecution. Finally, the employer and the union may enter into a settlement that either reduces, or even might waive, the employer’s postcontract obligations to contribute to the pension fund.
But these asserted defects in petitioners’ labor law remedy are characteristic of all unfair labor practice proceedings before the NLRB. If the labor legislation were simply repealed, in toto, petitioners would have no basis whatsoever for claiming that an employer had any duty to continue making contributions to a fund after the expiration of its contractual commitment to do so. The duty that does exist is simply a consequence of a broader labor law duty that was created to protect the collective-bargaining process. Unilateral changes in the terms and conditions of employment are prohibited, not to vindicate the interests that motivated the enactment of § 515 in 1980, but rather to carry out the purposes of the NLRA. The net effect of the labor law duties imposed on employers by that legislation provides a substantial benefit to ERISA plan trustees, but Congress has not provided them with a unique and preferred procedure for obtaining redress for an employer’s violation of its duty to bargain with the union.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
Justice Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
One agreement was with the District Council of Plasterers and Cement Masons of Northern California and the other was with the Northern California District Council of Laborers.
Those eight plans are: The Laborers Health and Welfare Trust Fund for Northern California; the Laborers Pension Trust Fund for Northern California; the Laborers Vacations-Holiday-Dues Trust Fund for Northern California; the Laborers Training and Retraining Trust Funds for Northern California; the Cement Masons’ Health and Welfare Trust Fund for Northern California; the Cement Masons Pension Trust Fund for Northern California; the Cement Masons Vacation-Holiday-Supplemental Dues Trust Fund for Northern California; and the Cement Masons Apprenticeship and Training Trust Fund for Northern California Fund.
The named parties are the plans, rather than the trustees, but the relevant statute refers to an action “by a fiduciary for or on behalf of a plan.” 29 U. S. C. § 1132(g)(2).
“As a general rule, federal courts do not have jurisdiction over activity [that] is ‘arguably subject to § 7 or § 8 of the [NLRA],’ and they ‘must defer to the exclusive competence of the National Labor Relations Board.’ ” Kaiser Steel Corp. v. Mullins, 455 U. S. 72, 83 (1982) (quoting San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 245 (1959)). We have also held, however, that “federal courts may decide labor law questions that emerge as collateral issues in suits brought under independent federal remedies . . . .” Connell Construction Co. v. Plumbers & Steamfitters, 421 U. S. 616, 626 (1975). The question in this ease is whether Congress has provided, through ERISA §§ 502(g)(2) and 515, such an “independent federal remedy.”
The complaints also alleged jurisdiction under § 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 61 Stat. 156, 29 U. S. C. § 185, but petitioners now rely entirely on ERISA to support federal jurisdiction.
As the Court of Appeals correctly stated:
“ ‘Impasse’ is an imprecise term of art:
“The definition of an ‘impasse’ is understandable enough — that point at which the parties have exhausted the prospects of concluding an agreement and further discussions would be fruitless — but its application can be difficult. Given the many factors commonly itemized by the Board and courts in impasse cases, perhaps all that can be said with confidence is that an impasse is a ‘state of facts in which the parties, despite the best of faith, are simply deadlocked.’ The Board and courts look to such matters as the number of meetings between the company and the union, the length of those meetings and the period of time that has transpired between the start of negotiations and their breaking off. There is no magic number of meetings, hours or weeks which will reliably determine when an impasse has occurred.
“R. Gorman, Basic Text on Labor Law: Unionization and Collective Bargaining 448 (1976) (citation omitted).” 779 F. 2d 497, 500, n. 3 (CA9 1985).
If the parties were indeed at an impasse, then the employer’s statutory duty to maintain the status quo during postcontract negotiations, see n. 6, infra, would end. See, e. g., American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 318 (1965) (no unfair labor practice “when, after a bargaining impasse has been reached, [employer] temporarily shuts down his plant and lays off his employees for the sole purpose of bringing economic pressure to bear in support of his legitimate bargaining position”); Taft Broadcasting Co., 163 N. L. R. B. 475, 478 (1967) (“[A]fter bargaining to an impasse, that is, after good-faith negotiations have exhausted the prospects of concluding an agreement, an employer does not violate the Act by making unilateral changes that are reasonably comprehended within his preimpasse proposals”), aff’d sub nom. American Federation of Television & Radio Artists v. NLRB, 129 U. S. App. D. C. 399, 395 F. 2d 622 (1968). Here, since the District Court determined on motion for summary judgment that it had no jurisdiction to entertain plaintiffs’ unfair labor practice claim, the factually disputed impasse issue was never resolved.
“Freezing the status quo ante after a collective agreement has expired promotes industrial peace by fostering a non-coercive atmosphere that is conducive to serious negotiations on a new contract. Thus, an employer’s failure to honor the terms and conditions of an expired collective-bargaining agreement pending negotiations on a new agreement constitutes bad faith bargaining in breach of sections 8(a)(1), 8(a)(5) and 8(d) of the National Labor Relations Act.... NLRB v. Katz, 369 U. S. 736, 743 . . . (1962). Consequently, any unilateral change by the employer in the pension fund arrangements provided by an expired agreement is an unfair labor practice. Peerless Roofing Co. v. NLRB, 641 F. 2d 734, 735 (9th Cir. 1981); Producer’s Dairy Delivery Co. v. Western Conference of Teamsters Pension Trust Fund, 654 F. 2d 625, 627 (9th Cir. 1981).” 779 F. 2d, at 500.
All other Courts of Appeals that have addressed this issue have reached the same result. See New Bedford Fishermen’s Welfare Fund v. Baltic Enterprises, Inc., 813 F. 2d 503 (CA1 1987); Moldovan v. Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., 790 F. 2d 894, 900-901 (CA3 1986); U.A. 198 Health & Welfare, Education & Pension Funds v. Rester Refrigeration Service, Inc., 790 F. 2d 423 (CA5 1986).
See MPPAA § 3(a)(4), 94 Stat. 1209, 29 U. S. C. § 1001a (a)(4).
See MPPAA § 104, 94 Stat. 1217-1244, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1381-1405.
Section 4203(a) of ERISA provides:
“For purposes of this part, a complete withdrawal from a multiemployer plan occurs when an employer—
“(1) permanently ceases to have an obligation to contribute under the plan, or
“(2) permanently ceases all covered operations under the plan.” 94 Stat. 1218, 29 U. S. C. § 1383(a).
Neither petitioners nor respondent suggests that respondent has withdrawn from the plans.
Under the subhead “obligation to contribute; special rules,” §4212(a) of ERISA provides:
“For purposes of this part, the term ‘obligation to contribute’ means an obligation to contribute arising—
“(1) under one or more collective bargaining (or related) agreements, or
“(2) as a result of a duty under applicable labor-management relations law, but
“does not include an obligation to pay withdrawal liability under this section or to pay delinquent contributions.” 94 Stat. 1233, 29 U. S. C. § 1392(a).
“Delinquencies of employers in making required contributions are a serious problem for most multiemployer plans. Failure of employers to make promised contributions in a timely fashion imposes a variety of costs on plans. While contributions remain unpaid, the plan loses the benefit of investment income that could have been earned if the past due amounts had been received and invested on time. Moreover, additional administrative costs are incurred in detecting and collecting delinquencies. Attorneys fees and other legal costs arise in connection with collection efforts.” Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, 96th Cong., 2d Sess., S. 1076, The Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980: Summary and Analysis of Consideration 43 (Comm. Print 1980) (emphasis added).
Section 502(g)(2) provides:
“In any action under this title by a fiduciary for or on behalf of a plan to enforce section 515 of this title in which a judgment in favor of the plan is awarded, the court shall award the plan—
“(A) the unpaid contributions,
“(B) interest on the unpaid contributions,
“(C) an amount equal to the greater of—
“(i) interest on the unpaid contributions, or
“(ii) liquidated damages provided for under the plan in an amount not in excess of 20 percent (or such higher percentage as may be permitted under Federal or State law) of the amount determined by the court under subparagraph (A),
“(D) reasonable attorney’s fees and costs of the action, to be paid by the defendant, and
“(E) such other legal or equitable relief as the court deems appropriate. “For purposes of this paragraph, interest on unpaid contributions shall be determined by using the rate provided under the plan, or, if none, the rate prescribed under section 6621 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.” 94 Stat. 1295, 29 U. S. C. § 1132(g)(2).
“Recourse available under current law for collecting delinquent contributions is insufficient and unnecessarily cumbersome and costly. Some simple collection actions brought by plan trustees have been converted into lengthy, costly and complex litigation concerning claims and defenses unrelated to the employer’s promise and the plans’ entitlement to the contributions. This should not be the case. Federal pension law must permit trustees of plans to recover delinquent contributions efficaciously. Sound national pension policy demands that employers who enter into agreements providing for pension contributions not be permitted to repudiate their pension promises.” Committee Print, supra n. 12, at 44 (emphases added).
See also n. 15, infra.
Petitioners rely on selected excerpts of legislative history, but none refers to the NLRA duty, and some actually tend to disprove petitioners’ case. Senator Williams, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, remarked on the Senate floor that “[o]n this whole question of delinquent contributions and the withdrawal liability collection, the bill provides a direct and I suggest unambiguous cause of action under ERISA to a plan against a delinquent employer.” 126 Cong. Ree. 20180 (1980). This statement does not address the issue of the source of the employer’s obligations. Representative Thompson, Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, explained similarly that § 515 would provide “a direct, unambiguous ERISA cause of action to a plan against a delinquent employer.” Id., at 23039. He added:
“The public policy of this legislation to foster the preservation of the private multiemployer plan system necessitates that provision be made to discourage delinquencies and simplify delinquency collection. The bill imposes a Federal statutory duty to contribute on employers that are already obligated to make contributions to multiemployer plans. A plan sponsor that prevails in any action to collect delinquent contributions will be entitled to recover the delinquent contributions, court costs, attorney’s fees, interest on the contributions owed and liquidated damages. The intent of this section is to promote the prompt payment of contributions and assist plans in recovering the costs incurred in connection with delinquencies.” Ibid, (emphases added).
Petitioners add the emphases in their brief, but even the highlighted sentences do not speak to the issue of the source of an employer’s obligations.
In fact, parts of Representative Thompson’s statement not excerpted by petitioners tend to disprove their case. At one point, he stated that “[failure of employers to make promised contributions in a timely fashion imposes a variety of costs on plans.” Ibid, (emphasis added). A bit later, he exclaimed that “[s]ound national pension policy demands that employers who enter into agreements providing for pension contributions not be permitted to repudiate their pension promises.” Ibid, (emphases added). Immediately following, he cited, “[i]n this regard,” five judicial decisions, endorsing three and criticizing two. As respondent correctly explains, all five cases “concerned extraneous matters interposed as defenses to a clear contractual obligation arising during the term of the labor agreement.” Brief for Respondent 18, n. 11. That is, none dealt with a statutory, post-contract obligation. See Lewis v. Benedict Coal Corp., 361 U. S. 459 (1960) (union’s promises not conditions precedent to employer’s promise to pay royalties to fund; decision endorsed); Lewis v. Mill Ridge Coals, Inc., 298 F. 2d 552 (CA6 1962) (employer owes contributions to fund under labor agreement regardless of alleged failure of consideration; decision endorsed); Huge v. Long’s Hauling Co., 590 F. 2d 457 (CA3 1978) (employer owes contributions to fund under labor agreement regardless of alleged union antitrust violation and unfair labor practices; decision endorsed); Western Washington Laborers-Employers Health & Security Trust Fund v. McDowell, 103 LRRM 2219 (WD Wash. 1979) (failure of union to achieve majority status relieves employer of obligation to contribute under prehire agreement; decision criticized); Washington Area Carpenters' Welfare Fund v. Overhead Door Co., 488 F. Supp. 816 (DC 1980) (same), rev’d, 220 U. S. App. D. C. 273, 681 F. 2d 1 (1982), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 926 (1983). See also 126 Cong. Rec. 23288 (1980) (floor statement of Sen. Williams, identical to that of Rep. Thompson).
Petitioners advance three unpersuasive arguments for the opposite conclusion. First, petitioners offer an alternative reading of what they deem § 515’s “operative phrase,” i. e., “employer who is obligated to make contributions . . . under the terms of a collectively bargained agreement.” Petitioners suggest that this language “can be read to refer to employers whose contributions are defined and measured by the terms of a collective-bargaining agreement, but whose obligation to contribute exists as a matter of law, independent of the contract. So read, Section 515 would require employers to adhere to all legal duties to make contributions to collectively-bargained plans.” Brief for Petitioners 14 (emphasis in original). In other words, petitioners construe the word “under” to mean “defined and measured by,” and read “obligated” to include both contractual and statutory duties. But if Congress had meant to say this surely it could have done so more clearly; as written, § 515 plainly refers to obligations that themselves arise from either a “plan” or a “collectively bargained agreement.”
Petitioners next point out that ERISA § 4301(b) provides that “[i]n any action under this section to compel an employer to pay withdrawal liability, any failure of the employer to make any withdrawal liability payment within the time prescribed shall be treated in the same manner as a delinquent contribution (within the meaning of section 515).” 94 Stat. 1263, 29 U. S. C. § 1451(b). Because of this “statutory linkage” between the remedies available for withdrawal and delinquency liability, petitioners contend, “it is appropriate and instructive in gleaning the intended scope of the Section 515 duty to examine how Congress defined the obligation to contribute for withdrawal liability purposes.” Brief for Petitioners 21. Since withdrawal liability may arise from either a contractual or a statutory duty, see ERISA § 4212(a), n. 11, supra, petitioners conclude that delinquency liability must be similarly engendered.
It is easy to see that this argument is a false syllogism, for it reasons from the fact that Congress intended withdrawal and delinquency liability to have similar remedies to the erroneous conclusion that withdrawal and delinquency liability are themselves equivalent because both originated in contractual and statutory duties. As we have explained in the text, though, § 4212(a) actually cuts against petitioners, since it makes clear that while withdrawal liability may arise from both contractual and statutory duties, § 515 provides only for a contractual origin for delinquency liability.
Finally, petitioners maintain that if § 515 “were read to apply only to obligations imposed by collective bargaining agreements, the section would be entirely duplicative of Section 301 of the LMRA, 29 U. S. C. § 185, which creates a federal cause of action for the breach of such contracts.” Brief for Petitioners 24. But, as respondent points out, “this argument conveniently ignores the specific purpose of Section 515.” Brief for Respondent 22. That is, the new § 502(g)(2) remedies of mandatory prejudgment interest, liquidated damages equal at least to that interest, and attorney’s fees and costs, plus such other relief as the court deems appropriate, are indeed “the potent new weapon previously unavailable to plans under” § 301 of the LMRA. Brief for Respondent 23.
Even petitioners concede that “most collection actions are brought to enforce an existing collective bargaining agreement.” Brief for Petitioners 6; see id., at 13.
See n. 5, supra. Other employer defenses that raise complex factual and legal questions may also be asserted. In this case, for example, respondent avers that “issues exist concerning the unions’ waiver of bargaining rights and their failure to satisfy their statutory bargaining obligations under Section 8(b)(3) of the NLRA.” Brief for Respondent 36 (footnote omitted).
See n. 4, supra. It is true, as petitioners point out, that district courts may find it necessary to decide whether an impasse occurred in withdrawal liability cases in which there is a dispute over the date of withdrawal. In such a proceeding, however, there would not normally be any claim that the employer was guilty of an unfair labor practice or that liquidated damages were mandated because the employer misjudged the impasse date.
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 judgment is reversed insofar as it set aside the Board’s order. American Airlines, Inc., v. North American Airlines, Inc., 351 U. S. 79.
Mr. Justice Douglas dissents.
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.
Twenty days after this Court granted a writ of certiorari, 409 U. S. 841, Congress amended the relevant statutory provisions, § 202 (d)(8) of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. §402 (d)(8). See § 111 (a), Social Security Amendments of 1972 (Oct. 30, 1972), Pub. L. 92-603, 86 Stat. 1329. The writ of certiorari heretofore granted 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.
Per Curiam.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Ohio is reversed. Redrup v. New York, 386 U. S. 767.
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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondent, Gary Darrell Allison, an inmate of a North Carolina penitentiary, petitioned a Federal District Court for a writ of habeas corpus. The court dismissed his petition without a hearing, and the Court of Appeals reversed, ruling that in the circumstances of this case summary dismissal was improper. We granted certiorari to review the judgment of.the Court of Appeals.
I
Allison was indicted by a North Carolina grand jury for breaking and entering, attempted safe robbery, and possession of burglary tools. At his arraignment, where he was represented by court-appointed counsel, he initially pleaded not guilty. But after learning that his codefendant planned to plead guilty, he entered a guilty plea to a single count of attempted safe robbery, for which the minimum prison sentence was 10 years and the maximum was life. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 14-89.1 (1969).
In accord with the procedure for taking guilty pleas then in effect in North Carolina, the judge in open court read from a printed form 13 questions, generally concerning the defendant’s understanding of the charge, its consequences, and the voluntariness of his plea. Allison answered “yes” or “no” to each question, and the court clerk transcribed those responses on a copy of the form, which Allison signed. So far as the record shows, there was no questioning beyond this routine; no inquiry was made of either defense counsel or prosecutor. Two questions from the form are of particular relevance to the issues before us: Question No. 8 — “Do you understand that upon your plea of guilty you could be imprisoned for as much as minimum [sic] of 10 years to life?” to which Allison answered “Yes”; and Question No. 11 — “Has the Solicitor, or your lawyer, or any policeman, law officer or anyone else made any promises or threat to you to influence you to plead guilty in this case?” to which Allison answered “No.”
The trial judge then accepted the plea by signing his name at the bottom of the form under a text entitled “Adjudication,” which recited the three charges for which Allison had been indicted, that he had been fully advised of his rights, was in fact guilty, and pleaded guilty to attempted safe robbery “freely, understanding^ and voluntarily,” with full awareness of the consequences, and “without undue... compulsion... duress, [or] promise of leniency.” Three days later, at a sentencing hearing, of which there is no record whatsoever, Allison was sentenced to 17-21 years in prison.
After unsuccessfully exhausting a state collateral remedy, Allison filed a pro se petition in a Federal District Court seeking a writ of habeas corpus. The petition alleged:
“[H]is guilty plea was induced by an unkept promise, and therefore was not the free and willing choice of the petitioner, and should be set aside by this Court. An unkept bargain which has induced a guilty plea is grounds for relief. Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257, 267 (1971).” Pet. for Cert. 14.
The petition went on to explain and support this allegation as follows:
“The petitioner was led to believe and did believe, by Mr. Pickard [Allison’s attorney], that he Mr. N. Glenn Pickard had talked the case over with the Solicitor and the Judge, and that if the petitioner would plea[d] guilty, that he would only get a 10 year sentence of penal servitude. This conversation, where the petitioner was assured that if he plea[ded] guilty, he would only get ten years was witnessed by another party other than the petitioner and counsel.
“The petitioner believing that he was only going to get a ten year active sentence, allowed himself to be pled guilty to the charge of attempted safe robbery, and was shocked by the Court with a 17-21 year sentence.
“Thé petitioner was promised by his Attorney, who had consulted presumably with the Judge and Solicitor, that he was only going to get a ten year sentence, and therefore because of this unkept bargain, he is entitled to relief in this Court.
“The petitioner is aware of the fact that he was questioned by the trial Judge prior to sentencing, but as he thought he was only going to get ten years, and had been instructed to answer the questions, so that the Court would accept the guilty plea, this fact does not preclude him from raising this matter especially since he was not given the promised sentence by the Court.
“... The fact that the Judge, said that he could get more, did not affect, the belief of the petitioner, that he was only going to get a ten year sentence.”
The petitioner here, Warden Blackledge, filed a motion to dismiss and attached to it the “transcript” of the plea hearing, consisting of nothing more than the printed form filled in by the clerk and signed by Allison and the state-court judge. The motion contended that the form conclusively showed that Allison had chosen to plead guilty knowingly, voluntarily, and with full awareness of the consequences. The Federal District Court agreed that the printed form “conclusively shows that [Allison] was carefully examined by the Court before the plea was accepted. Therefore, it must stand.” Pet. for Cert. 18. Construing Allison’s petition as alleging merely that his lawyer’s prediction of the severity of the sentence turned out to be inaccurate, the District Court found no basis for relief and, accordingly, dismissed the petition.
One week later Allison filed a petition for rehearing. He contended that his statements during the guilty-plea proceeding in the state court were “evidentiary, but NOT conclusory” (App. 17); that if true the allegations in his petition entitled him to relief; and that he deserved a chance to establish their truth. Apparently impressed by these arguments and recognizing that Allison was alleging more than a mere “prediction” by his lawyer, the District Court referred the rehearing petition to a United States Magistrate, who directed Allison to submit evidence in support of his allegations. After an inconclusive exchange of correspondence, the Magistrate concluded that despite “ample opportunity” Allison had failed to comply with the directive, and recommended that the petition for rehearing be denied. The District Court accepted the Magistrate’s recommendation and denied the petition. A motion for reconsideration was also denied.
The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed. It held that Allison’s allegation of a broken promise, as amplified by the explanation that his lawyer instructed him to deny the existence of any promises, was not foreclosed by his responses to the form questions at the state guilty-plea proceeding. The appellate court reasoned that when a pro se, indigent prisoner makes allegations that, if proved, would entitle him to habeas corpus relief, he should not be required to prove his allegations in advance of an evidentiary hearing, at least in the absence of counter affidavits conclusively proving their falsity. The case was therefore remanded for an evidentiary hearing. 533 F. 2d 894.
The petitioner warden sought review in this Court, 28 U. S. C. § 1254 (1), and we granted certiorari, 429 U. S. 814, to consider the significant federal question presented.
II
Whatever might be the situation in an ideal world, the fact is that the guilty plea and the often concomitant plea bargain are important components of this country’s criminal justice system. Properly administered, they can benefit all concerned. The defendant avoids extended pretrial incarceration and the anxieties and uncertainties of a trial; he gains a speedy disposition of his case, the chance to acknowledge his guilt, and a prompt start in realizing whatever potential there may be for rehabilitation. Judges and prosecutors conserve vital and scarce resources. The public is protected from the risks posed by those charged with criminal offenses who are at large on bail while awaiting completion of criminal proceedings.
These advantages can be' secured, however, only if dispositions by guilty plea are accorded a great measure of finality. To allow indiscriminate hearings in federal postconviction proceedings, whether for federal prisoners under 28 U. S. C. §2255 or state prisoners under 28 U. S. C. §§2241-2254, would eliminate the chief virtues of the plea system — speed, economy, and finality. And there is reason for concern about that prospect. More often than not a prisoner has everything to gain and nothing to lose from filing a collateral attack upon his guilty plea. If he succeeds in vacating the judgment of conviction, retrial may be difficult. If he convinces a court that his plea was induced by an advantageous plea agreement that was violated, he may obtain the benefit of its terms. A collateral attack may also be inspired by “a mere desire to be freed temporarily from the confines of the prison.” Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 284-285; accord, Machibroda v. United States, 368 U. S. 487, 497 (Clark, J., dissenting).
Yet arrayed against the interest in finality is the very purpose of the writ of habeas corpus — to safeguard a person’s freedom from detention in violation of constitutional guarantees. Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S. 286, 290-291. “The writ of habeas corpus has played a great role in the history of human freedom. It has been the judicial method of lifting undue restraints upon personal liberty.” Price v. Johnston, supra, at 269. And a prisoner in custody after pleading guilty, no less than one tried and convicted by a jury, is entitled to avail himself of the writ in challenging the constitutionality of his custody.
In Machibroda v. United States, supra, the defendant had pleaded guilty in federal court to bank robbery charges and been sentenced to 40 years in prison. He later filed a § 2255 motion alleging that his plea had been induced by an Assistant United States Attorney’s promises that his sentence would not exceed 20 years, that the prosecutor had admonished him not to tell his lawyer about the agreement, and that the trial judge had wholly failed to inquire whether the guilty plea was made voluntarily before accepting it. This Court noted that the allegations, if proved, would entitle the defendant to relief, and that they raised an issue of fact that could not be resolved simply on the basis of an affidavit from the prosecutor denying the allegations. Because those allegations “related primarily to purported occurrences outside the courtroom and upon which the record could, therefore, cast no real light,” 368 U. S., at 494-495, and were not so “vague [or] conclusory,” id., at 495, as to permit summary disposition, the Court ruled that the defendant was entitled to the opportunity to substantiate them at an evidentiary hearing.
The later case of Fontaine v. United States, 411 U. S. 213, followed the same approach. The defendant there, having waived counsel, had also pleaded guilty to federal bank robbery charges. Before accepting the plea, the District Judge addressed the defendant personally, and the defendant stated in substance “that his plea was given voluntarily and knowingly, that he understood the nature of the charge and the consequences of the plea, and that he was in fact guilty.” Id., at 213-214. The defendant later filed a § 2255 motion to vacate his sentence on the ground that his plea had been coerced “by a combination of fear, coercive police tactics, and illness, including mental illness.” 411 U. S., at 214. The motion included supporting factual allegations, as well as hospital records documenting some of the contentions.
Although noting that in collaterally attacking a plea of guilty a prisoner “may not ordinarily repudiate” statements made to the sentencing judge when the plea was entered, the Court observed that no procedural device for the taking of guilty pleas is so perfect in design and exercise as to warrant a per se rule rendering it “uniformly invulnerable to subsequent challenge.” Id., at 215. Because the record of the plea hearing did not, in view of the allegations made, “ ‘conclusively show that the prisoner [was] entitled to no relief/ ” 28 U. S. C. § 2255, the Court ruled that the prisoner should be given an evidentiary hearing.
These cases do not in the least reduce the force of the original plea hearing. For the representations of the defendant, his lawyer, and the prosecutor at such a hearing, as well as any findings made by the judge accepting the plea, constitute a formidable barrier in any subsequent collateral proceedings. Solemn declarations in open court carry a strong presumption of verity. The subsequent presentation of conclusory allegations unsupported by specifics is subject to summary dismissal, as are contentions that in the face of the record are wholly incredible. Machibroda, supra, at 495-496 (§ 2255); Price v. Johnston, supra, at 286-287 (§ 2243).
What Machibroda and Fontaine indisputably teach, however, is that the barrier of the plea or sentencing proceeding record, although imposing, is not invariably insurmountable. In administering the writ of habeas corpus and its § 2255 counterpart, the federal courts cannot fairly adopt a per se rule excluding all possibility that a defendant’s representations at the time his guilty plea was accepted were so much the product of such factors as misunderstanding, duress, or misrepresentation by others as to make the guilty plea a constitutionally inadequate basis for imprisonment.
Ill
The allegations in this case were not in themselves so “vague [or] conclusory,” Machibroda, 368 U. S., at 495, as to warrant dismissal for that reason alone. Allison alleged as a ground for relief that his plea was induced by an unkept promise. But he did not stop there. He proceeded to elaborate upon this claim with specific factual allegations. The petition indicated exactly what the terms of the promise were; when, where, and by whom the promise had been made; and the identity of one witness to its communication. The critical question is whether these allegations, when viewed against the record of the plea hearing, were so “palpably incredible,” ibid., so “patently frivolous or false,” Herman v. Claudy, 350 U. S. 116, 119, as to warrant summary dismissal. In the light of the nature of the record of the proceeding at which the guilty plea was accepted, and of the ambiguous status of the process of plea bargaining at the time the guilty plea was made, we conclude that Allison’s petition should not have been summarily dismissed.
Only recently has plea bargaining become a visible practice accepted as a legitimate component in the administration of criminal justice. For decades it was a sub rosa process shrouded in secrecy and deliberately concealed by participating defendants, defense lawyers, prosecutors, and even judges. Indeed, it was not until our decision in Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257, that lingering doubts about the legitimacy of the practice were finally dispelled.
Allison was arraigned a mere 37 days after the Santobello decision was announced, under a North Carolina procedure that had not been modified in light of Santobello or earlier decisions of this Court recognizing the process of plea bargaining. That procedure itself reflected the atmosphere of secrecy which then characterized plea bargaining generally. No transcript of the proceeding was made, The only record was a standard printed form. There is no way of knowing whether the trial judge in any way deviated from or supplemented the text of the form. The record is silent as to what statements Allison, his lawyer, or the prosecutor might have made regarding promised sentencing concessions. And there is no record at all of the sentencing hearing three days later, at which one of the participants might well have made a statement shedding light upon the veracity of the allegations Allison later advanced.
The litany of form questions followed by the trial judge at arraignment nowhere indicated to Allison (or indeed to the lawyers involved) that plea bargaining was a legitimate practice that could be freely disclosed in open court. Neither lawyer was asked to disclose any agreement that had been reached, or sentencing recommendation that had been promised. The process thus did nothing to dispel a defendant’s belief that any bargain struck must remain concealed — ■ a belief here allegedly reinforced by the admonition of Allison’s lawyer himself that disclosure could jeopardize the agreement. Rather than challenging respondent’s counsel’s contention at oral argument in this Court that “at that time in North Carolina plea bargains were never disclosed in response to such a question on such a form,” Tr. of Oral Arg. 25, counsel for the petitioners conceded at oral argument that “[t]hat form was a minimum inquiry.” Id., at 49.
Although “[ljogically the general inquiry should elicit information about plea bargaining,... it seldom has in the past.” Advisory Committee Notes to 1974 Amendment of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 1304 (1970 ed., Supp. V). Particularly if, as Allison alleged, he was advised by counsel to conceal any plea bargain, his denial that any promises had been made might have been a courtroom ritual more sham than real. We thus cannot conclude that the allegations in Allison’s habeas corpus petition, when measured against the “record” of the arraignment, were so “patently false or frivolous” as to warrant summary dismissal.
North Carolina has recently undertaken major revisions of its plea-bargaining procedures, in part to prevent the very kind of problem now before us. Plea bargaining is expressly legitimated. N. C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-1021, and Official Commentary (1975). The judge is directed to advise the defendant that courts have approved plea bargaining and he may thus admit to any promises without fear of jeopardizing an advantageous agreement or prejudicing himself in the judge’s eyes. See Brief for Respondent, App. D. Specific inquiry about whether a plea bargain has been struck is then made not only of the defendant, but also of his counsel and the prosecutor. N. C. Gen. Stat. §§ 15A-1023 (a), (c) (1975). Finally, the entire proceeding is to be transcribed verbatim. § 15A-1026, as amended (Int. Supp. 1976).
Had these commendable procedures been followed in the present case, Allison’s petition would have been cast in a very different light. The careful explication of the legitimacy of plea bargaining, the questioning of both lawyers, and the verbatim record of their answers at the guilty-plea proceedings would almost surely have shown whether any bargain did exist and, if so, insured that it was not ignored. But the salutary reforms recently implemented by North Carolina highlight even more sharply the deficiencies in the record before the District Court in the present case.
This is not to say that every set of allegations not on its face without merit entitles a habeas corpus petitioner to an evidentiary hearing. As in civil cases generally, there exists a procedure whose purpose is to test whether facially adequate allegations have sufficient basis in fact to warrant plenary presentation of evidence. That procedure is, of course, the motion for summary judgment. Upon remand the warden will be free to make such a motion, supporting it with whatever proof he wishes to attach. If he chooses to do so, Allison will then be required either to produce some contrary proof indicating that there is a genuine issue of fact to be resolved by the District Court or to explain his inability to provide such proof. Fed. Rules Civ. Proc. 56 (e), (f).
Moreover, as is now expressly provided in the Rules Governing Habeas Corpus Cases, the district judge (or a magistrate to whom the case may be referred) may employ a variety of measures in an effort to avoid the need for an evidentiary hearing. Under Rule 6, a party may request and the judge may direct that discovery take place, and “there may be instances in which discovery would be appropriate [before an evidentiary hearing, and would show such a hearing] to be unnecessary... Advisory Committee note to Rule 6, Rules Governing Habeas Corpus Cases, 28 U. S. C., p. 268 (1976 ed.). Under Rule 7; the judge can direct expansion of the record to include any appropriate materials that “enable the judge to dispose of some habeas petitions not dismissed on the pleadings, without the time and expense required for an evidentiary hearing.”
In short, it may turn out upon remand that a full evidentiary hearing is not required. But Allison is “entitled to careful consideration and plenary processing of [his claim,] including full opportunity for presentation of the relevant facts.” Harris v. Nelson, 394 U. S., at 298. See Shapiro, Federal Habeas Corpus: A Study in Massachusetts, 87 Harv. L. Rev. 321, 337-338 (1973). Upon that understanding, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice concurs in the judgment.
Mb. Justice Rehnquist took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
The only record of the proceeding consists, therefore, of the executed form, which reads, in its entirety (Pet. for Cert. 10-13), as follows:
“State of North Carolina
“County of Alamance
“State of North Carolina vs. “Gary Darrell Allison
“File #71CrS 15073
“Film #..........
“In the General Court of Justice “Superior Court Division
“TRANSCRIPT OF PLEA
“The Defendant, being first duly sworn, makes the following answers to the questions asked by the Presiding Judge:
“1. Are you able to hear and understand my statements and questions? Answer: Yes
“2. Are you now under the influence of any alcohol, drugs, narcotics, medicines, or other pills? Answer: No
“3. Do you understand that you are charged with the felony of Attempted Safe Cracking? Answer: Yes
“4. Has the charge been explained to you, and are you ready for trial? Answer [: ] Yes
“5. Do you understand that you have the right to plead not guilty and to be tried by a Jury? Answer: Yes “6. How do you plead to the charge of Attempted Safe Cracking— Guilty, not Guilty, or nolo contendere? Answer: Guilty
“7. (a) Are you in fact guilty? (Omit if plea is nolo contendere) Answer: Yes
(b) (If applicable) Have you had explained to you and do you understand the meaning of a plea of nolo contendere? Answer:----
“8. Do you understand that upon your plea of guilty you could be imprisoned for as much as minimum of 10 years to life? Answer: Yes
“9. Have you had time to subpoena witnesses wanted by you? Answer: Yes
“10. Have you had time to talle and confer with and have you conferred with your lawyer about this case, and are you satisfied with his services? Answer: Yes
“11. Has the Solicitor, or your lawyer, or any policeman, law officer or anyone else made any promises or threat to you to influence you to plead guilty in this case? Answer: No
“12. Do you now freely, understanding^ and voluntarily authorize and instruct your lawyer to enter on your behalf a plea of guilty? Answer: Yes
“13. Do you have any questions or any statement’to make about what I have just said to you? Answer: No
“I have read or heard read all of the above questions and answers and understand them, and the answers shown are the ones I gave in open Court, and they are true and correct.
“Gary Darrell Allison “Defendant
“Sworn to and subscribed before me this 24th day of January, 1972.
“AOC-L Form 158 “Catherine Sykes, Ass't.
“Rev. 10/69 “Clerk Superior Court
“ADJUDICATION
“The undersigned Presiding Judge hereby finds and adjudges:
“I. That the defendant, Gary Darrell Allison, was sworn in open Court and the questions were asked him as set forth in the Transcript of Plea by the undersigned Judge, and the answers given thereto by said defendant are as set forth therein.
"II. That this defendant, was represented by attorney, M. Glenn Pickard, who was (court appointed); and the defendant through his attorney, in open Court, plead [sic] (guilty) to Attempted Safe Cracking as charged in the (warrant) (bill of indictment), of Breaking & Entering, Safe Burglary & Possession of Burglary Tools and in open Court, under oath further informs the Court that:
“1. He is and has been fully advised of his rights and the charges against him;
"2. He is and has been fully advised of the maximum punishment for said offense(s) charged, and for the offense(s) to which he pleads guilty;
“3. He is guilty of the offense(s) to which he pleads guilty;
“4. He authorizes his attorney to enter a plea of guilty to said charge (s) ;
“5. He has had ample time to confer with his attorney, and to subpoena witnesses desired by him;
“6. He is ready for trial;
“7. He is satisfied with the counsel and services of his attorney;
“And after further examination by the Court, the Court ascertains, determines and adjudges, that the plea of guilty, by the defendant is freely, understandingly and voluntarily made, without undue influence, compulsion or duress, and without promise of leniency. It is, therefore, ORDERED that his plea of guilty be entered in the record, and that the Transcript of Plea and Adjudication be filed and recorded.
“This 24th day of January, 1972.
“Marvin Blount Jr. “Judge Presiding”
See generally Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257, 260-261; Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742, 751-752; ABA Project on Standards for Criminal Justice, Pleas of Guilty 1-3 (Approved Draft 1968) (hereinafter ABA Standards); ALI Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure § 350.3, Commentary (1975) (hereinafter ALI Code).
Fontaine and Machibroda were by no means the first cases in which this Court held that postconviction collateral relief might be available to a person convicted after having pleaded guilty. See, e. g., Herman v. Claudy, 350 U. S. 116; Waley v. Johnston, 316 U. S. 101; Walker v. Johnston, 312 U. S. 275.
The standards of §§ 2243 and 2255 differ somewhat in phrasing. Compare § 2243 (A state prisoner seeking a writ of habeas corpus is to be granted an evidentiary hearing “unless it appears from the application that the applicant... is not entitled thereto”) with § 2255 (A federal prisoner moving for relief is to be granted a hearing “[u]nless the motion and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the prisoner is entitled to no relief”). However, the remedy under § 2255 was designed to be “exactly commensurate” with the federal habeas corpus remedy, Swain v. Pressley, 430 U. S. 372, 381; Hill v. United States, 368 U. S. 424, 427; United States v. Hayman, 342 U. S. 205, 219, and has been construed in accordance with that design, e. g., Sanders v. United States, 373 U. S. 1, 6-14. See also Developments in the Law — Federal Habeas Corpus, 83 Harv. L. Rev. 1038, 1173, and n. 126 (1970).
Unlike federal habeas corpus proceedings, a motion under § 2255 is ordinarily presented to the judge who presided at the original conviction and sentencing of the prisoner. In some cases, the judge’s recollection of the events at issue may enable him summarily to dismiss a § 2255 motion, even though he could not similarly dispose of a habeas corpus petition challenging a state conviction but presenting identical allegations. Cf. Machibroda, 368 U. S., at 495 (“Nor were the circumstances alleged of a kind that the District Judge could completely resolve by drawing upon his own personal knowledge or recollection”). To this extent, the standard may be administered in a somewhat different fashion.
See, e. g., United States v. McCarthy, 433 F. 2d 591, 593 (CA1); United States v. LaVallee, 319 F. 2d 308, 314 (CA2); Trotter v. United States, 359 F. 2d 419 (CA2); United States v. Valenciano, 495 F. 2d 585 (CA3); Edwards v. Garrison, 529 F. 2d 1374, 1377 (CA4); Bryan v. United States, 492 F. 2d 775, 778 (CA5); Mayes v. Pickett, 537 F. 2d 1080, 1082-1083 (CA9); Jones v. United States, 384 F. 2d 916, 917 (CA9); United States v. Simpson, 141 U. S. App. D. C. 8, 11, 436 F. 2d 162, 165. In citing these cases we do not necessarily approve the result in any of them.
An analogy is to be found in the law of contracts. The parol evidence rule has as its very purpose the exclusion of evidence designed to repudiate provisions in a written integration of contractual terms. Yet even a written contractual provision declaring that the contract contains the complete agreement of the parties, and that no antecedent or extrinsic representations exist, does not conclusively bar subsequent proof that such additional agreements exist and should be given force. The provision denying the existence of such agreements, of course, carries great weight, but it can be set aside by a court on the grounds of fraud, mistake, duress, “or on some ground that is sufficient for setting aside other contracts.” 3 A. Corbin, Contracts § 578, p. 403 (2d ed. 1960); see id., at 405-407, and nn. 41, 43.
See Advisory Committee Note to Rule 4, Rules Governing Habeas Corpus Cases ('"[N]otice’ pleading is not sufficient, for the petition is expected to state facts that point to a'real possibility of constitutional error’ ”), 28 U. S. C. App., p. 266 (1976 ed.).
Allison’s petition stated that his lawyer, “who had consulted presumably with the Judge and Solicitor,” had promised that the maximum sentence to be imposed was 10 years. This allegation, in light of the other circumstances of this case, raised the serious constitutional question whether his guilty plea was knowingly and voluntarily made. See Santobello v. New York, 404 U. S. 257; Brady v. United States, 397 U. S. 742, 755.
See, e. g., Advisory Committee Notes to 1974 Amendment of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 1304 (1970 ed., Supp. V); ABA Standards, Commentary 60-64; ALI Code, § 350.5, Note and Commentary; President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice, Task Force Report: The Courts 9, 12-13, 111, 115 (1967) (hereinafter Task Force Report).
The Santobello opinion declared that plea bargaining was “an essential component” of the criminal process which, “[pjroperly administered,... is to be encouraged.” 404 U. S., at 260.
See McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759; Brady v. United States, supra.
According to the petitioner’s brief, the form of inquiry employed at Allison’s arraignment dates from 1967.
See, e. g., United States v. McCarthy, 433 F. 2d, at 593; Walters v. Harris, 460 F. 2d 988, 993 (CA4); United States v. Williams, 407 F. 2d 940, 947-949, and n. 13 (CA4); Bryan v. United States, 492 F. 2d, at 780-781; Moody v. United States, 497 F. 2d 359, 362-363, and n. 2 (CA7); United States v. Tweedy, 419 F. 2d 192, 193 (CA9); Jones v. United States, 423 F. 2d 252 (CA9); White v. Gaffney, 435 F. 2d 1241 (CA10); ABA Standards, Commentary 60-64; Task Force Report 9, 12-13, 111, 115; A. Trebach, The Rationing of Justice 159-160 (1964).
See Advisory Committee Notes to 1974 Amendment of Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 1304 (1970 ed., Supp. V); ABA Standards, Commentary 61-62; Task Force Report 111.
There is another ground to support the view that the allegations were not wholly incredible. Allison was indicted on three separate charges. All three were listed in the printed arraignment form, but he pleaded guilty to only one of them; the other two may well have been dismissed pursuant to an agreement. And this is not a case in which there is a record of the sentencing proceedings, see, e. g., United States v. Tweedy, supra; Lynott v. United States, 360 F. 2d 586 (CA3), or where delay by the prisoner in seeking postconviction relief, see, e. g., Raines v. United States, 423 F. 2d 526, 528 (CA4); United States v. Tweedy, supra, at 195; see also Machibroda v. United States, 368 U. S., at 498-499 (Clark, J., dissenting), undercuts the credibility of his allegations.
For the reasons stated in the text, the “finding” recorded on the printed form that Allison’s plea was entered “understandingly and voluntarily,... without promise of leniency,” see n. 1, supra, was not binding under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 (d) on the District Court. See, e. g., Edwards v. Garrison, 529 F. 2d, at 1377-1378, n. 3. See also Machibroda v. United States, supra, at 494-495 (“The factual allegations [at issue] related primarily to purported occurrences outside the courtroom and upon which the record could, therefore, cast no real light”); Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attacks on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 152 (1970).
In 1973, the North Carolina Legislature enacted a comprehensive set of procedures governing disposition by guilty plea and plea arrangement, modeled after the ALI Model Code of Pre-Arraignment Procedure, Art. 350 (Tent.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in No. 82-1630 to decide whether a prison inmate has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his prison cell entitling him to the protection of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures. We also granted certiorari in No. 82-6695, the cross-petition, to determine whether our decision in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), which held that a negligent deprivation of property by state officials does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment if an adequate postdeprivation state remedy exists, should extend to intentional deprivations of property.
I
The facts underlying this dispute are relatively simple. Respondent Palmer is an inmate at the Bland Correctional Center in Bland, Va., serving sentences for forgery, uttering, grand larceny, and bank robbery convictions. On September 16, 1981, petitioner Hudson, an officer at the Correctional Center, with a fellow officer, conducted a “shakedown” search of respondent’s prison locker and cell for contraband. During the “shakedown,” the officers discovered a ripped pillowcase in a trash can near respondent’s cell bunk. Charges against Palmer were instituted under the prison disciplinary-procedures for destroying state property. After a hearing, Palmer was found guilty on the charge and was ordered to reimburse the State for the cost of the material destroyed; in addition, a reprimand was entered on his prison record.
Palmer subsequently brought this pro se action in United States District Court under 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Respondent claimed that Hudson had conducted the shakedown search of his cell and had brought a false charge against him solely to harass him, and that, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment right not to be deprived of property without due process of law, Hudson had intentionally destroyed certain of his noncontraband personal property during the September 16 search. Hudson denied each allegation; he moved for and was granted summary judgment. The District Court accepted respondent’s allegations as true but held nonetheless, relying on Parratt v. Taylor, supra, that the alleged destruction of respondent’s property, even if intentional, did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment because there were state tort remedies available to redress the deprivation, App. 31 and that the alleged harassment did not "rise to the level of a constitutional deprivation,” id., at 32.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. 697 F. 2d 1220 (CA4 1983). The court affirmed the District Court’s holding that respondent was not deprived of his property without due process. The court acknowledged that we considered only a claim of negligent property deprivation in Parratt v. Taylor, supra. It agreed with the District Court, however, that the logic of Parratt applies equally to unauthorized intentional deprivations of property by state officials: “[O]nce it is assumed that a postdeprivation remedy can cure an unintentional but negligent act causing injury, inflicted by a state agent which is unamenable to prior review, then that principle applies as well to random and unauthorized intentional acts.” 697 F. 2d, at 1223. The Court of Appeals did not discuss the availability and adequacy of existing state-law remedies; it presumably accepted as correct the District Court’s statement of the remedies available under Virginia law.
The Court of Appeals reversed the summary judgment on respondent’s claim that the shakedown search was unreasonable. The court recognized that Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520, 555-557 (1979), authorized irregular unannounced shakedown searches of prison cells. But the court held that an individual prisoner has a “limited privacy right” in his cell entitling him to protection against searches conducted solely to harass or to humiliate. 697 F. 2d, at 1225. The shakedown of a single prisoner’s property, said the court, is permissible only if “done pursuant to an established program of conducting random searches of single cells or groups of cells reasonably designed to deter or discover the possession of contraband” or upon reasonable belief that the particular prisoner possessed contraband. Id., at 1224. Because the Court of Appeals concluded that the record reflected a factual dispute over whether the search of respondent’s cell was routine or conducted to harass respondent, it held that summary judgment was inappropriate, and that a remand was necessary to determine the purpose of the cell search.
We granted certiorari. 463 U. S. 1206 (1983). We affirm in part and reverse in part.
II
A
The first question we address is whether respondent has a right of privacy in his prison cell entitling him to the protection of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches. As we have noted, the Court of Appeals held that the District Court’s summary judgment in petitioner’s favor was premature because respondent had a “limited privacy right” in his cell that might have been breached. The court concluded that, to protect this privacy right, shakedown searches of an individual’s cell should be performed only “pursuant to an established program of conducting random searches... reasonably designed to deter or discover the possession of contraband” or upon reasonable belief that the prisoner possesses contraband. Petitioner contends that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that respondent had even a limited privacy right in his cell, and urges that we adopt the “bright line” rule that prisoners have no legitimate expectation of privacy in their individual cells that would entitle them to Fourth Amendment protection.
We have repeatedly held that prisons are not beyond the reach of the Constitution. No “iron curtain” separates one from the other. Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 555 (1974). Indeed, we have insisted that prisoners be accorded those rights not fundamentally inconsistent with imprisonment itself or incompatible with the objectives of incarceration. For example, we have held that invidious racial discrimination is as intolerable within a prison as outside, except as may be essential to “prison security and discipline.” Lee v. Washington, 390 U. S. 333 (1968) (per curiam). Like others, prisoners have the constitutional right to petition the Government for redress of their grievances, which includes a reasonable right of access to the courts. Johnson v. Avery, 393 U. S. 483 (1969).
Prisoners must be provided “reasonable opportunities” to exercise their religious freedom guaranteed under the First Amendment. Cruz v. Beto, 405 U. S. 319 (1972) (per curiam). Similarly, they retain those First Amendment rights of speech “not inconsistent with [their] status as... prisoners] or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system.” Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S. 817, 822 (1974). They enjoy the protection of due process. Wolff v. McDonnell, supra; Haines v. Kerner, 404 U. S. 519 (1972). And the Eighth Amendment ensures that they will not be subject to “cruel and unusual punishments.” Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97 (1976). The continuing guarantee of these substantial rights to prison inmates is testimony to a belief that the way a society treats those who have transgressed against it is evidence of the essential character of that society.
However, while persons imprisoned for crime enjoy many protections of the Constitution, it is also clear that imprisonment carries with it the circumscription or loss of many significant rights. See Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S., at 545. These constraints on inmates, and in some cases the complete withdrawal of certain rights, are “justified by the considerations underlying our penal system.” Price v. Johnston, 334 U. S. 266, 285 (1948); see also Bell v. Wolfish, supra, at 545-546 and cases cited; Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, at 555. The curtailment of certain rights is necessary, as a practical matter, to accommodate a myriad of “institutional needs and objectives” of prison facilities, Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, at 555, chief among which is internal security, see Pell v. Procunier, supra, at 823. Of course, these restrictions or retractions also serve, incidentally, as reminders that, under our system of justice, deterrence and retribution are factors in addition to correction.
We have not before been called upon to decide the specific question whether the Fourth Amendment applies within a prison cell, but the nature of our inquiry is well defined. We must determine here, as in other Fourth Amendment contexts, if a “justifiable” expectation of privacy is at stake. Katz v. United States, 389 U. S. 347 (1967). The applicability of the Fourth Amendment turns on whether “the person invoking its protection can claim a ‘justifiable/ a ‘reasonable/ or a ‘legitimate expectation of privacy’ that has been invaded by government action.” Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S. 735, 740 (1979), and cases cited. We must decide, in Justice Harlan’s words, whether a prisoner’s expectation of privacy in his prison cell is the kind of expectation that “society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” Katz, supra, at 360, 361 (concurring opinion).
Notwithstanding our caution in approaching claims that the Fourth Amendment is inapplicable in a given context, we hold that society is not prepared to recognize as legitimate any subjective expectation of privacy that a prisoner might have in his prison cell and that, accordingly, the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable searches does not apply within the confines of the prison cell. The recognition of privacy rights for prisoners in their individual cells simply cannot be reconciled with the concept of incarceration and the needs and objectives of penal institutions.
Prisons, by definition, are places of involuntary confinement of persons who have a demonstrated proclivity for antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct. Inmates have necessarily shown a lapse in ability to control and conform their behavior to the legitimate standards of society by the normal impulses of self-restraint; they have shown an inability to regulate their conduct in a way that reflects either a respect for law or an appreciation of the rights of others. Even a partial survey of the statistics on violent crime in our Nation’s prisons illustrates the magnitude of the problem. During 1981 and the first half of 1982, there were over 120 prisoners murdered by fellow inmates in state and federal prisons. A number of prison personnel were murdered by prisoners during this period. Over 29 riots or similar disturbances were reported in these facilities for the same time frame. And there were over 125 suicides in these institutions. See Prison Violence, 7 Corrections Compendium (Mar. 1983). Additionally, informal statistics from the United States Bureau of Prisons show that in the federal system during 1983, there were 11 inmate homicides, 359 inmate assaults on other inmates, 227 inmate assaults on prison staff, and 10 suicides. There were in the same system in 1981 and 1982 over 750 inmate assaults on other inmates and over 570 inmate assaults on prison personnel.
Within this volatile “community,” prison administrators are to take all necessary steps to ensure the safety of not only the prison staffs and administrative personnel, but also visitors. They are under an obligation to take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates themselves. They must be ever alert to attempts to introduce drugs and other contraband into the premises which, we can judicially notice, is one of the most perplexing problems of prisons today; they must prevent, so far as possible, the flow of illicit weapons into the prison; they must be vigilant to detect escape plots, in which drugs or weapons may be involved, before the schemes materialize. In addition to these monumental tasks, it is incumbent upon these officials at the same time to maintain as sanitary an environment for the inmates as feasible, given the difficulties of the circumstances.
The administration of a prison, we have said, is “at best an extraordinarily difficult undertaking.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S., at 566; Hewitt v. Helms, 459 U. S. 460, 467 (1983). But it would be literally impossible to accomplish the prison objectives identified above if inmates retained a right of privacy in their cells. Virtually the only place inmates can conceal weapons, drugs, and other contraband is in their cells. Unfettered access to these cells by prison officials, thus, is imperative if drugs and contraband are to be ferreted out and sanitary surroundings are to be maintained.
Determining whether an expectation of privacy is “legitimate” or “reasonable” necessarily entails a balancing of interests. The two interests here are the interest of society in the security of its penal institutions and the interest of the prisoner in privacy within his cell. The latter interest, of course, is already limited by the exigencies of the circumstances: A prison “shares none of the attributes of privacy of a home, an automobile, an office, or a hotel room.” Lanza v. New York, 370 U. S. 139, 143-144 (1962). We strike the balance in favor of institutional security, which we have noted is “central to all other corrections goals,” Pell v. Procunier, 417 U. S., at 823. A right of privacy in traditional Fourth Amendment terms is fundamentally incompatible with the close and continual surveillance of inmates and their cells required to ensure institutional security and internal order. We are satisfied that society would insist that the prisoner's expectation of privacy always yield to what must be considered the paramount interest in institutional security. We believe that it is accepted by our society that “[l]oss of freedom of choice and privacy are inherent incidents of confinement.” Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S., at 537.
The Court of Appeals was troubled by the possibility of searches conducted solely to harass inmates; it reasoned that a requirement that searches be conducted only pursuant to an established policy or upon reasonable suspicion would prevent such searches to the maximum extent possible. Of course, there is a risk of maliciously motivated searches, and of course, intentional harassment of even the most hardened criminals cannot be tolerated by a civilized society. However, we disagree with the court’s proposed solution. The uncertainty that attends random searches of cells renders these searches perhaps the most effective weapon of the prison administrator in the constant fight against the proliferation of knives and guns, illicit drugs, and other contraband. The Court of Appeals candidly acknowledged that “the device [of random cell searches] is of... obvious utility in achieving the goal of prison security.” 697 F. 2d, at 1224.
A requirement that even random searches be conducted pursuant to an established plan would seriously undermine the effectiveness of this weapon. It is simply naive to believe that prisoners would not eventually decipher any plan officials might devise for “planned random searches,” and thus be able routinely to anticipate searches. The Supreme Court of Virginia identified the shortcomings of an approach such as that adopted by the Court of Appeals and the necessity of allowing prison administrators flexibility:
“For one to advocate that prison searches must be conducted only pursuant to an enunciated general policy or when suspicion is directed at a particular inmate is to ignore the realities of prison operation. Random searches of inmates, individually or collectively, and their cells and lockers are valid and necessary to ensure the security of the institution and the safety of inmates and all others within its boundaries. This type of search allows prison officers flexibility and prevents inmates from anticipating, and thereby thwarting, a search for contraband.” Marrero v. Commonwealth, 222 Va. 754, 757, 284 S. E. 2d 809, 811 (1981).
We share the concerns so well expressed by the Supreme Court and its view that wholly random searches are essential to the effective security of penal institutions. We, therefore, cannot accept even the concededly limited holding of the Court of Appeals.
Respondent acknowledges that routine shakedowns of prison cells are essential to the effective administration of prisons. Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 7, n. 5. He contends, however, that he is constitutionally entitled not to be subjected to searches conducted only to harass. The crux of his claim is that “because searches and seizures to harass are unreasonable, a prisoner has a reasonable expectation of privacy not to have his cell, locker, personal effects, person invaded for such a purpose.”, Id., at 24. This argument, which assumes the answer to the predicate question whether a prisoner has a legitimate expectation of privacy in his prison cell at all, is merely a challenge to the reasonableness of the particular search of respondent’s cell. Because we conclude that prisoners have no legitimate expectation of privacy and that the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches does not apply in prison cells, we need not address this issue.
Our holding that respondent does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy enabling him to invoke the protections of the Fourth Amendment does not mean that he is without a remedy for calculated harassment unrelated to prison needs. Nor does it mean that prison attendants can ride roughshod over inmates’ property rights with impunity. The Eighth Amendment always stands as a protection against “cruel and unusual punishments.” By the same token, there are adequate state tort and common-law remedies available to respondent to redress the alleged destruction of his personal property. See discussion infra, at 534-536.
B
In his complaint in the District Court, in addition to his claim that the shakedown search of his cell violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment privacy rights, respondent alleged under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 that petitioner intentionally destroyed certain of his personal property during the search. This destruction, respondent contended, deprived him of property without due process, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court dismissed this portion of respondent’s complaint for failure to state a claim. Reasoning under Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527 (1981), it held that even an intentional destruction of property by a state employee does not violate due process if the state provides a meaningful postdeprivation remedy. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The question presented for our review in Palmer’s cross-petition is whether our decision in Parratt v. Taylor should extend, as the Court of Appeals held, to intentional deprivations of property by state employees acting under color of state law.
In Parratt v. Taylor, a state prisoner sued prison officials under 42 U. S. C. § 1988, alleging that their negligent loss of a hobby kit he ordered from a mail-order catalog deprived him of property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit had affirmed the District Court’s summary judgment in the prisoner’s favor. We reversed, holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not violated when a state employee negligently deprives an individual of property, provided that the state makes available a meaningful postdeprivation remedy.
We viewed our decision in Parratt as consistent with prior cases recognizing that
“either the necessity of quick action by the State or the impracticality of providing any meaningful predeprivation process, when coupled with the availability of some meaningful means by which to assess the propriety of the State’s action at some time after the initial taking... satisfies] the requirements of procedural due process.” 451 U. S., at 539 (footnote omitted).
We reasoned that where a loss of property is occasioned by a random, unauthorized act by a state employee, rather than by an established state procedure, the state cannot predict when the loss will occur. Id., at 541. Under these circumstances, we observed:
“It is difficult to conceive of how the State could provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation takes place. The loss of property, although attributable to the State as action under ‘color of law,’ is in almost all cases beyond the control of the State. Indeed, in most cases it is not only impracticable, but impossible, to provide a meaningful hearing before the deprivation.” Ibid.
Two Terms ago, we reaffirmed our holding in Parratt in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U. S. 422 (1982), in the course of holding that postdeprivation remedies do not satisfy due process where a deprivation of property is caused by conduct pursuant to established state procedure, rather than random and unauthorized action.
While Parrott is necessarily limited by its facts to negligent deprivations of property, it is evident, as the Court of Appeals recognized, that its reasoning applies as well to intentional deprivations of property. The underlying rationale of Parrott is that when deprivations of property are effected through random and unauthorized conduct of a state employee, predeprivation procedures are simply “impracticable” since the state cannot know when such deprivations will occur. We can discern no logical distinction between negligent and intentional deprivations of property insofar as the “practicability” of affording predeprivation process is concerned. The state can no more anticipate and control in advance the random and unauthorized intentional conduct of its employees than it can anticipate similar negligent conduct. Arguably, intentional acts are even more difficult to anticipate because one bent on intentionally depriving a person of his property might well take affirmative steps to avoid signalling his intent.
If negligent deprivations of property do not violate the Due Process Clause because predeprivation process is impracticable, it follows that intentional deprivations do not violate that Clause provided, of course, that adequate state post-deprivation remedies are available. Accordingly, we hold that an unauthorized intentional deprivation of property by a state employee does not constitute a violation of the procedural requirements of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if a meaningful postdeprivation remedy for the loss is available. For intentional, as for negligent deprivations of property by state employees, the state’s action is not complete until and unless it provides or refuses to provide a suitable postdeprivation remedy.
Respondent presses two arguments that require at least brief comment. First, he contends that, because an agent of the state who intends to deprive a person of his property “can provide predeprivation process, then as a matter of due process he must do so.” Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 8 (emphasis in original). This argument reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of Parratt. There we held that postdeprivation procedures satisfy due process because the state cannot possibly know in advance of a negligent deprivation of property. Whether an individual employee himself is able to foresee a deprivation is simply of no consequence. The controlling inquiry is solely whether the state is in a position to provide for predeprivation process.
Respondent also contends, citing to Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., supra, that the deliberate destruction of his property by petitioner constituted a due process violation despite the availability of postdeprivation remedies. Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 8. In Logan, we decided a question about which our decision in Parratt left little doubt, that is, whether a postdeprivation state remedy satisfies due process where the property deprivation is effected pursuant to an established state procedure. We held that it does not. Logan plainly has no relevance here. Respondent does not even allege that the asserted destruction of his property occurred pursuant to a state procedure.
Having determined that Parratt extends to intentional deprivations of property, we need only decide whether the Commonwealth of Virginia provides respondent an adequate postdeprivation remedy for the alleged destruction of his property. Both the District Court and, at least implicitly, the Court of Appeals held that several common-law remedies available to respondent would provide adequate compensation for his property loss. We have no reason to question that determination, particularly given the speculative nature of respondent’s arguments.
Palmer does not seriously dispute the adequacy of the existing state-law remedies themselves. He asserts in this respect only that, because certain of his legal papers allegedly taken “may have contained things irreplacable [sic], and incompensable” or “may also have involved sentimental items which are of equally intangible value,” Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 10-11, n. 10, a suit in tort, for example, would not “necessarily” compensate him fully. If the loss is “incompensable,” this is as much so under § 1983 as it would be under any other remedy. In any event, that Palmer might not be able to recover under these remedies the full amount which he might receive in a § 1983 action is not, as we have said, determinative of the adequacy of the state remedies. See Parratt, 451 U. S., at 544.
Palmer contends also that relief under applicable state law “is far from certain and complete” because a state court might hold that petitioner, as a state employee, is entitled to sovereign immunity. Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 11. This suggestion is unconvincing. The District Court and the Court of Appeals held that respondent’s claim would not be barred by sovereign immunity. As the District Court noted, under Virginia law, “a State employee may be held liable for his intentional torts,” Elder v. Holland, 208 Va. 15, 19, 155 S. E. 2d 369, 372-373 (1967); see also Short v. Griffitts, 220 Va. 53, 255 S. E. 2d 479 (1979). Indeed, respondent candidly acknowledges that it is “probable that a Virginia trial court would rule that there should be no immunity bar in the present case.” Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 14.
Respondent attempts to cast doubt on the obvious breadth of Elder through the naked assertion that “the phrase ‘may be held liable’ could have meant... only the possibility of liability under certain circumstances rather than a blanket rule... Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 13. We are equally unpersuaded by this speculation. The language of Elder is unambiguous that employees of the Commonwealth do not enjoy sovereign immunity for their intentional torts, and Elder has been so read by a number of federal courts, as respondent concedes, see Brief for Respondent and Cross-Petitioner 13, n. 13. See, e. g., Holmes v. Wampler, 546 F. Supp. 500, 504 (ED Va. 1982); Irshad v. Spann, 543 F. Supp. 922, 928 (ED Va. 1982); Frazier v. Collins, 544 F. Supp. 109, 110 (ED Va. 1982); Whorley v. Karr, 534 F. Supp. 88, 89 (WD Va. 1981); Daughtry v. Arlington County, Va., 490 F. Supp. 307 (DC 1980). In sum, it is evident here, as in Parratt, that the State has provided an adequate postdeprivation remedy for the alleged destruction of property.
Ill
We hold that the Fourth Amendment has no applicability to a prison cell. We hold also that, even if petitioner intentionally destroyed respondent’s personal property during the challenged shakedown search, the destruction did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment since the Commonwealth of Virginia has provided respondent an adequate postdeprivation remedy.
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals reversing and remanding the District Court’s judgment on respondent’s claim under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments is reversed. The judgment affirming the District Court’s decision that respondent has not been denied due process under the Fourteenth Amendment is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The District Court determined that Palmer could proceed against Hudson in state court either for conversion or for detinue, and that under applicable Virginia law, see Elder v. Holland, 208 Va. 15, 155 S. E. 2d 369 (1967), Hudson would not be entitled to immunity for the alleged intentional tort.
The Court of Appeals observed that “there is no practical mechanism by which Virginia could prevent its guards from conducting personal vendettas against prisoners other than by punishing them after the fact....” 697 F. 2d, at 1223.
See n. 1, supra.
Petitioner maintains that the Court of Appeals’ decision rests at least in part upon a finding of an independent right of privacy for prisoners under the Fourteenth Amendment alone. Arguably, it is not entirely clear whether the Court of Appeals believed that the limited privacy right it recognized was guaranteed solely by the Fourth Amendment, and applicable to the States only through the Fourteenth Amendment, or whether the right emanated from the Fourteenth Amendment alone, or both. The court’s opinion, however, explicitly speaks to the “primary purpose of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments,” 697 F. 2d, at 1224, and nowhere does it suggest an intention to draw a distinction between the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment right of privacy in prison cells. Under the circumstances, we assume, since there is no suggestion to the contrary, that the court did not mean to imply in this context that any right of privacy that might exist under the Fourteenth Amendment alone exceeds that which exists under the Fourth Amendment.
The majority of the Courts of Appeals have held that a prisoner retains at least a minimal degree of Fourth Amendment protection in his cell. See United States v. Chamorro, 687 F. 2d 1 (CA1 1982); United States v. Hinckley, 217 U. S. App. D. C. 262, 672 F. 2d 115 (1982); United States v. Lilly, 576 F. 2d 1240 (CA5 1978); United States v. Stumes, 549 F. 2d 831 (CA8 1977); Bonner v. Coughlin, 517 F. 2d 1311 (CA7 1975) (vacating District Court judgment), on rehearing, 545 F. 2d 565 (1976) (en banc) (affirming District Court on other grounds), cert. denied, 435 U. S. 932 (1978). The Second and Ninth Circuits, however, have held that the Fourth Amendment does not apply in a prison cell. See Christman v. Skinner, 468 F. 2d 723 (CA2 1972); United States v. Hitchcock, 467 F. 2d 1107 (CA9 1972), cert. denied, 410 U. S. 916 (1973).
In Lanza v. New York, 370 U. S. 139, 143-144 (1962), a plurality of the Court termed as “at best a novel argument” the assertion that a prison “is a place where [one] can claim constitutional immunity from search or seizure of his person, his papers, or his effects.” This observation, however, was plainly dictum. In fact, three Members of the Court specifically dissented from what they characterized as the Court’s “gratuitous exposition of several grave constitutional issues....” Id., at 150 (Brennan, J., dissenting, joined by Warren, C. J., and Douglas, J.).
In upholding a room search rule against a Fourth Amendment challenge by pretrial detainees in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U. S. 520 (1979), the Court acknowledged the plausibility of an argument that “a person confined in a detention facility has no reasonable expectation of privacy with respect to his room or cell and that therefore the Fourth Amendment provides no protection for such a person.” Id., at 556-557. However, as in Lanza, it was unnecessary to reach the issue of the Fourth Amendment’s general applicability in a prison cell. We simply assumed, arguendo, that a pretrial detainee retained at least a “diminished expectation of privacy.” 441 U. S., at 557.
In Katz, Justice Harlan suggested that an expectation of privacy is “justifiable” if the person concerned has “exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy” and the expectation is one that “society is prepared to recognize as ‘reasonable.’ ” 389 U. S., at 360, 361 (concurring opinion). The Court has always emphasized the second of these two requirements. As Justice White said, writing for the plurality in United States v. White, 401 U. S. 745 (1971): “Our problem is not what the privacy expectations of particular defendants in particular situations may be or the extent to which they may in fact have relied on the discretion of their companions.... Our problem, in terms of the principles announced in Katz, is what expectations of privacy are constitutionally ‘justifiable’....” Id., at 751-752. In the same case, even Justice Harlan stressed the controlling importance of the second of these two requirements: “The analysis must, in my view, transcend the search for subjective expectations.... [W]e should not, as judges, merely recite the expectations and risks without examining the desirability of saddling them upon society.” United States v. White, supra, at 768, 786 (dissenting opinion).
The Court’s refusal to adopt a test of “subjective expectation” is understandable; constitutional rights are generally not defined by the subjective intent of those asserting the rights. The problems inherent in such a standard are self-evident. See, e. g., Smith v. Maryland, 442 U. S., at 740-741, n. 5.
Respondent contends also that the destruction of his personal property constituted an unreasonable seizure of that property violative of the Fourth Amendment. Assuming that the Fourth Amendment protects against the destruction of property, in addition to its mere seizure, the same reasons that lead us to conclude that the Fourth Amendment’s proscription against unreasonable searches is inapplicable in a prison cell, apply with controlling force to seizures. Prison officials must be free to seize from cells any articles which, in their view, disserve legitimate institutional interests.
That the Fourth Amendment does not protect against seizures in a prison cell does not mean that an inmate’s property can be destroyed with impunity. We note, for example, that even apart from inmate grievance procedures, see n. 9, infra, respondent has adequate state remedies for the alleged destruction of his property. See discussion infra, at 534-536.
The Commonwealth has a new inmate grievance procedure that was effective as of October 12, 1982, see n. 14, infra. But it appears that at the time of the alleged deprivation of respondent’s property, a very similar procedure was in effect that would also have afforded respondent relief for any destruction of his property. See Reply Brief for Petitioner and Cross-Respondent 13, n. 14.
Four Circuits, including the Fourth Circuit in these cases, have held that Parratt extends to intentional deprivations of property. See Wolf-Lillie v. Sonquist, 699 F. 2d 864 (CA7 1983); Engblom v. Carey, 677 F. 2d 957 (CA2 1982); Rutledge v. Arizona Board of Regents, 660 F. 2d 1345 (CA9 1981), aff’d sub nom. Kush v. Rutledge, 460 U. S. 719 (1983). Three Circuits have held that it does not. Brewer v. Blackwell, 692 F. 2d 387 (CA5 1982); Weiss v. Lehman, 676 F. 2d 1320 (CA9 1982); Madyun v. Thompson, 657 F. 2d 868 (CA7 1981).
Nebraska had provided respondent with a tort remedy for his alleged property deprivation. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-8,209 et seq. (1976). We held that this remedy was entirely adequate to satisfy due process, even though we recognized that it might not provide respondent all the relief to which
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.
Applicant was sentenced to death for killing two people while robbing a convenience store. His conviction and sentence were affirmed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Autry v. State, 626 S. W. 2d 758 (1982). We denied certiorari. 459 U. S. 882 (1982). Applicant then sought habeas corpus in the state system; that request was denied. He then filed for habeas corpus in the Federal District Court, presenting some of the same claims that had been unavailing in the state courts. The District Court held a hearing and filed an opinion denying the writ. In a detailed opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment of the District Court. 706 F. 2d 1394 (1983). It denied rehearing, as well as a stay pending the filing of a petition for certiorari in this Court. Applicant then sought a stay from the Circuit Justice, who referred the application to the Court. Absent a stay, applicant will be executed on October 5.
The application for stay is denied. The grounds on which applicant would request certiorari are amply evident from his application and from the opinions and the proceedings in the District Court and the Court of Appeals. Had applicant convinced four Members of the Court that certiorari would be granted on any of his claims, a stay would issue. But this is not the case; fewer than four Justices would grant certiorari. Applicant thus fails to satisfy one of the basic requirements for the issuance of a stay.
Nor are we inclined to adopt a rule calling for an automatic stay, regardless of the merits of the claims presented, where the applicant is seeking review of the denial of his first federal habeas corpus petition. Applicant has twice sought relief in the state court system. He has also presented his claims to the United States District Court and to the Court of Appeals. None of these judges found sufficient merit in any of applicant’s claims to warrant setting aside applicant’s conviction or his death sentence. Nor did any of the judges of the Court of Appeals believe that a stay pending certiorari was warranted. Those judges, stating that they were “fully sensitive to the consequence of our judgment and our oaths,” 706 F. 2d, at 1408, found each of applicant’s claims to be without merit and affirmed the dismissal of his habeas corpus petition. In these circumstances, it is quite appropriate to deny a stay of applicant’s sentence, just as we do in other criminal cases that we are convinced do not merit review in this Court. As the Court said just last Term in Barefoot v. Estelle, 463 U. S. 880, 887-888 (1983):
“[I]t must be remembered that direct appeal is the primary avenue for review of a conviction or sentence, and death penalty cases are no exception. When the process of direct review — which, if a federal question is involved, includes the right to petition this Court for a writ of cer-tiorari — comes to an end, a presumption of finality and legality attaches to the conviction and sentence. The role of federal habeas proceedings, while important in assuring that constitutional rights are observed, is secondary and limited. Federal courts are not forums in which to relitigate state trials. Even less is federal habeas a means by which a defendant is entitled to delay an execution indefinitely. The procedures adopted to facilitate the orderly consideration and disposition of ha-beas petitions are not legal entitlements that a defendant has a right to pursue irrespective of the contribution these procedures make toward uncovering constitutional error.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. .Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 exempting from wages-and-hours coverage certain retail sales and service establishments. The suit was brought by petitioner individually under § 16 (b) of the Act for payment of overtime wages claimed under § 7. The Court' of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a District Com t iudgment for petitioner and we granted certiorari, 359 U. S. 983. The proceedings in this Court are in forma pauperis, loth sides submitted on their briefs, and oral argument was heard only from the representative of the Secretary of Labor appearing as amicus curiae.
Respondent conducts an interior decorating and custom furniture business in Dallas, Texas. On the same premises he fabricates aircraft parts from phenolic, a-cloth-impregnated phenol resin. This plastic is widely used in aircraft and automotive parts and can be machined on the woodworking equipment respondent has available in his furniture shop. Petitioner was employed by respondent from October 17, 1954, through September 2, 1955, primarily in the fabrication of phenolic parts.
At the trial, a representative of Chance Vought Aircraft, Inc., ■ testified tha,t his company purchased over $34,000 worth of phenolic parts from respondent in 1955, and that .these part's were used in aircraft and missiles sold to the United States Navy. A representative of Temco Aircraft Company testified that it purchased about $2,000 worth of phenolic parts annually from Kanowsky for use in manufacturing aircraft subassem-blies for the Air Force or for prime contractors, many of whom were located outside the State. Respondent also shipped a small amount of sheet phenolic directly outside the State.
During the year beginning October 1, 1954, respondent’s sales totaled $99,117.52, and its sales of phenolic and phenolic parts were $39,751.71, or almost exactly' 40% of its total sales. Its secretary-treasurer admitted that phenolic aircraft parts alone accounted for at least 25% of the company’s total sales. Respondent introduced no evidence concerning the amount or nature of sales of phenolic in forms other than aircraft parts. Notwithstanding the. admitted percentage of its total sales attributable to phenolic parts, respondent claimed exemption from the provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act because of the retail character of its business.
The District Court found that petitioner was engaged in the production of goods for commerce within the meaning of the Act, and upon respondent’s admission that petitioner had been paid for overtime hours only at straight - time rates, entered judgment for petitioner for unpaid overtime compensation plus an attorney’s fee. The Court of Appeals reversed on the ground that respondent was exempt from the Act’s overtime requirements under § 13 (a) (2) as a “retail or service establishment.”
We believe that the Court of Appeals was in error and must be reversed. The wording of the statute, the clear legislative history, and the decisions of this Court require this conclusion.
Petitioner? admittedly is engaged in the manufacture of phenolic parts for commerce. That this activity may be considered a “sideline” from respondent’s viewpoint does not remove petitioner from coverage under the Fair Labor Standards Act unless the respondent’s activities fall within the specific exemptions enumerated in § 13 of the Act. As originally passed in 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act exempted from coverage “any employee engaged in any retail or service establishment the greater part of whose selling or servicing is in intrastate commerce.” In 1949 Congress substituted a three-part definition for this provision. Any employee employed by a retail or service establishment is to be exempt if more than 50% of the establishment’s annual dollar volume of sales is made within the State, if 75% of its annual sales volume is not for resale, and if 75% of its annual sales volume is recognized within the industry as retail sales.
This Court had occasion at the last Term to point out that the 1949 revision does not represent a general broadening of the exemptions contained in § 13. Rather, Congress “was acting in implementation of a specific and particularized purpose” to replace the unsatisfactory “business use” test, which had developed around the 1938 provision, with a formula that would be at once'flexible and at the same time provide clear statutory guidance to the Administrator.
We have held that these exemptions .are to be narrowly construed against the employers seeking to assert them and their application limited to those establishments plainly and unmistakably within their terms and spirit. The three conditions of § 13 (a)(2) are explicit-prerequisites to exemption, not merely suggested guidelines for judicial determination of the employer’s status.
While § 13 (a) (2) contains the requirements every retail establishment must satisfy to qualify for exemp- i tion, a retailer-manufacturer must satisfy the additional. requirements of § 13 (a) (4) since it “makes or processes” the goods it sells.
Turning to the facts of this case, it is clear that respondent, through its fabrication of phenolic parts, is “making or processing the goods that it sells.” To gain exemption it therefore must comply with the criteria of § 13 (a) (2) as they are incorporated by reference in §13 (a)(4), as well as the additional requirements of § 13 (a) (4) itself. It is clear that respondent does, not meet at least two of the three standards of § 13 (a) (2) as included in § 13 (a)(4).
First, sales of phenolic parts account for more than* 25% of the respondent’s annual sales volume. The court below assumed that respondent’s sales were recog-. nized in the community as retail sales without any evidence to support the fact. This' conclusion was not justified, since it is clear that Congress intended that “any employer who asserts that his ^establishment is exempt must assume the burden of proving that at least 75 percent of his sales are recognized in his industry as retail.”
Second, the Court of Appeals assumed that the sales of phenolic and phenolic parts were not for resale, but in doing so, it was in error. The sales of parts to one company alone for incorporation in airplanes and missiles that were to be sold to the United States Navy exceeded 25% of the total. These sales indisputably were made with the expectation that the parts would be incorporated in. aircraft and that the aircraft would be sold. Such transactions are clearly within the concept of resale.
Since respondent has not sustained its burden of proving that 75% of its annual sales volume is not for resale and is recognized as being retail in the particular industry, we need not reach the question whether the additional standards of § 13 (a) (4) itself are met.
We hold that respondent has not satisfied the requirements of § 13 and is not entitled to exemption thereunder. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed; the judgment of the District Court is reinstated; and the cause is remanded to that court for consideration of the prayer of petitioner for further counsel fees in accordance with the provision of the Act.
It is so ordered.
The decision of the Court of Appeals is reported at 250 F. 2d 47. Denial of rehearing is reported at 252 F. 2d 787.
52 Stat. 1060, 1067.
Mitchell v. Kentucky Finance Co., 359 U. S. 290, 294.
Id., at 293. See also the statement made by Senator Holland, manager of the amendment, during the debate in the Senate, 95 Cong. Rec. 12491; and the remarks of Representative Lucas, who introduced the amendment in the House, 95 Cong. Rec. 11116.
Mitchell v. Kentucky Finance Co., 359 U. S. 290, 295.
Such cases as White Motor Co. v. Littleton, 124 F. 2d 92 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1941), relied upon by the Fifth Circuit in its opinion in this case and decided at a time when there was no statutory definition of “retail, or service establishment,” no longer can have any vitality in view of the 1949 amendments. The extent to which the White Motor Co. decision rests on the absence of a statutory definition of “retail” is shown in 124 F. 2d, at 93.
Prior to the 1949 amendments to the Act, the whole area of manufacturing, was excluded from the retail exemption. It had been repeatedly held that establishments engaged to any extent in manufacturing or processing activities could not qualify for. exemption under former §13 (a)(2). E. g., Grant v. Bergdorf & Goodman Co., 172 F. 2d 109 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1949); Fred Wolferman, Inc., v. Gus- tafson, 169 F. 2d 759 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1948); Walling v. Goldblatt Bros., 152 F. 2d 475 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1945); Walling v. American Stores Co., 133 F. 2d 840 (C. A. 3d Cir. 1943); Davis v. Goodman Lumber Co., 133 F. 2d 52 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1943); Collins v. Kidd Dairy & Ice Co., 132 F. 2d 79 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1942); see Roland Electrical Co. v. Walling, 326 U. S. 657, 666-678. The Administrator’s interpretation comporting with this view is to be found in Interp. Bull. No. 6, as revised and reissued June 16, 1941, 1942 WH Manual 326.
The legislative history of the amendments, as. reflected by statements of the sponsors and Committee Reports, clearly evideneés that § 13 (a) (2) as amended “does not apply to any manufacturing activities since any such activities, when conducted by a retail establishment, if exempt, are intended to be exempt under section 13 (a) (4).” Statement of the House Conferees, 95 Cong. Rec. 14932; see also the statements on the floor of.Congress by the managers for the amendment in each House, Senator Holland and Representatives Lesinski and Lucas, 95 Cong. Rec. 12495, 14942, 11216.
Remarks of Senator Holland, 95 Cong. Rec. 12502; remarks of Representative Lucas, 95 Cong. Rec. 11004, 11116; see also the statement of the majority of the Senate Conferees, 95 Cong. Rec. 14877.
See statement of the House Conferees, 95 Cong. Rec. 14932; statement of majority of Senate Conferees, 95 Cong. Rec. 14877; 29 CFR § 779.15 (c) (Supp. 1959); cf. Mitchell v. Sherry Corine Corp., 264 F. 2d 831, 834 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1959). As the cited legislative materials indicate, the exemption from the general “resale” rule for residence and farm construction repair and maintenance under § 3 (n), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (n), evinces an intent to classify other sales for use in articles to be sold as “resale.”
The employee having shown that the nature of his employment brings him within the coverage of the Act, the nature of the “establishment” in which he is employed will be drawn into litigation only if the employer seeks an exemption under § 13, in which event the burden of proving the nature of the establishment is' on the employer.
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 Minton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This Court held in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U. S. 1, that racial restrictive covenants could not be enforced in equity against Negro purchasers because such enforcement would constitute state action denying equal protection of the laws to the Negroes, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution. The question we now have is: Can such a restrictive covenant be enforced at law by a suit for damages against a co-covenantor who allegedly broke the covenant?
Petitioners sued respondent at law for damages for breach of a restrictive covenant the parties entered into as owners of residential real estate in the same neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The petitioners’ complaint alleged in part:
“That by the terms of said Agreement each of the signers promised and agreed in writing and bound himself, his heirs, executors, administrators, successors, and assigns, by a continuing covenant that no part of his said real property, described therein, should ever at any time be used or occupied by any person or persons not wholly of the white or Caucasian race, and also agreed and promised in writing that this restriction should be incorporated in all papers and transfers of lots or parcels of land here-inabove referred to; provided, however, that said restrictions should not prevent the employment by the owners or tenants of said real property of domestic servants or other employees who are not wholly of the white or Caucasian race; provided, further, however, that such employees shall be permitted to occupy said real property only when actively engaged in such employment. That said Agreement was agreed to be a covenant running with the land. That each provision in said Agreement was for the benefit for all the lots therein described.”
The complaint further alleged that respondent broke the covenant in two respects: (1) by conveying her real estate without incorporating in the deed the restriction contained in the covenant; and (2) by permitting non-Caucasians to move in and occupy the premises. The trial court sustained a demurrer to the complaint, the District Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District affirmed, 112 Cal. App. 2d 534, 247 P. 2d 99, and the Supreme Court of California denied hearing. We granted certiorari, 345 U. S. 902, because of the importance of the constitutional question involved and to consider the conflict which has arisen in the decisions of the state courts since our ruling in the Shelley case, supra. Like the California court in the instant case, the Supreme Court of Michigan sustained the dismissal of a claim for damages for breach of a racial restrictive covenant, Phillips v. Naff, 332 Mich, 389, 52 N. W. 2d 158. See also Roberts v. Curtis, 93 F. Supp. 604 (Dist. Col.). The Supreme Court of Missouri reached a contrary result, Weiss v. Leaon, 359 Mo. 1054, 225 S. W. 2d 127, while the Supreme Court of Oklahoma has held that a claim for damages may be maintained against a white seller, an intermediate straw man, and a non-Caucasian purchaser for a conspiracy to violate the covenant, Correll v. Earley, 205 Okla. 366, 237 P. 2d 1017.
The trial court in the case here held that a party to a covenant restricting use and occupancy of real estate to Caucasians could not maintain a suit at law against a co-covenantor for breach of the covenant because of our ruling in Shelley, supra. In Shelley, this Court held that the action of the lower courts in granting equitable relief in the enforcement of such covenants constituted state action denying to Negroes, against whom the covenant was sought to be enforced, equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court said:
“We conclude, therefore, that the restrictive agreements standing alone cannot be regarded as violative of any rights guaranteed to petitioners by the Fourteenth Amendment. So long as the purposes of those agreements are effectuated by voluntary adherence to their terms, it would appear clear that there has been no action by the State and the provisions of the Amendment have not been violated. . . .” 334 U. S. 1, 13.
That is to say, the law applicable in that case did not make the covenant itself invalid, no one would be punished for making it, and no one’s constitutional rights were violated by the covenantor’s voluntary adherence thereto. Such voluntary adherence would constitute individual action only. When, however, the parties cease to rely upon voluntary action to carry out the covenant and the State is asked to step in and give its sanction to the enforcement of the covenant, the first question that arises is whether a court’s awarding damages constitutes state action under the Fourteenth Amendment. To compel respondent to respond in damages would be for the State to punish her for her failure to perform her covenant to continue to discriminate against non-Caucasians in the use of her property. The result of that sanction by the State would be to encourage the use of restrictive covenants. To that extent, the State would act to put its sanction behind the covenants. If the State may thus punish respondent for her failure to carry out her covenant, she is coerced to continue to use her property in a discriminatory manner, which in essence is the purpose of the covenant. Thus, it becomes not respondent’s voluntary choice but the State’s choice that she observe her covenant or suffer damages. The action of a state court at law to sanction the validity of the restrictive covenant here involved would constitute state action as surely as it was state action to enforce such covenants in equity, as in Shelley, supra.
The next question to emerge is whether the state action in allowing damages deprives anyone of rights protected by the Constitution. If a state court awards damages for breach of a restrictive covenant, a prospective seller of restricted land will either refuse to sell to non-Caucasians or else will require non-Caucasians to pay a higher price to meet the damages which the seller may incur. Solely because of their race, non-Caucasians will be unable to purchase, own, and enjoy property on the same terms as Caucasians. Denial of this right by state action deprives such non-Caucasians, unidentified but identifiable, of equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Shelley, supra.
But unlike Shelley, supra, no non-Caucasian is before the Court claiming to have been denied his constitutional rights. May respondent, whom petitioners seek to coerce by an action to pay damages for her failure to honor her restrictive covenant, rely on the invasion of the rights of others in her defense to this action?
Ordinarily, one may not claim standing in this Court to vindicate the constitutional rights of some third party. Reference to this rule is made in varied situations. See Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, 341 U. S. 123, 149-154 (concurring opinion). The requirement of standing is often used to describe the constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of this Court to “cases” and “controversies.” See Coleman v. Miller, 307 U. S. 433, 464 (concurring opinion). Apart from the jurisdictional requirement, this Court has developed a complementary rule of self-restraint for its own governance (not always clearly distinguished from the constitutional limitation) which ordinarily precludes a person from challenging the constitutionality of state action by invoking the rights of others. See Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 297 U. S. 288, 346-348 (concurring opinion). The common thread underlying both requirements is that a person cannot challenge the constitutionality of a statute unless he shows that he himself is injured by its operation. This principle has no application to the instant case in which respondent has been sued for damages totaling $11,600, and in which a judgment against respondent would constitute a direct, pocketbook injury to her.
There are still other cases in which the Court has held that even though a party will suffer a direct substantial injury from application of a statute, he cannot challenge its constitutionality unless he can show that he is within the class whose constitutional rights are allegedly infringed. Bode v. Barrett, 344 U. S. 583, 585; Jeffrey Mfg. Co. v. Blagg, 235 U. S. 571, 576; New York ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 204 U. S. 152, 160-161; see also Tennessee Elec. Power Co. v. Tennessee Valley Authority, 306 U. S. 118, 144. One reason for this ruling is that the state court, when actually faced with the question, might narrowly construe the statute to obliterate the objectionable feature, or it might declare the unconstitutional provisions separable. New York ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, supra, at 160-161; Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U. S. 13, 26-28 (dissenting opinion). It would indeed be undesirable for this Court to consider every conceivable situation which might possibly arise in the application of complex and comprehensive legislation. Nor are we so ready to frustrate the expressed will of Congress or that of the state legislatures. Cf. Southern Pacific Co. v. Gallagher, 306 U. S. 167, 172.
This is a salutary rule, the validity of which we reaffirm. But in the instant case, we are faced with a unique situation in which it is the action of the state court which might result in a denial of constitutional rights and in which it would be difficult if not impossible for the persons whose rights are asserted to present their grievance before any court. Under the peculiar circumstances of this case, we believe the reasons which underlie our rule denying standing to raise another’s rights, which is only a rule of practice, are outweighed by the need to protect the fundamental rights which would be denied by permitting the damages action to be maintained. Cf. Quong Ham Wah Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm’n, 184 Cal. 26, 192 P. 1021.
In other unique situations which have arisen in the past, broad constitutional policy has led the Court to proceed without regard to its usual rule. In Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, a state statute required all parents (with certain immaterial exceptions) to send their children to public schools. A private and a parochial school brought suit to enjoin enforcement of the act on the ground that it violated the constitutional rights of parents and guardians. No parent or guardian to whom the act applied was a party or before the Court. The Court held that the act was unconstitutional because it “unreasonably interferes with the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, at 534-535. In short, the schools were permitted to assert in defense of their property rights the constitutional rights of the parents and guardians. See also Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Comm. v. McGrath, supra, at 141, 153-154; Columbia Broadcasting System v. United States, 316 U. S. 407, 422-423; Helvering v. Gerhardt, 304 U. S. 405; Truax v. Raich, 239 U. S. 33; United States v. Railroad Co., 17 Wall. 322; Quong Ham Wah Co. v. Industrial Acc. Comm’n, supra; cf. United States v. Jeffers, 342 U. S. 48, 52; Federal Communications Comm’n v. Sanders Brothers Radio Station, 309 U. S. 470; Wuchter v. Pizzutti, supra.
There is such a close relationship between the restrictive covenant here and the sanction of a state court which would punish respondent for not going forward with her covenant, and the purpose of the covenant itself, that relaxation of the rule is called for here. It sufficiently appears that mulcting in damages of respondent will be solely for the purpose of giving vitality to the restrictive covenant, that is to say, to punish respondent for not continuing to discriminate against non-Caucasians in the use of her property. This Court will not permit or require California to coerce respondent to respond in damages for failure to observe a restrictive covenant that this Court would deny California the right to enforce in equity, Shelley, supra; or that this Court would deny California the right to incorporate in a statute, Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60; or that could not be enforced in a federal jurisdiction because such a covenant would be contrary to public policy:
“It is not consistent with the public policy of the United States to permit federal courts in the Nation’s capital to exercise general equitable powers to compel action denied the state courts where such state action has been held to be violative of the guaranty of the equal protection of the laws. We cannot presume that the public policy of the United States manifests a lesser concern for the protection of such basic rights against discriminatory action of federal courts than against such action taken by the courts of the States.” Hurd v. Hodge, 334 U. S. 24, 35-36. See also Roberts v. Curtis, supra.
Consistency in the application of the rules of practice in this Court does not require us in this unique set of circumstances to put the State in such an equivocal position simply because the person against whom the injury is directed is not before the Court to speak for himself. The law will permit respondent to resist any effort to compel her to observe such a covenant, so widely condemned by the courts, since she is the one in whose charge and keeping reposes the power to continue to use her property to discriminate or to discontinue such use. The relation between the coercion exerted on respondent and her possible pecuniary loss thereby is so close to the purpose of the restrictive covenant, to violate the constitutional rights of those discriminated against, that respondent is the only effective adversary of the unworthy covenant in its last stand. She will be permitted to protect herself and, by so doing, close the gap to the use of this covenant, so universally condemned by the courts.
Petitioners argue that the right to equal protection of the laws is a “personal” right, guaranteed to the individual rather than to groups or classes. For instance, discriminatory denial of sleeping-car and dining-car facilities to an individual Negro cannot be justified on the ground that there is little demand for such facilities by Negroes as a group. McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 235 U. S. 151, 161-162. See Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U. S. 629, 635. This description of the right as “personal,” when considered in the context in which it has been used, obviously has no bearing on the question of standing. Nor do we violate this principle by protecting the rights of persons not identified in this record. For instance, in the Pierce case, the persons whose rights were invoked were identified only as “present and prospective patrons” of the two schools. Pierce v. Society of Sisters, supra, at 535. In the present case, it is not non-Caucasians as a group whose rights are asserted by respondent, but the rights of particular non-Caucasian would-be users of restricted land.
It is contended by petitioners that for California courts to refuse to enforce this covenant is to impair the obligation of their contracts. Article I, § 10, of the Federal Constitution provides: “No State shall . . . pass any . . . Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts . . . The short answer to this contention is that this provision, as its terms indicate, is directed against legislative action only.
“It has been settled by a long line of decisions, that the provision of § 10, Article I, of the Federal Constitution, protecting the obligation of contracts against state action, is directed only against impairment by legislation and not by judgments of courts. . . .” Tidal Oil Co. v. Flanagan, 263 U. S. 444, 451.
It is finally contended that petitioners are denied due process and equal protection of the laws by the failure to enforce the covenant. The answer to that proposition is stated by the Court in Shelley, supra, in these words:
“The Constitution confers upon no individual the right to demand action by the State which results in the denial of equal protection of the laws to other individuals. . . .” 334 U. S. 1, 22.
The judgment is
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Petitioner Pikaar was not a signer of the covenant but is successor in interest of a signer.
There is no question of restraint of sale here, as agreements restraining sale of land to members of defined racial groups have long been held unenforceable in California because they contravened the State’s statutory rule and public policy against restraints on alienation. Wayt v. Patee, 205 Cal. 46, 269 P. 660; Title Guarantee & Trust Co. v. Garrott, 42 Cal. App. 152, 183 P. 470.
See Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 486-489 (federal taxpayer sought to challenge a federal statute in the enforcement of which federal revenues were applied); Doremus v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 429, 434 (state taxpayer unable to show that there was “a measurable appropriation or disbursement of . . . funds occasioned solely by the [state] activities complained of”); Tileston v. Ullman, 318 U. S. 44 (doctor sought a declaratory judgment that a state statute would deprive certain of his ‘patients of their lives without due process of law); Tyler v. Judges of the Court of Registration, 179 U. S. 405, 410 (landowner sought to challenge the notice provisions for a land registration proceeding in which he had not made himself a party, although he had notice of the proceedings, and even though “his interest in the land would remain unaffected” if the act were subsequently declared unconstitutional); Gange Lumber Co. v. Rowley, 326 U. S. 295; Alabama Power Co. v. Ickes, 302 U. S. 464, 478-480; cf. McCabe v. Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co., 235 U. S. 151, 162-164 (four Negroes who sought to enjoin enforcement of discriminatory state action denied relief on the ground that they failed to allege that they themselves had suffered, or were about to suffer, discriminatory treatment for which there was no adequate remedy at law). And compare Doremus v. Board of Education, supra, with Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203, 206, 234.
Cf. Goldstein v. United States, 316 U. S. 114; Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43, 69-70, and the lower court cases which restrict to the person whose premises were invaded the right to have illegally-seized evidence excluded. The rights in these cases are obviously closely linked to the person of the individual.
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this case is whether seven items were properly admitted into evidence at the petitioner’s trial for conspiracy to commit espionage. All seven items were seized by officers of the Government without a search warrant. The seizures did not occur in connection with the exertion of the criminal process against petitioner. They arose out of his administrative arrest by the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service as a preliminary to his deportation. A motion to suppress these items as evidence, duly made in the District Court, was denied after a full hearing. 155 F. Supp. 8. Petitioner was tried, convicted and sentenced to thirty years’ imprisonment and to the payment of a fine of $3,000. The Court of Appeals affirmed, 258 F. 2d 485. We granted certiorari, 358 U. S. 813, limiting the grant to the following two questions:
“1. Whether the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are violated by a search and the seizure of evidence without a search warrant, after an alien suspected and officially accused of espionage has been taken into custody for deportation, pursuant to an administrative Immigration Service warrant, but has not been arrested for the commission of a crime?
“2. Whether the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States are violated when articles so seized are unrelated to the Immigration Service warrant and, together with other articles obtained from such leads, are introduced as evidence in a prosecution for espionage?”
Argument was first heard at October Term, 1958. The case having been set down for reargument at this Term, 359 U. S. 940, counsel were asked to discuss a series of additional questions, set out in the margin.
We have considered the case on the assumption that the conviction must be reversed should we find challenged items of evidence to have been seized in violation of the Constitution and therefore improperly admitted into evidence. We find, however, that the admission of these items was free from any infirmity and we affirm the judgment. (Of course the nature of the case, the fact that it was a prosecution for espionage, has no bearing whatever upon the legal considerations relevant to the admissibility of evidence.)
The seven items, all in petitioner’s possession at the time of his administrative arrest, the admissibility of which is in question, were the following:
(1) a piece of graph paper, carrying groups of numbers arranged in rows, allegedly a coded message ;
(2) a forged birth certificate, certifying the birth of “Martin Collins” in New York County in 1897;
(3) a birth certificate, certifying the birth of “Emil Goldfus” in New York in 1902 (Emil Goldfus died in 1903) ;
(4) an international certificate of vaccination, issued in New York to “Martin Collins” in 1957;
(5) a bank book of the East River Savings Bank containing the account of “Emil Goldfus”;
(6) a hollowed-out pencil containing 18 microfilms; and
(7) a block of wood, wrapped in sandpaper, and containing within it a small booklet with a series of numbers on each page, a so-called “cipher pad.”
Items (2), (3), (4) and (5) were relevant to the issues of the indictment for which petitioner was on trial in that they corroborated petitioner’s use of false identities. Items (1), (6) and (7) were incriminatory as useful means for one engaged in espionage.
The main claims which petitioner pressed upon the Court may be thus summarized: (1) the administrative arrest was used by the Government in bad faith; (2) administrative arrests as preliminaries to deportation are unconstitutional; and (3) regardless of the validity of the administrative arrest here, the searches and seizures through which the challenged items came into the Government’s possession were not lawful ancillaries to such an arrest. These claims cannot be judged apart from the circumstances leading up to the arrest and the nature of the searches and seizures. It becomes necessary to relate these matters in considerable detail.
Petitioner was arrested by officers of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (hereafter abbreviated as I. N. S.) on June 21, 1957, in a single room in the Hotel Latham in New York City, his then abode. The attention of the I. N. S. had first been drawn to petitioner several days earlier when Noto, a Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the I. N. S., was told by a liaison officer of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (hereafter abbreviated as F. B. I.) that petitioner was believed by the F. B. I. to be an alien residing illegally in the United States. Noto was told of the F. B. I.’s interest in petitioner in connection with espionage.
An uncontested affidavit before the District Court asserted the following with regard to the events leading up to the F. B. I.’s communication with Noto about petitioner. About one month before the F. B. I. communicated with Noto, petitioner had been mentioned by Hay-hanen, a recently defected Russian spy, as one with whom Hayhanen had for several years cooperated in attempting to commit espionage. The F. B. I. had thereupon placed petitioner under investigation. At the time the F. B. I. communicated with the I. N. S. regarding petitioner, the case against him rested chiefly upon Hayhanen’s story, and Hayhanen, although he was later to be the Government’s principal witness at the trial, at that time insisted that he would refuse to testify should petitioner be brought to trial, although he would fully cooperate with the Government in secret. The Department of Justice concluded that without Hayhanen’s testimony the evidence was insufficient to justify petitioner’s arrest and indictment on espionage charges. The decision was thereupon made to bring petitioner to the attention of the I. N. S., with a view to commencing deportation proceedings against him.
Upon being notified of the F. B. I.’s belief that petitioner was residing illegally in this country, Noto asked the F. B. I. to supply the I. N. S. with further information regarding petitioner’s status as an alien. The F. B. I. did this within a week. The I. N. S. concluded that if petitioner were, as suspected, an alien, he would be subject to deportation in that he had failed to comply with the legal duty of aliens to notify the Attorney General every January of their address in the United States. 8 U. S. C. § 1305. Noto then determined on petitioner’s administrative arrest as a preliminary to his deportation. The F. B. I. was so informed. On June 20, two I. N. S. officers, Schoenenberger and Kanzler, were dispatched by Noto to New York to supervise the arrest. These officers carried with them a warrant for petitioner’s arrest and an order addressed to petitioner directing him to show cause why he should not be deported. They met in New York with the District Director of the I. N. S. who, after the information in the possession of the I. N. S. regarding petitioner was put before him, signed the warrant and the order. Following this, Schoenenberger and Kanzler went to F. B. I. headquarters in New York where, by prearrangement with the F. B. I. in Washington, they were met by several F. B. I. officers. These agreed to conduct agents of the I. N. S. to petitioner’s hotel so that the I. N. S. might accomplish his arrest. The F. B. I. officer in charge asked whether, before the petitioner was arrested, the F. B. I. might “interview” him in an attempt to persuade him to “cooperate” with regard to his espionage. To this Schoenenberger agreed.
At 7 o’clock the next morning, June 21, two officers of the I. N. S. and several F. B. I. men gathered in the corridor outside petitioner’s room at the Hotel Latham. All but two F. B. I. agents, Gamber and Blasco, went into the room next to petitioner’s, which the F. B. I. had occupied in the course of its investigation of petitioner. Gamber and Blasco were charged with confronting petitioner and soliciting his cooperation with the F. B. I. They had no warrant either to arrest or to search. If petitioner proved cooperative their instructions were to telephone to their superior for further instructions. If petitioner failed to cooperate they were to summon the waiting I. N. S. agents to execute their warrant for his arrest.
Gamber rapped on petitioner’s door. When petitioner released the catch, Gamber pushed open the door and walked into the room, followed by Blasco. The door was left ajar and a third F. B. I. agent came into the room a few minutes later. Petitioner, who was nude, was told to put on a pair of undershorts and to sit on the bed, which he did. The F. B. I. agents remained in the room questioning petitioner for about twenty minutes. Although petitioner answered some of their questions, he did not “cooperate” regarding his alleged espionage. A signal was thereupon given to the two agents of the I. N. S. waiting in the next room. These came/ into petitioner’s room and served petitioner with the warrant for his arrest and with the order to show cause. Shortly thereafter Schoenenberger and Kanzler, who had been waiting outside the hotel, also entered petitioner’s room. These four agents of the I. N. S. remained with petitioner in his room for about an hour. For part of this time an F. B. I. agent was also in the room and during all of it another F. B. I. agent stood outside the open door of the room, where he could observe the interior.
After placing petitioner under arrest, the four I. N. S. agents undertook a search of his person and of all of his belongings in the room, and the adjoining bathroom, which lasted for from fifteen to twenty minutes. Petitioner did not give consent to this search; his consent was not sought. The F. B. I. agents observed this search but took no part in it. It was Schoenenberger’s testimony to the District Court that the purpose of this search was to discover, weapons and documentary evidence of petitioner’s “alienage” — that is, documents to substantiate the information regarding petitioner’s status as an alien which the I. N. S. had received from the F. B. I. During this search one of the challenged items of evidence, the one we have designated (2), a birth certificate for “Martin Collins,” was seized. Weapons were not found, nor was any other evidence regarding petitioner’s “alienage.”
When the search was completed, petitioner was told to dress himself, to assemble his things and to choose what he wished to take with him. With the help of the I. N. S. agents almost everything in the room was packed into petitioner’s baggage. A few things petitioner deliberately left on a window sill, indicating that he did not want to take them, and several other things which he chose not to pack up into his luggage he put into the room’s wastepaper basket. When everything had been assembled, petitioner asked and received permission to repack one of his suitcases. While petitioner was doing so, Schoenenberger noticed him slipping some papers into the sleeve of his coat. Schoenenberger seized these. One of them was the challenged item of evidence which we have designated (1), a piece of graph paper containing a coded message.
When petitioner’s belongings had been completely packed, petitioner agreed to check out of the hotel. One of the F. B. I. agents obtained his bill from the hotel and petitioner paid it. Petitioner was then handcuffed and taken, along with his baggage, to a waiting automobile and thence to the headquarters of the I. N. S. in New York. At I. N. S. headquarters, the property petitioner had taken with him was searched more thoroughly than it had been in his hotel room, and three more of the challenged items were discovered and seized. These were the ones we have designated (3), (4) and (5), the “Emil Goldfus” birth certificate, the international vaccination certificate, and the bank book.
As soon as petitioner had been taken from the hotel, an F. B. I. agent, Kehoe, who had been in the room adjoining petitioner’s during the arrest and search and who, like the I. N. S. agents, had no search warrant, received permission from the hotel management to search the room just vacated by petitioner. Although the bill which petitioner had paid entitled him to occupy the room until 3 p. m. of that day, the hotel’s practice was to consider a room vacated whenever a guest removed his baggage and turned in his key. Kehoe conducted a search of petitioner’s room which lasted for about three hours. Among other things, he seized the contents of the wastepaper basket into which petitioner had put some things while packing his belongings. Two of the items thus seized were the challenged items of evidence we have designated (6) and (7): a hollow pencil containing microfilm and a block of wood containing a “cipher pad.”
Later in the day of his arrest, petitioner was taken by airplane to a detention center for aliens in Texas. He remained there for several weeks until arrested upon the charge of conspiracy to commit espionage for which he was brought to trial and convicted in the Eastern District of New York.
I.
The underlying basis of petitioner’s attack upon the admissibility of the challenged items of evidence concerns the motive of the Government in its use of the administrative arrest. We are asked to find that the Government resorted to a subterfuge, that the Immigration and Naturalization Service warrant here was a pretense and sham, was not what it purported to be. According to petitioner, it was not the Government’s true purpose in arresting him under this warrant to take him into custody pending a determination of his deportability. The Government’s real aims, the argument runs, were (1) to place petitioner in custody so that pressure might be brought to bear upon him to confess his espionage and cooperate with the P. B. I., and (2) to permit the Government to search through his belongings for evidence of his espionage to be used in a designed criminal prosecution against him. The claim is, in short, that the Government used this administrative warrant for entirely illegitimate purposes and that articles seized as a consequence of its use ought to have been suppressed.
Were this claim justified by the record, it would indeed reveal a serious misconduct by law-enforcing officers. The deliberate use by the Government of an administrative warrant for the purpose of gathering evidence in a criminal case must meet stern resistance by the courts. The preliminary stages of a criminal prosecution must be pursued in strict obedience to the safeguards and restrictions of the Constitution and laws of the United States. A finding of bad faith is, however, not open to us on this record. What the motive was of the I. N. S. officials who determined to arrest petitioner, and whether the I. N. S. in doing so was not exercising its powers in the lawful discharge of its own responsibilities but was serving as a tool for the F. B. I. in building a criminal prosecution against petitioner, were issues fully canvassed in both courts below. The crucial facts were found against the petitioner.
On this phase of the case the district judge, having permitted full scope to the elucidation of petitioner’s claim, having seen and heard witnesses, in addition to testimony by way of affidavits, and after extensive argument, made these findings:
“[T]he evidence is persuasive that the action taken by the officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service is found to have been in entire good faith.
The testimony of Schoenenberger and Noto leaves no doubt that while the first information that came to them concerning the [petitioner]... was furnished by the F. B. I. — which cannot be an unusual happening — the proceedings taken by the Department differed in no respect from what would have been done in the case of an individual concerning whom no such information was known to exist.
“The defendant argues that the testimony establishes that the arrest was made under the direction and supervision of the F. B. I., but the evidence is to the contrary, and it is so found.
“No good reason has been suggested why these two branches of the Department of Justice should not cooperate, and that is the extent of the showing made on the part of the defendant.” 155 F. Supp. 8, 11.
The opinion of the Court of Appeals, after careful consideration of the matter, held that the answer “must clearly be in the affirmative” to the question “whether the evidence in the record supports the finding of good faith made by the court below.” 258 F. 2d 485, 494.
Among the statements in evidence relied upon by the lower courts in making these findings was testimony by Noto that the interest of the I. N. S. in petitioner was confined to petitioner’s illegal status in the United States; that in informing the I. N. S. about petitioner’s presence in the United States the F. B. I. did not indicate what action it wanted the I. N. S. to take; that Noto himself made the decision to arrest petitioner and to commence deportation proceedings against him; that the F. B. I. made no request of him to search for evidence of espionage at the time of the arrest; and that it was “usual and mandatory” for the F. B. I. and I. N. S. to work together in the manner they did. There was also the testimony of Schoenenberger, regarding the purpose of the search he made of petitioner’s belongings, that the motive was to look for weapons and documentary evidence of alienage. To be sure, the record is not barren of evidence supporting an inference opposed to the conclusion to which the two lower courts were led by the record as a whole: for example, the facts, that the I. N. S. held off its arrest of petitioner while the F. B. I. solicited his cooperation, and that the F. B. I. held itself ready to search petitioner’s room as soon as it was vacated. These elements, however, did not, and were not required to, persuade the two courts below in the face of ample evidence of good faith to the contrary, especially the human evidence of those involved in the episode. We are not free to overturn the conclusion of the courts below when justified by such solid proof.
Petitioner’s basic contention comes down to this: even without a showing of bad faith, the F. B. I. and I. N. S. must be held to have cooperated to an impermissible extent in this case, the case being one where the alien arrested by the I. N. S. for deportation was also suspected by the F. B. I. of crime. At the worst, it may be said that the circumstances of this case reveal an opportunity for abuse of the administrative arrest. But to hold illegitimate, in the absence of bad faith, the cooperation between I. N. S. and F. B. I. would be to ignore the scope of rightful cooperation between two branches of a single Department of Justice concerned with enforcement of different areas of law under the common authority of the Attorney General.
The facts are that the F. B. I. suspected petitioner both of espionage and illegal residence in the United States as an alien. That agency surely acted not only with propriety but in discharge of its duty in bringing petitioner’s illegal status to the attention of the I. N. S., particularly after it found itself unable to proceed with petitioner’s prosecution for espionage. Only the I. N. S. is authorized to initiate deportation proceedings, and certainly the F. B. I. is not to be required to remain mute regarding one they have reason to believe to be a deportable alien, merely because he is also suspected of one of the gravest of crimes and the F. B. I. entertains the hope that criminal proceedings may eventually be brought against him. The I. N. S., just as certainly, would not have performed its responsibilities had it been deterred from instituting deportation proceedings solely because it became aware of petitioner through the F. B. I., and had knowledge that the F. B. I. suspected petitioner of espionage. The Government has available two ways of dealing with a criminally suspect deportable alien. It would make no sense to say that branches of the Department of Justice may not cooperate in pursuing one course of action or the other, once it is honestly decided what course is to be preferred. For the same reasons this cooperation may properly extend to the extent and in the manner in which the F. B. I. and I. N. S. cooperated in effecting petitioner’s administrative arrest. Nor does it taint the administrative arrest that the F. B. I. solicited petitioner’s cooperation before it took place, stood by while it did, and searched the vacated room after the arrest. The F. B. I. was not barred from continuing its investigation in the hope that it might result in a prosecution for espionage because the I. N. S., in the discharge of its duties, had embarked upon an independent decision to initiate proceedings for deportation.
The Constitution does not require that honest law enforcement should be put to such an irrevocable choice between two recourses of the Government. For a contrast to the proper cooperation between two branches of a single Department of Justice as revealed in this case, see the story told in Colyer v. Skeffington, 265 F. 17. That case sets forth in detail the improper use of immigration authorities by the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice when the immigration service was a branch of the Department of Labor and was acting not within its lawful authority but as the cat’s paw of another, unrelated branch of the Government.
We emphasize again that our view of the matter would be totally different had the evidence established, or were the courts below not justified in not finding, that the administrative warrant was here employed as an instrument of criminal law enforcement to circumvent the latter’s legal restrictions, rather than as a bona fide preliminary step in a deportation proceeding. The test is whether the decision to proceed administratively toward deportation was influenced by, and was carried out for, a purpose of amassing evidence in the prosecution for crime. The record precludes such a finding by this Court.
II.
The claim that the administrative warrant by which petitioner was arrested was invalid, because it did not satisfy the requirements for “warrants” under the Fourth Amendment, is not entitled to our consideration in the circumstances before us. It was not made below; indeed, it was expressly disavowed. Statutes authorizing administrative arrest to achieve detention pending deportation proceedings have the sanction of time. It would emphasize the disregard for the presumptive respect the Court owes to the validity of Acts of Congress, especially when confirmed by uncontested historical legitimacy, to bring into question for the first time such a long-sanctioned practice of government at the behest of a party who not only did not challenge the exercise of authority below, but expressly acknowledged its validity.
The grounds relied on in the trial court and the Court of Appeals by petitioner were solely (in addition to the insufficiency of the evidence, a contention not here for review) (1) the bad faith of the Government’s use of the administrative arrest warrant and (2) the lack of a power incidental to the execution of an administrative warrant to search and seize articles for use as evidence in a later criminal prosecution. At no time did petitioner question the legality of the administrative arrest procedure either as unauthorized or as unconstitutional. Such challenges were, to repeat, disclaimed. At the hearing on the motion to suppress, petitioner’s counsel was questioned by the court regarding the theory of relief relied upon:
“The Court: They [the Government] were not at liberty to arrest him [petitioner]?
“Mr. Fraiman: No, your Honor.
“They were perfectly proper in arresting him.
“We don’t contend that at all.
“As a matter of fact, we contend it was their duty to arrest this man as they did.
“I think it should show or rather, it showed admirable thinking on the part of the F. B. I. and the Immigration Service.
“We don’t find any fault with that.
“Our contention is that although they were permitted to arrest this man, and in fact, had a duty to arrest this man in a manner in which they did, they did not have a right to search his premises for the material which related to espionage.
“... He was charged with no criminal offense in this warrant.
“The Court: He was suspected of being illegally in the country, wasn’t he?
“Mr. Fraiman: Yes, your Honor.
“The Court: He was properly arrested.
“Mr. Fraiman: He was properly arrested, we concede that, your Honor.”
Counsel further made it plain that the arrest warrant whose validity he was conceding was “one of these Immigration warrants which is obtained without any background material at all.” Affirmative acceptance of what is now sought to be questioned could not be plainer.
The present form of the legislation giving authority to the Attorney General or his delegate to arrest aliens pending deportation proceedings under an administrative warrant, not a judicial warrant within the scope of the Fourth Amendment, is § 242 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. (8 U. S. C. § 1252 (a)). The regulations under this Act delegate the authority to issue these administrative warrants to the District Directors of the I. N. S. “[a]t the commencement of any proceeding [to deport]... or at any time thereafter... whenever, in [their]... discretion, it appears that the arrest of the respondent is necessary or desirable.” 8 CFR § 242.2 (a). Also, according to these regulations, proceedings to deport are commenced by orders to show cause issued by the District Directors or others; and the “Operating Instructions” of the I. N. S. direct that the application for an order to show cause should be based upon a showing of a prima facie case of deportability. The warrant of arrest for petitioner was issued by the New York District Director of the I. N. S. at the same time as he signed an order to show cause. Schoenenberger testified that, before the warrant and order were issued, he and Kanzler related to the District Director what they had learned from the F. B. I. regarding petitioner’s status as an alien, and the order to show cause recited that petitioner had failed to register, as aliens must. Since petitioner was a suspected spy, who had never acknowledged his residence in the United States to the Government or openly admitted his presence here, there was ample reason to believe that his arrest pending deportation was “necessary or desirable.” The arrest procedure followed in the present case fully complied with the statute and regulations.
Statutes providing for deportation have ordinarily authorized the arrest of deportable aliens by order of an executive official. The first of these was in 1798. Act of June 25, 1798, c. 58, § 2, 1 Stat. 571. And see, since that time, and before the present Act, Act of Oct. 19, 1888, c. 1210, 25 Stat. 566; Act of Mar. 3, 1903, c. 1012, § 21, 32 Stat. 1218; Act of Feb. 20, 1907, c. 1134, § 20, 34 Stat. 904; Act of Feb. 5, 1917, c. 29, § 19, 39 Stat. 889; Act of Oct. 16, 1918, c. 186, § 2, 40 Stat. 1012; Act of May 10, 1920, c. 174, 41 Stat. 593; Internal Security Act of 1950, c. 1024, Title I, § 22, 64 Stat. 1008. To be sure, some of these statutes, namely the Acts of 1888, 1903 and 1907, dealt only with aliens who had landed illegally in the United States, and not with aliens sought to be deported by reason of some act or failure to act since entering. Even apart from these, there remains overwhelming historical legislative recognition of the propriety of administrative arrest for deportable aliens such as petitioner.
The constitutional validity of this long-standing administrative arrest procedure in deportation cases has never been directly challenged in reported litigation. Two lower court cases involved oblique challenges, which were summarily rejected. Podolski v. Baird, 94 F. Supp. 294; Ex parte Avakian, 188 F. 688, 692. See also the discussion in Colyer v. Skeffington, 265 F. 17, reversed on other grounds sub nom. Skeffington v. Katzeff, 277 F. 129, where the District Court made an exhaustive examination of the fairness of a group of deportation proceedings initiated by administrative arrests, but nowhere brought into question the validity of the administrative arrest procedure as such. This Court seems never expressly to have directed its attention to the particular question of the constitutional validity of administrative deportation warrants. It has frequently, however, upheld administrative deportation proceedings shown by the Court’s opinion to have been begun by arrests pursuant to such warrants. See The Japanese Immigrant Case, 189 U. S. 86; Zakonaite v. Wolf, 226 U. S. 272; Bilokumsky v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149; Carlson v. Landon, 342 U. S. 524. In Carlson v. Landon, the validity of the arrest was necessarily implicated, for the Court there sustained discretion in the Attorney General to deny bail to alien Communists held pending deportation on administrative arrest warrants. In the presence of this impressive historical evidence of acceptance of the validity of statutes providing for administrative deportation arrest from almost the beginning of the Nation, petitioner’s disavowal of the issue below calls for no further consideration.
III.
Since.petitioner’s arrest was valid, we reach the question whether the seven challenged items, all seized during searches which were a direct consequence of that arrest, were properly admitted into evidence. This issue raises three questions: (1) Were the searches which produced these items proper searches for the Government to have made? If they were not, then whatever the nature of the seized articles, and however proper it would have been to seize them during a valid search, they should have been suppressed as the fruits of activity in violation of the Fourth Amendment. E. g., Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, 393. (2) Were the articles seized properly subject to seizure, even during a lawful search? We have held in this regard that not every item may be seized which is properly inspectible by the Government in the course of a legal search; for example, private papers desired by the Government merely for use as evidence may not be seized, no matter how lawful the search which discovers them, Gouled v. United States, 255 U. S. 298, 310, nor may the Government seize, wholesale, the contents of a house it might have searched, Kremen v. United States, 353 U. S. 346. (3) Was the Government free to use the articles, even if properly seized, as evidence in a criminal case, the seizures having been made in the course of a separate administrative proceeding?
The most fundamental of the issues involved concerns the legality of the search and seizures made in petitioner’s room in the Hotel Latham. The ground of objection is that a search may not be conducted as an incident to a lawful administrative arrest.
We take as a starting point the cases in this Court dealing with the extent of the search which may properly be made without a warrant following a lawful arrest for crime. The several cases on this subject in this Court cannot be satisfactorily reconciled. This problem has, as is well-known, provoked strong and fluctuating differences of view on the Court. This is not the occasion to attempt to reconcile all the decisions, or to re-examine them. Compare Marron v. United States, 275 U. S. 192, with Go-Bart Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, and United States v. Lejkowitz, 285 U. S. 452; compare Go-Bart, supra, and Lejkowitz, supra, with Harris v. United States, 331 U. S. 145, and United States v. Rabinowitz, 339 U. S. 56; compare also Harris, supra, with Trupiano v. United States, 334 U. S. 699, and Trupiano with Rabinowitz, supra (overruling Trupiano). Of these cases, Harris and Rabinowitz set by far the most permissive limits upon searches incidental to lawful arrests. In view of their judicial context, the trial judge and the Government justifiably relied upon these cases for guidance at the trial; and the petitioner himself accepted the Harris case on the motion to suppress, nor does he ask this Court to reconsider Harris and Rabinowitz. It would, under these circumstances, be unjustifiable retrospective lawmaking for the Court in this case to reject the authority of these decisions.
Are there to be permitted incidental to valid administrative arrests, searches as broad in physical area as, and analogous in purpose to, those permitted by the applicable precedents as incidents to lawful arrests for crime? Specifically, were the officers of the I. N. S. acting lawfully in this case when, after his arrest, they searched through petitioner’s belongings in his hotel room looking for weapons and documents to evidence his “alienage”? There can be no doubt that a search for weapons has as much justification here as it has in the case of an arrest for crime, where it has been recognized as proper. E. g., Agnello v. United States, 269 U. S. 20, 30. It is no less important for government officers, acting under established procedure to effect a deportation arrest rather than one for crime, to protect themselves and to insure that their prisoner retains no means by which to accomplish an escape.
Nor is there any constitutional reason to limit the search for materials proving the deportability of an alien, when validly arrested, more severely than we limit the search for materials probative of crime when a valid criminal arrest is made. The need for the proof is as great in one case as in the other, for deportation can be accomplished only after a hearing at which deportability is established. Since a deportation arrest warrant is not a judicial warrant, a search incidental to a deportation arrest is without the authority of a judge or commissioner. But so is a search incidental to a criminal arrest made upon probable cause without a warrant, and under Rabinowitz, 339 U. S., at 60, such a search does not require a judicial warrant for its validity. It is to be remembered that an I. N. S. officer may not arrest and search on his own. Application for a warrant must be made to an independent responsible officer, the District Director of the I. N. S., to whom a prima facie case of deportability must be shown. The differences between the procedural protections governing criminal and deportation arrests are not of a quality or magnitude to warrant the deduction of a constitutional difference regarding the right of incidental search. If anything, we ought to be more vigilant, not less, to protect individuals and their property from warrantless searches made for the purpose of turning up proof to convict than we are to protect them from searches for matter bearing on deportability. According to the uniform decisions of this Court deportation proceedings are not subject to the constitutional safeguards' for criminal prosecutions. Searches for evidence of crime present situations demanding the greatest, not the least, restraint upon the Government’s intrusion into privacy; although its protection is not limited to them, it was at these searches which the Fourth Amendment was primarily directed. We conclude, therefore, that government officers
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 to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for further consideration in light of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123. See Roberts v. Russell, ante, p. 293.
Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice White dissent for the reasons stated in Mr. Justice White’s dissenting opinion in Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 138 (1968).
Mr. Justice Marshall 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.
Per Curiam.
The motion to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is vacated and the case is remanded to that court for further consideration in light of Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123. See Roberts v. Russell, ante, p. 293.
Mr. Justice Black dissents.
Mr. Justice Harlan and Mr. Justice White dissent for the reasons stated in Mr. Justice White’s dissenting opinion in Bruton v. United States, 391 U. S. 123, 138 (1968).
Mr. Justice Marshall 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.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we review a determination by petitioner, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, that “child’s insurance benefits” paid pursuant to Title II of the Social Security Act, see 49 Stat. 623, as amended, 42 U. S. C § 402(d) (1982 ed. and Supp. V), do not constitute “child support” as that term is used in a provision in Title IV of the Act governing eligibility for Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC). See 42 U. S. C. §602(a)(8)(A)(vi) (1982 ed., Supp. V). We uphold the Secretary’s determination and reverse the contrary holding of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Title IV requires the applicable agencies of States participating in the AFDC program to consider “other income and resources of any child or relative claiming” AFDC benefits “in determining need” for benefits. § 602(a)(7)(A). The state agencies “shall determine ineligible for aid any family the combined value of whose resources . . . exceeds” the level specified in the Act. § 602(a)(7)(B). Central to this case is one of the amendments to Title IV in the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DEFRA), Pub. L. 98-369, §2640, 98 Stat. 1146-1146, affecting eligibility for AFDC benefits. This amendment provides:
“. . . [W]ith respect to any month, in making the determination under [§ 602(a)(7)], the State agency—
“shall disregard the first $50 of any child support payments received in such month with respect to the dependent child or children in any family applying for or receiving aid to families with dependent children (including support payments collected and paid to the family under section 657(b) of this title). . . .” 42 U. S. C. § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi) (1982 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis added).
The Secretary has declined to “disregard” under this provision the first $50 of Title II Social Security child’s insurance benefits paid on behalf of children who are members of families applying for AFDC benefits. In the Secretary’s view, the Government-funded child’s insurance benefits are not “child support” for purposes of § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi) because that term, as used throughout Title IV, “invariably refers to payments from absent parents.” Brief for Petitioner 13.
Respondents are custodial parents receiving AFDC benefits who are aggrieved by the implementation of the DEFRA amendments. They sued in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia challenging petitioner’s interpretation of the disregard on statutory and constitutional grounds. See Complaint, App. 31-33. The District Court granted summary judgment for respondents on the basis of their statutory challenge and thereby avoided reaching the constitutional challenge. App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed the District Court. Stroop v. Bowen, 870 F. 2d 969, 975 (1989). According to the Court of Appeals, Congress nowhere explicated its use of the term “child support” in § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi) and the only known discussion of the purpose of the disregard provision is in our decision in Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U. S. 587 (1987). As read by the Court of Appeals, Bowen noted that “the disregard of the first $50 paid by a father serves to mitigate the burden of the changes wrought by the DEFRA amendments.” 870 F. 2d, at 974 (citing 483 U. S., at 594). The court reasoned that although we had not considered the question of Title II child’s insurance payments in Bowen, the disregarding of the first $50 of such payments, “received in lieu of payments made by a father,” would serve the same purpose of mitigating the harshness of the DEFRA amendments. 870 F. 2d, at 974. Since AFDC applicants receiving Title II child’s insurance benefits are burdened by the DEFRA amendments no less than applicants receiving payments directly from noncustodial parents, no rational basis exists for according one class of families the mitigating benefit of the disregard while depriving another indistinguishable class of families of the same benefit. The court thus rejected the Secretary’s interpretation of the disregard and added that to construe § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi) to exclude the Title II benefits from the disregard would raise constitutional equal protection concerns. Id., at 975. We granted certiorari, 493 U. S. 1018 (1990), to resolve the conflict between the decision of the Fourth Circuit and the contrary holding of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Todd v. Norman, 840 F. 2d 608 (1988).
We think the Secretary’s construction is amply supported by the text of the statute which shows that Congress used “child support” throughout Title IV of the Social Security Act and its amendments as a term of art referring exclusively to payments from absent parents. This being the case, we need go no further:
“'If the statute is clear and unambiguous “that is the end of the matter, for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” ... In ascertaining the plain meaning of the statute, the court must look to the particular statutory language at issue, as well as the language and design of the statute as a whole.’” K mart Corp. v. Cartier, Inc., 486 U. S. 281, 291-292 (1988) (internal citations omitted).
As an initial matter, the common usage of “child support” refers to legally compulsory payments made by parents. Black’s Law Dictionary 217 (5th ed. 1979) defines “child support” as
“[t]he legal obligation of parents to contribute to the economic maintenance, including education, of their children; enforceable in both civil and criminal contexts. In a dissolution or custody action, money paid by one parent to another toward the expenses of children of the marriage.”
Attorneys who have practiced in the area of domestic relations law will immediately recognize this definition. Respondents insist, however, that we have traditionally “turned to authorities of general reference, not to legal dictionaries, to [give] ‘ordinary meaning to ordinary words.’” Brief for Respondents 20 (citing Sullivan v. Everhart, 494 U. S. 83, 91-92 (1990)). But the general reference work upon which respondents principally rely defines “child support” as “money paid for the care of one’s minor child, especially] payments to a divorced spouse or a guardian under a decree of divorce.” Random House Dictionary of the English Language 358 (2d ed. 1987) (emphasis added) (cited at Brief for Respondents 20). Respondents also seek to bolster their view with definitions of the word “support” from other dictionaries. Ibid. But where a phrase in a statute appears to have become a term of art, as is the case with “child support” in Title IV, any attempt to break down the term into its constituent words is not apt to illuminate its meaning.
Congress’ use of “child support” throughout Title IV shows no intent to depart from common usage. As previously noted, the provisions governing eligibility for AFDC benefits, including the “disregard” provision in issue here, are contained in Title IV of the Social Security Act. 42 U. S. C. §§601-679a (1982 ed. and Supp. V). Title IV, as its heading discloses, establishes a unified program of grants “For Aid and Services to Needy Families With Children and For Child-Welfare Services” to be implemented through cooperative efforts of the States and the Federal Government. Part D of Title IV is devoted exclusively to “Child Support and Establishment of Paternity.” See §§651-667. The first provision in Part D authorizes appropriations
“[f]or the purpose of enforcing the support obligations owed by absent parents to their children and the spouse (or former spouse) with whom such children are living, [and] locating absent parents . . . .” 42 U. S.C. §651 (1982 ed., Supp. V) (emphasis added).
The remainder of Part D, 42 U. S. C. §§652-667 (1982 ed. and Supp. V), abounds with references to “child support” in the context of compulsory support funds from absent parents. See, e. g., §§ 652(a)(1), 652(a)(7), 652(a)(10)(B), 652(a)(10)(C), 652(b), 653(c)(1), 654, 654(6), 654(19)(A), 654(19)(B), 656(b), 657(a), 659(a), 659(b), 659(d), 661(b)(3), 662(b). Section 653, indeed, creates an absent parent “Locator Service.”
The statute also makes plain that Congress meant for the Part D Child Support program to work in tandem with the AFDC program which constitutes Part A of Title IV, §§601-615. Section 602(a)(27) requires state plans for AFDC participation to “provide that the State has in effect a plan approved under part D . . . and operates a child support program in substantial compliance with such plan.” Section 602(a)(26) requires State AFDC plans to
“provide that, as a condition of eligibility for [AFDC benefits], each applicant or recipient will be required—
“(A) to assign the State any rights to support from any other person such applicant may have (i) in his own behalf or in behalf of any other family member for whom the applicant is applying for or receiving aid, . . . [and]
“(B) to cooperate with the State . . . (ii) in obtaining support payments for such applicant and for a child with respect to whom such aid is claimed . . .
Part D, in turn, requires state plans implementing Title IV Child Support programs to
“provide that (A) in any case in which support payments are collected for an individual with respect to whom an assignment under section 602(a)(26) [in Part A] of this title is effective, such payments shall be made to the State for distribution pursuant to section 657 [in Part D] of this title . . . §654(5).
These cross-references illustrate Congress’ intent that the AFDC and Child Support programs operate together closely to provide uniform levels of support for children of equal need. That intent leads to the further conclusion that Congress used the term “child support” in § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi), and in Part A generally, in the limited sense given the term by its repeated use in Part D. The substantial relation between the two programs presents a classic case for application of the “normal rule of statutory construction that ‘ “identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.””’ Sorenson v. Secretary of Treasury, 475 U. S. 851, 860 (1986) (quoting Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U. S. 84, 87 (1934) (in turn quoting Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932))).
Since the Secretary’s interpretation of the § 602(a)(8)(A) (vi) disregard incorporates the definition of “child support” that we find plain on the face of the statute, our statutory inquiry is at an end. The disregard, accordingly, does not admit of the interpretation advanced by respondents and accepted by both courts below. Though Title II child’s insurance benefits might be characterized as “support” in the generic sense, they are not the sort of child support payments from absent parents envisioned in the Title IV scheme. The Title II payments are explicitly characterized in § 402(d) as “insurance” benefits and are paid out of the public treasury to all applicants meeting the statutory criteria. Thus no portion of any § 402(d) payments may be disregarded under § 602(a)(8)(A)(vi).
The Court of Appeals construed the statute the way it did in part because it felt the construction we adopt would raise a serious doubt as to its constitutionality. App. to Pet. for Cert. 12a. We do not share that doubt. We agree with the Secretary that Congress’ desire to encourage the making of child support payments by absent parents, see, e. g., 42 U. S. C. §§602(a)(26)(B)(ii) and 654(5) (1982 ed., Supp. V) (requiring APDC recipients to assist in the collection of child support payments for distribution by the States under Part D)), affords a rational basis for applying the disregard to payments from absent parents, but not to Title II insurance payments which are funded by the Government. This sort of statutory distinction does not violate the Equal Protection Clause “if any state of facts reasonably may be conceived to justify it.” Bowen v. Gilliard, 483 U. S., at 601.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent was convicted of violating § 301 (f) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 52 Stat. 1040, 21 U. S. C. § 331 (f). That section prohibits “The refusal to permit entry or inspection as authorized by section 704.” Section 704 authorizes the federal officers or employees “after first making request and obtaining permission of the owner, operator, or custodian” of the plant or factory “to enter” and “to inspect” the establishment, equipment, materials and the like “at reasonable times.”
Respondent is president of a corporation which processes apples at Yakima, Washington, for shipment in interstate commerce. Authorized agents applied to respondent for permission to enter and inspect his factory at reasonable hours. He refused permission, and it was that refusal which was the basis of the information filed against him and under which he was convicted and fined. 95 F. Supp. 206. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that § 301 (f), when read with § 704, prohibits a refusal to permit entry and inspection only if such permission has previously been granted. 194 F. 2d 686. The case is here on certiorari. 343 U. S. 940.
The Department of Justice urges us to read § 301 (f) as prohibiting a refusal to permit entry or inspection at any reasonable time. It argues that that construction is needed if the Act is to have real sanctions and if the benign purposes of the Act are to be realized. It points out that factory inspection has become the primary investigative device for enforcement of this law, that it is from factory inspections that about 80 percent of the violations are discovered, that the small force of inspectors makes factory inspection, rather than random sampling of finished goods, the only effective method of enforcing the Act.
All that the Department says may be true. But it does not enable us to make sense out of the statute. Nowhere does the Act say that a factory manager must allow entry and inspection at a reasonable hour. Section 704 makes entry and inspection conditioned on “making request and obtaining permission.” It is that entry and inspection which § 301 (f) backs with a sanction. It would seem therefore on the face of the statute that the Act prohibits the refusal to permit inspection only if permission has been previously granted. Under that view the Act makes illegal the revocation of permission once given, not the failure to give permission. But that view would breed a host of problems. Would revocation of permission once given carry the criminal penalty no matter how long ago it was granted and no matter if it had no relation to the inspection demanded? Or must the permission granted and revoked relate to the demand for inspection on which the prosecution is based? Those uncertainties make that construction pregnant with danger for the regulated business. The alternative construction pressed on us is equally treacherous because it gives conflicting commands. It makes inspection dependent on consent and makes refusal to allow inspection a crime. However we read § 301 (f) we think it is not fair warning (cf. United States v. Weitzel, 246 U. S. 533; McBoyle v. United States, 283 U. S. 25) to the factory manager that if he fails to give consent, he is a criminal. The vice of vagueness in criminal statutes is the treachery they conceal either in determining what persons are included or what acts are prohibited. Words which are vague and fluid (cf. United States v. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U. S. 81) may be as much of a trap for the innocent as the ancient laws of Caligula. We cannot sanction taking a man by the heels for refusing to grant the permission which this Act on its face apparently gave him the right to withhold. That would be making an act criminal without fair and effective notice. Cf. Herndon v. Lowry, 301 U. S. 242.
Affirmed.
Me. Justice Jackson concurs in the result.
Mr. Justice Burton dissents.
The violation is made a misdemeanor by 21 U. S. C. § 333.
Section 704 reads as follows: “For purposes of enforcement of this Act, officers or employees duly designated by the Administrator, after first making request and obtaining permission of the owner, operator, or custodian thereof, are authorized (1) to enter, at reasonable times, any factory, warehouse, or establishment in which food, drugs, devices, or cosmetics are manufactured, processed, packed, or held, for introduction into interstate commerce or are held after such introduction, or to enter any vehicle being used to transport or hold such food, drugs, devices, or cosmetics in interstate commerce; and (2) to inspect, at reasonable times, such factory, warehouse, establishment, or vehicle and all pertinent equipment, finished and unfinished materials, containers, and labeling therein.”
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | D | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In March 1969, respondent Daniel Ross was convicted of first-degree murder in North Carolina and sentenced to life imprisonment. At trial, Ross had claimed lack of malice and self-defense. In accordance with well-settled North Carolina law, the trial judge instructed the jury that Ross, the defendant, had the burden of proving each of these defenses. Six years later, this Court decided Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684 (1975), which struck, down, as violative of due process, the requirement that the defendant bear the burden of proving lack of malice. Id., at 704. Two years later, Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U. S. 233 (1977), held that Mullaney was to have retroactive application. The question presented in this case is whether Ross’ attorney forfeited Ross’ right to relief under Mullaney and Hankerson by failing, several years before those cases were decided, to raise on appeal the unconstitutionality of the jury instruction on the burden of proof.
I
A
In 1970, this Court decided In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, the first case in which we directly addressed the constitutional foundation of the requirement that criminal guilt be established beyond a reasonable doubt. That case held that “[l]est there remain any doubt about the constitutional stature of the reasonable-doubt standard,... 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.
Five years after Winship, the Court applied the principle to the related question of allocating burdens of proof in a criminal case. Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra. Mullaney arose in the context of a Maine statute providing that “[whoever unlawfully kills a human being with malice aforethought, either express or implied, is guilty of murder and shall be punished by imprisonment for life.” Id., at 686, n. 3. The trial judge had instructed the jury under this statute that “if the prosecution established that the homicide was both intentional and unlawful, malice aforethought was to be conclusively implied unless the defendant proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation.” Id., at 686. Thus, despite the fact that malice was an element of the offense of murder, the law of Maine provided that, if the defendant contended that he acted without malice, but rather “in the heat of passion on sudden provocation,” he, not the prosecution, was required to bear the burden of persuasion by a “fair preponderance of the evidence.” Ibid. Noting that “[t]he result, in a case such as this one where the defendant is required to prove the critical fact in dispute, is to increase further the likelihood of an erroneous murder conviction,” id., at 701, Mullaney held that due process requires the prosecution to bear the burden of persuasion with respect to each element of a crime.
Finally, Hankerson v. North Carolina, supra, held that Mullaney was to have retroactive application. In reaching this conclusion, the Court followed Ivan V. v. City of New York, 407 U. S. 203 (1972), which had held that Winship was retroactively applicable. Quoting Ivan V. and Winship, the Court stated:
“‘The [reasonable-doubt] standard provides concrete substance for the presumption of innocence — that bedrock “axiomatic and elementary” principle whose “enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law”.... “Due process commands that no man shall lose his liberty unless the Government has borne its burden of... convincing the factfinder of his guilt.” To this end, the reasonable-doubt standard is indispensable, for it “impresses on the trier of fact the necessity of reaching a subjective state of certitude of the facts in issue.’”” Hankerson, supra, at 241 (quoting Ivan V., supra, at 204-205 (quoting Winship, supra, at 363-364)).
Hankerson further stated that, regardless of the administrative costs involved in the retroactive application of a new constitutional doctrine, “ ‘[w]here the major purpose of new constitutional doctrine is to overcome an aspect of the criminal trial that substantially impairs its truth-finding function and so raises serious questions about the accuracy of guilty verdicts in past trials, the new rule [is] given complete retroactive effect.’ ” 432 U. S., at 243 (quoting Ivan V., supra, at 204) (emphasis in original). In this case, we are called upon again, in effect, to revisit our decision in Hankerson with respect to a particular set of administrative costs — namely, the costs imposed on state courts by the federal courts’ exercise of their habeas corpus jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 2254.
B
Ross was tried for murder under the same North Carolina burden-of-proof law that gave rise to Hankerson’s claim in Hankerson v. North Carolina. That law, followed in North Carolina for over 100 years, was summarized by the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Hankerson, 288 N. C. 632, 647, 220 S. E. 2d 575, 586 (1975), as follows:
“[W]hen it is established by a defendant’s judicial admission, or the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally inflicted a wound upon the deceased with a deadly weapon which proximately caused death, the law raises two presumptions against the defendant: (1) the killing was unlawful, and (2) it was done with malice. Nothing else appearing in the case the defendant would be guilty of murder in the second degree. When these presumptions arise the burden devolves upon the defendant to prove to the satisfaction of the jury the legal provocation which will rob the crime of malice and reduce it to manslaughter or which will excuse the killing altogether on the ground of self-defense. If the defendant rebuts the presumption of malice only, the presumption that the killing was unlawful remains, making the crime manslaughter.”
In accordance with this well-settled state law, the jury at Ross’ trial was instructed as follows:
“[I]n a case where a person is killed as a result of a gun shot wound fired intentionally... where the State has satisfied you beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intentionally assaulted the deceased with a deadly weapon and that such assault caused her death there are two presumptions that arise in favor of the State: One, that the killing was unlawful; two, that it was done with malice; and the burden then shifts to the defendant under those circumstances to satisfy the jury, not beyond a reasonable doubt nor by the greater weight of the evidence, but to satisfy the jury that the killing was not done with malice if he would acquit himself of a charge of murder in the second degree, that is if he would expect and ask at your hands a verdict of less than guilty of murder in the second degree the burden would be upon him under the circumstances to satisfy the jury that the killing was not done with malice and if he would exonerate himself and show that the killing was not unlawful then the burden is upon him to satisfy the jury... that the killing was done... for some reason recognized by law as justifiable; and he relies here on self-defense.” App. 23-24 (emphasis deleted).
On the basis of these instructions, Ross was convicted of first-degree murder. Although Ross appealed his conviction to the North Carolina Supreme Court on a number of grounds, In re Burrus, 275 N. C. 517, 169 S. E. 2d 879 (1969), he did not challenge the constitutionality of these instructions — we may confidently assume this was because they were sanctioned by a century of North Carolina law and because Mullaney was yet six years away.
Ross challenged the jury instructions for the first time in 1977, shortly after this Court decided Hankerson. He initially did so in a petition filed in state court for postconviction relief, where his challenge was summarily rejected at both the trial and appellate levels. See App. to Brief for Petitioners A3-A8. After exhausting his state remedies, Ross brought the instant federal habeas proceeding in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina under 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The District Court, however, held that habeas relief was barred because Ross had failed to raise the issue on appeal as required by North Carolina law, App. 27, and the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed Ross’ appeal summarily. 660 F. 2d 492 (1982). On Ross’ first petition for certiorari, however, this Court vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107 (1982), and United States v. Frady, 456 U. S. 152 (1982), two cases in which we addressed the “cause and prejudice” standard for procedural bars under §2254. 456 U. S. 921 (1982). On remand, the Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Ross’ claim met the “cause and prejudice” requirements and that the District Court had therefore erred in denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. 704 F. 2d 705 (1983). The Court of Appeals found the “cause” requirement satisfied because the Mullaney issue was so novel at the time of Ross’ appeal that Ross’ attorney could not reasonably be expected to have raised it. 704 F. 2d, at 708-709. And the State had conceded the existence of “prejudice” in light of evidence that had been introduced to indicate that Ross might have acted reflexively in self-defense. The Court of Appeals went on to hold that the jury instruction concerning the burden of proof for both malice and self-defense violated Mullaney. 704 F. 2d, at 709. We granted certiorari, 464 U. S. 1007 (1983), to determine whether the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that Ross had “cause” for failing to raise the Mullaney question on appeal. We now affirm.
II
A
Our decisions have uniformly acknowledged that federal courts are empowered under 28 U. S. C. § 2254 to look beyond a state procedural forfeiture and entertain a state prisoner’s contention that his constitutional rights have been violated. See, e. g., Francis v. Henderson, 425 U. S. 536, 538 (1976); Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391, 398-399 (1963). See generally W. Duker, A Constitutional History of Habeas Corpus 181-211 (1980). The more difficult question, and the one that lies at the heart of this case is: What standards should govern the exercise of the habeas court’s equitable discretion in the use of this power?
A habeas court’s decision whether to review the merits of a state prisoner’s constitutional claim, when the prisoner has failed to follow applicable state procedural rules in raising the claim, implicates two sets of competing concerns. On the one hand, there is Congress’ expressed interest in providing a federal forum for the vindication of the constitutional rights of state prisoners. There can be no doubt that in enacting § 2254, Congress sought to “interpose the federal courts between the States and the people, as guardians of the people’s federal rights — to protect the people from unconstitutional action.” Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U. S. 225, 242 (1972).
On the other hand, there is the State’s interest in the integrity of its rules and proceedings and the finality of its judgments, an interest that would be undermined if the federal courts were too free to ignore procedural forfeitures in state court. The criminal justice system in each of the 50 States is structured both to determine the guilt or innocence of defendants and to resolve all questions incident to that determination, including the constitutionality of the procedures leading up to the verdict. Each State’s complement of procedural rules facilitates this complex process, channeling, to the extent possible, the resolution of various types of questions to the stage of the judicial process at which they can be resolved most fairly and efficiently.
North Carolina’s rule requiring a defendant initially to raise a legal issue on appeal, rather than on postconviction review, performs such a function. It affords the state courts the opportunity to resolve the issue shortly after trial, while evidence is still available both to assess the defendant’s claim and to retry the defendant effectively if he prevails in his appeal. See Friendly, Is Innocence Irrelevant? Collateral Attack on Criminal Judgments, 38 U. Chi. L. Rev. 142, 147 (1970). This type of rule promotes not only the accuracy and efficiency of judicial decisions, but also the finality of those decisions, by forcing the defendant to litigate all of his claims together, as quickly after trial as the docket will allow, and while the attention of the appellate court is focused on his case. To the extent that federal courts exercise their § 2254 power to review constitutional claims that were not properly raised before the state court, these legitimate state interests may be frustrated: evidence may no longer be available to evaluate the defendant’s constitutional claim if it is brought to federal court long after his trial; and it may be too late to retry the defendant effectively if he prevails in his collateral challenge. Thus, we have long recognized that “in some circumstances considerations of comity and concerns for the orderly administration of criminal justice require a federal court to forgo the exercise of its habeas corpus power.” Francis v. Henderson, supra, at 539. See also Fay v. Noia, supra, at 425-426.
Where, as in this case, a defendant has failed to abide by a State’s procedural rule requiring the exercise of legal expertise and judgment, the competing concerns implicated by the exercise of the federal court’s habeas corpus power have come to be embodied in the “cause and prejudice” requirement: When a procedural default bars litigation of a constitutional claim in state court, a state prisoner may not obtain federal habeas corpus relief absent a showing of “cause and actual prejudice.” Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S., at 129; Wainwright v. Sykes, 433 U. S. 72 (1977). See id., at 91-94 (Burger, C. J., concurring); id., at 94-95 (Stevens, J., concurring). Cf. id., at 98-99 (White, J., concurring in judgment). We therefore turn to the question whether the cause-and-prejudice test was met in this case.
B
As stated above, petitioners have conceded that Ross suffered “actual prejudice” as a result of the trial court’s instruction imposing on him the burden of proving self-defense or lack of malice. 704 F. 2d, at 707. At trial, Ross testified that he had been stabbed in the neck immediately prior to the shooting for which he was convicted and that when he felt the stab wound he “turned around shooting.” App. 18. In corroboration of this testimony, another witness stated that Ross was bleeding from the neck when Ross left the scene of the shooting. Therefore, were it not for the fact that Ross was required to bear the burden of proving lack of malice and self-defense, he might not have been convicted of first-degree murder. Thus the only question for decision is whether there was “cause” for Ross’ failure to raise the Mullaney issue on appeal.
The Court of Appeals held that there was cause for Ross’ failure to raise the Mullaney issue on appeal because of the “novelty” of the issue at the time. As the Court of Appeals characterized the legal basis for raising the Mullaney issue at the time of Ross’ appeal, there was merely “[a] hint here and there voiced in other contexts,” which did not “offe[r] a reasonable basis for a challenge to frequently approved jury instructions which had been used in North Carolina, and many other states, for over a century.” 704 F. 2d, at 708.
Engle v. Isaac, supra, left open the question whether the novelty of a constitutional issue at the time of a state-court proceeding could, as a general matter, give rise to cause for defense counsel’s failure to raise the issue in accordance with applicable state procedures. Id., at 131. Today, we answer that question in the affirmative.
Because of the broad range of potential reasons for an attorney’s failure to comply with a procedural rule, and the virtually limitless array of contexts in which a procedural default can occur, this Court has not given the term “cause” precise content. See Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, at 87. Nor do we attempt to do so here. Underlying the concept of cause, however, is at least the dual notion that, absent exceptional circumstances, a defendant is bound by the tactical decisions of competent counsel, Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, at 91, and n. 14; Henry v. Mississippi, 379 U. S. 443, 451 (1965), and that defense counsel may not flout state procedures and then turn around and seek refuge in federal court from the consequences of such conduct, Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, at 89-90; Engle v. Isaac, supra, at 130. A defense attorney, therefore, may not ignore a State’s procedural rules in the expectation that his client’s constitutional claims can be raised at a later date in federal court. Wainwright v. Sykes, supra, at 89; Engle v. Isaac, supra, at 128-129. Similarly, he may not use the prospect of federal habeas corpus relief as a hedge against the strategic risks he takes in his client’s defense in state court. Wainwright v. Sykes, 438 U. S., at 96-97 (Stevens, J., concurring); id., at 98-99 (White, J., concurring in judgment). In general, therefore, defense counsel may not make a tactical decision to forgo a procedural opportunity — for instance, an opportunity to object at trial or to raise an issue on appeal — and then, when he discovers that the tactic has been unsuccessful, pursue an alternative strategy in federal court. The encouragement of such conduct by a federal court on habeas corpus review would not only offend generally accepted principles of comity, but would also undermine the accuracy and efficiency of the state judicial systems to the detriment of all concerned. Procedural defaults of this nature are, therefore, “inexcusable,” Estelle v. Williams, 425 U. S. 501, 513 (1976) (Powell, J., concurring), and cannot qualify as “cause” for purposes of federal habeas corpus review.
On the other hand, the cause requirement may be satisfied under certain circumstances when a procedural failure is not attributable to an intentional decision by counsel made in pursuit of his client’s interests. And the failure of counsel to raise a constitutional issue reasonably unknown to him is one situation in which the requirement is met. If counsel has no reasonable basis upon which to formulate a constitutional question, setting aside for the moment exactly what is meant by “reasonable basis,” see infra, at 16-18, it is safe to assume that he is sufficiently unaware of the question’s latent existence that we cannot attribute to him strategic motives of any sort.
Counsel’s failure to raise a claim for which there was no reasonable basis in existing law does not seriously implicate any of the concerns that might otherwise require deference to a State’s procedural bar. Just as it is reasonable to assume that a competent lawyer will fail to perceive the possibility of raising such a claim, it is also reasonable to assume that a court will similarly fail to appreciate the claim. It is in the nature of our legal system that legal concepts, including constitutional concepts, develop slowly, finding partial acceptance in some courts while meeting rejection in others. Despite the fact that a constitutional concept may ultimately enjoy general acceptance, as the Mullaney issue currently does, when the concept is in its embryonic stage, it will, by hypothesis, be rejected by most courts. Consequently, a rule requiring a defendant to raise a truly novel issue is not likely to serve any functional purpose. Although there is a remote possibility that a given state court will be the first to discover a latent constitutional issue and to order redress if the issue is properly raised, it is far more likely that the court will fail to appreciate the claim and reject it out of hand. Raising such a claim in state court, therefore, would not promote either the fairness or the efficiency of the state criminal justice system. It is true that finality will be disserved if the federal courts reopen a state prisoner’s case, even to review claims that were so novel when the cases were in state court that no one would have recognized them. This Court has never held, however, that finality, standing alone, provides a sufficient reason for federal courts to compromise their protection of constitutional rights under § 2254.
In addition, if we were to hold that the novelty of a constitutional question does not give rise to cause for counsel’s failure to raise it, we might actually disrupt state-court proceedings by encouraging defense counsel to include any and all remotely plausible constitutional claims that could, some day, gain recognition. Particularly disturbed by this prospect, Judge Haynsworth, writing for the Court of Appeals in this case, stated:
“If novelty were never cause, counsel on appeal would be obliged to raise and argue every conceivable constitutional claim, no matter how far fetched, in order to preserve a right for post-conviction relief upon some future, unforeseen development in the law. Appellate courts are already overburdened with meritless and frivolous cases and contentions, and an effective appellate lawyer does not dilute meritorious claims with frivolous ones. Lawyers representing appellants should be encouraged to limit their contentions on appeal at least to those which may be legitimately regarded as debatable.” 704 F. 2d, at 708.
Accordingly, we hold that where a constitutional claim is so novel that its legal basis is not reasonably available to counsel, a defendant has cause for his failure to raise the claim in accordance with applicable state procedures. We therefore turn to the question whether the Mullaney issue, which respondent Ross has raised in this action, was sufficiently novel at the time of the appeal from his conviction to excuse his attorney’s failure to raise it at that time.
C
As stated above, the Court of Appeals found that the state of the law at the time of Ross’ appeal did not offer a “reasonable basis” upon which to challenge the jury instructions on the burden of proof. 704 F. 2d, at 708. We agree and therefore conclude that Ross had cause for failing to raise the issue at that time. Although the question whether an attorney has a “reasonable basis” upon which to develop a legal theory may arise in a variety of contexts, we confine our attention to the specific situation presented here: one in which this Court has articulated a constitutional principle that had not been previously recognized but which is held to have retroactive application. In United States v. Johnson, 457 U. S. 537 (1982), we identified three situations in which a “new” constitutional rule, representing “‘a clear break with the past,’” might emerge from this Court. Id., at 549 (quoting Desist v. United States, 394 U. S. 244, 258-259 (1969)). First, a decision of this Court may explicitly overrule one of our precedents. United States v. Johnson, 457 U. S., at 551. Second, a decision may “overtur[n] a longstanding and widespread practice to which this Court has not spoken, but which a near-unanimous body of lower court authority' has expressly approved.” Ibid. And, finally, a decision may “disapproval a practice this Court arguably has sanctioned in prior cases.” Ibid. By definition, when a case falling into one of the first two categories is given retroactive application, there will almost certainly have been no reasonable basis upon which an attorney previously could have urged a state court to adopt the position that this Court has ultimately adopted. Consequently, the failure of a defendant’s attorney to have pressed such a claim before a state court is sufficiently excusable to satisfy the cause requirement. Cases falling into the third category, however, present a more difficult question. Whether an attorney had a reasonable basis for pressing a claim challenging a practice that this Court has arguably sanctioned depends on how direct this Court’s sanction of the prevailing practice had been, how well entrenched the practice was in the relevant jurisdiction at the time of defense counsel’s failure to challenge it, and how strong the available support is from sources opposing the prevailing practice.
This case is covered by the third category. At the time of Ross’ appeal, Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), was the primary authority addressing the due process constraints upon the imposition of the burden of proof on a defendant in a criminal trial. In that case, the Court held that a State may require a defendant on trial for first-degree murder to bear the burden of proving insanity beyond a reasonable doubt, despite the fact that the presence of insanity might tend to imply the absence of the mental state required to support a conviction. See id., at 806 (Frankfurter, J., dissenting). Leland thus confirmed “the long-accepted rule... that it was constitutionally permissible to provide that various affirmative defenses were to be proved by the defendant,” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 211 (1977), and arguably sanctioned the practice by which a State crafts an affirmative defense to shift to the defendant the burden of disproving an essential element of a crime. As stated above, North Carolina had consistently engaged in this practice with respect to the defenses of lack of malice and self-defense for over a century. See supra, at 5-7. Indeed, it was not until five years after Ross’ appeal that the issue first surfaced in the North Carolina courts, and even then it was rejected out of hand. State v. Sparks, 285 N. C. 631, 643-644, 207 S. E. 2d 712, 719 (1974). See also State v. Wetmore, 287 N. C. 344, 353-354, 215 S. E. 2d 51, 56-57 (1975); State v. Harris, 23 N. C. App. 77, 79, 208 S. E. 2d 266, 268 (1974).
Moreover, prior to Ross’ appeal, only one Federal Court of Appeals had held that it was unconstitutional to require a defendant to disprove an essential element of a crime for which he is charged. Stump v. Bennett, 398 F. 2d 111 (CA8 1968). Even that case, however, involved the burden of proving an alibi, which the Court of Appeals described as the “denfial of] the possibility of [the defendant’s] having committed the crime by reason of being elsewhere.” Id., at 116. The court thus contrasted the alibi defense with “an affirmative defense [which] generally applies to justification for his admitted participation in the act itself,” ibid., and distinguished Leland on that basis, 398 F. 2d, at 119. In addition, at the time of Ross’ appeal, the Superior Court of Connecticut had struck down, as violative of due process, a statute making it unlawful for an individual to possess burglary tools “without lawful excuse, the proof of which excuse shall be upon him.” State v. Nales, 28 Conn. Supp. 28, 29, 248 A. 2d 242, 243 (1968). Because these cases provided only indirect support for Ross’ claim, and because they were the only cases that would have supported Ross’ claim at all, we cannot conclude that they provided a reasonable basis upon which Ross could have realistically appealed his conviction.
In Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107 (1982), this Court reached the opposite conclusion with respect to the failure of a group of defendants to raise the Mullaney issue in 1975. That case differs from this one, however, in two crucial respects. First, the procedural defaults at issue there occurred five years after we decided Winship, which held 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.” Winship, 397 U. S., at 364. As the Court in Engle v. Isaac stated, Winship “laid the basis for [the habeas petitioners’] constitutional claim.” 456 U. S., at 131. Second, during those five years, “numerous courts agreed that the Due Process Clause requires the prosecution to bear the burden of disproving certain affirmative defenses” (footnotes omitted). See id., at 132, n. 40 (citing cases). Moreover, as evidence of the reasonableness of the legal basis for raising the Mullaney issue in 1975, Engle v. Isaac emphasized that “dozens of defendants relied upon [Winship] to challenge the constitutionality of rules requiring them to bear a burden of proof.” 456 U. S., at 131-132. None of these bases of decision relied upon in Engle v. Isaac is present in this case.
H"l hH h — I
We therefore conclude that Ross’ claim was sufficiently novel in 1969 to excuse his attorney’s failure to raise the Mullaney issue at that time. Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the Court of Appeals with respect to the question of “cause.”
It is so ordered.
As the Court in Mullaney explained, the trial court “emphasized that ‘malice aforethought and heat of passion on sudden provocation are two inconsistent things’... ; thus by proving the latter the defendant would negate the former and reduce the homicide from murder to manslaughter.” 421 U. S., at 686-687.
Title 28 U. S. C. § 2254 provides in pertinent part:
“The Supreme Court, a Justice thereof, a circuit judge, or a district court shall entertain an application for a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.”
Hankerson was convicted of second-degree murder. North Carolina law at the time of Hankerson’s trial had provided that unlawfulness was an element of the crime of second-degree murder and that self-defense negated unlawfulness. See Hankerson v. North Carolina, 432 U. S., at 238. The jury had been instructed as follows:
“ ‘If the State proves beyond a reasonable doubt or it is admitted that the defendant intentionally killed [the victim] with a deadly weapon, that proximately caused his death, the law raises two presumptions; first, that the killing was unlawful, and second, that it was done with malice....
“ ‘[I]n order to excuse his act altogether on the grounds of self-defense, the defendant must prove not beyond a reasonable doubt but simply to your satisfaction that he acted in self-defense.’” Id., at 236-237.
In addition, Ross did not contemporaneously object to the jury instructions. But under North Carolina law at the time, a contemporaneous objection at trial was not necessary to preserve for review a question involving jury instructions. State v. Gause, 227 N. C. 26, 40 S. E. 2d 463 (1946).
Under North Carolina law, exceptions to jury instructions must be made after trial if they are to be preserved for appellate review, and errors that could have been raised on appeal may not be raised for the first time in postconviction proceedings. State v. Abernathy, 36 N. C. App. 527, 244 S. E. 2d 696 (1978); State v. White, 274 N. C. 220, 162 S. E. 2d 473 (1968). See 704 F. 2d 705 (CA4 1983); Cole v. Stevenson, 620 F. 2d 1055, 1057-1059 (CA4 1980).
Respondent argues that the North Carolina procedural bar is inapplicable in this case because the North Carolina Supreme Court considered the merits of his Mullaney claim both on appeal and on postconviction review, despite his procedural default. Engle v. Isaac, 456 U. S. 107, 135, n. 44 (1982). See Brief for Respondent 2-5. With respect to the former, respondent bases his argument on the fact that the North Carolina Supreme Court stated generally that it had “examined the [jury] charge and eon-clude[d that] it is in accordance with legal requirements and is unobjectionable.” State v. Ross, 275 N. C. 550, 554, 169 S. E. 2d 875, 878 (1969). With respect to postconviction review, respondent argues that the failure of the North Carolina courts to rely explicitly on procedural grounds in summarily dismissing his petition indicates that they considered the merits of his constitutional claim. See App. to Brief for Petitioners A5, A8. Although the Court of Appeals stated that “[t]he claim of waiver is not without some support,” 704 F. 2d, at 707, it did not reach the question. Similarly, in light of our disposition of this case on the basis of respondent’s primary argument, we need not address the question.
In addition, respondent argues that the District Court erred in imposing a forfeiture, both because the North Carolina courts have been inconsistent in imposing the State’s procedural bar for the failure to raise the burden-of-proof issue before Mullaney and because North Carolina law does not require a forfeiture for every procedural default. Brief for Respondent 5-10, 41. We also need not address this issue.
The State complied with the decision of the Court of Appeals by releasing Ross, who, at that time, was on work-release in a custody status that allowed weekend home leaves.
See, e. g., Crick v. Smith, 650 F. 2d 860, 867-868 (CA6 1981); Graham v. Mabry, 645 F. 2d 603, 606-607 (CA8 1981); Boyer v. Patton, 579 F. 2d 284, 286 (CA3 1978). See also Comment, Federal Habeas Corpus Review of Unintentionally Defaulted Constitutional Claims, 130 U. Pa. L. Rev. 981, 988-989 (1982).
The situation of a defendant representing himself, see Faretta v. California, 422 U. S. 806 (1975), is not presented in this case and we express no view on the applicability of the cause-and-prejudice requirement in that context.
The term “cause” was first employed in this context in Davis v. United States, 411 U. S. 233 (1973). The petitioner in that case had been convicted in federal court. It was not until he filed a petition for postconviction relief under 28 U. S. C. § 2255 that he challenged the racial composition of the grand jury that had indicted him. Thus
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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Three cases, consolidated for hearing in the court below, raise the issue of the effect of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U. S. C. § 552, upon proceedings pending under the Renegotiation Act of 1951, c. 15, 65 Stat. 7, as amended, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1211 et seg. In particular, they concern the jurisdiction of a federal district court to enjoin the renegotiation process until an FOIA claim is resolved.
I
The three respondents, Bannercraft Clothing Company, Inc., Astro Communication Laboratory, a division of Aiken Industries, Inc., and David B. Lilly Co., Inc., successor to Delaware Fastener Corporation, all possessed national defense contracts with a “Department” of the United States, as defined in § 103 (a) of the Renegotiation Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1213 (a). These agreements, therefore, under § 102 of that Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1212, were subject to renegotiation.
A. Bannercraft. In 1966 and 1967, this respondent manufactured uniforms at a plant in Philadelphia. Its fiscal year was the calendar year. Because most of its production was subject to renegotiation, the company, for each of the two years, timely filed with the Renegotiation Board the financial statement required under § 105 (e)(1) of the Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (e)(1). Representatives of the Eastern Regional Renegotiation Board then reviewed Bannercraft’s operations and conferred with its president. On February 20, 1970, the Regional Board, by letter, advised the contractor that it was recommending that Bannercraft in 1967 had realized excessive profits in the amount of $1,400,000, subject to the usual adjustment for state taxes measured by income and for any tax credit to which the contractor was entitled under § 1481 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 1481.
Bannercraft promptly requested that it be furnished, pursuant to 32 CFR § 1477.3 (1970), with a “written summary of the facts and reasons” upon which the determination was based. It asserted, however, that “it is not possible to state [as the Regulation’s proviso required] whether all relevant evidence has been submitted since we have never had in writing the basis upon which you made this determination.” The Regional Board replied that because “the statement required by the regulation” was not submitted, “your request for a summary is defective.”
Bannercraft’s response was that it had “submitted all of the evidence which it believes to be relevant to the renegotiation proceedings,” but that this was “without prejudice to an opportunity to offer evidence on the issues disclosed by the [Regional Board's] Summary of Facts and Reasons” and that the required statement was “somewhat meaningless when we do not have a written statement of the issue upon which you have made your finding.”
On March 16, Bannercraft, pursuant to the FOIA, made a written request of the Renegotiation Board that six categories of documents be produced. No response to this request was forthcoming.
In late April, the Board, by letters, notified Banner-craft of its determinations that the contractor had realized excessive profits in the amount of $75,000 for 1966 (the same figure determined by the Regional Board) and $1,450,000 for 1967 (an increase of $50,000 over the Regional Board's determination).
Bannercraft then went to court. On May 1, it filed a complaint against the Board in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, praying that the Board be enjoined from withholding the documents requested and from conducting any further renegotiation proceedings with Bannercraft for 1966 and 1967 until the documents were produced. The Board opposed the application for temporary relief and moved to dismiss. Judge Smith issued a temporary restraining order and, thereafter, a preliminary injunction, each without opinion, and stayed further Board proceedings.
In May, the Board issued a Statement of Facts and Reasons for Bannercraft’s years 1966 and 1967. Ban-nercraft then made a further request for documents related to the factual basis for the Board’s conclusions reflected in the Statement. In July, the Board responded. It produced some documents and, with respect to others, claimed exemption under 5 U. S. C. § 552 (b) or asserted that the information sought was not covered by the Act.
On August 4, the Board moved to dissolve the preliminary injunction. It took the position that its response to Bannercraft’s requests fulfilled its obligations under the FOIA. The District Court denied the motion. The Board then appealed.
B. Astro. This respondent’s factual case is essentially the same as Bannercraft’s. The year at issue is the fiscal year ended September 30, 1967. Astro, pursuant to the FOIA, requested production by the Board of five categories of material. At a conference held on May 12, 1970, Astro was advised that the Board had made a tentative determination of excessive profits for the year in the amount of $225,000. In July, the Board denied Astro’s FOIA request.
On August 12, Astro filed its complaint against the Board in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. It prayed for relief similar to that sought by Bannercraft. Judge Pratt enjoined the Board from continuing renegotiation proceedings with Astro. The court also ordered the Board to allow Astro, within 30 days, to inspect and obtain copies of all documents requested by Astro that the Board had no objection to turning over, and to submit to the court, in camera, all documents the Board objected to producing, with a statement of reasons for each objection. The Board appealed.
C. Lilly. This respondent’s case is similar to the other two. In June 1970, Lilly and its predecessor in interest, Delaware Fastener Corporation, were advised by their renegotiator that he had made determinations of excessive profits for 1967 for Lilly in the amount of $200,000 and for Fastener in the amount of $500,000. On June 29, the two corporations asked the Board to furnish certain categories of information.
No response was immediately forthcoming from the Board. On July 9, Lilly filed its complaint against the Board in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, praying for an order compelling the Board to produce the documents demanded and restraining the Board from acting and, in particular, from requiring the contractors to elect a procedure until the documents had been produced and the contractors had been given a reasonable time to study them. Thereafter, the Board denied the request for information.
On July 31, Judge Jones issued an order temporarily restraining the Board from continuing renegotiation with Lilly and Delaware. Subsequently, the Board moved to dismiss the complaint or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. On September 1, a preliminary injunction was issued. The Board appealed.
The three appeals were consolidated and heard together in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed all three decisions. 151 U. S. App. D. C. 174, 466 F. 2d 345 (1972). It held that the District Court possessed jurisdiction under the FOIA to enjoin administrative proceedings before the Board and to order the production of appropriate documents. It concluded that, “although it is undeniably true that Congress was principally interested in opening administrative processes to the scrutiny of the press and general public” when it enacted the FOIA, “Congress was also troubled by the plight of those forced to litigate with agencies on the basis of secret laws or incomplete information.” Id., at 181, 466 F. 2d, at 352. The court then described this latter congressional concern as a “subsidiary statutory purpose,” citing excerpts from S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 7 (1965), and from H. R. Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 8 (1966), and also citing 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a)(2). See infra, at 12 n. 9. It reasoned that, despite “the fact that the Act nowhere in terms authorizes... injunctions” against agency proceedings, in enacting the statute Congress intended to confer broad equitable jurisdiction upon the district courts, and that “temporary stays of pending administrative procedures may be necessary on occasion to enforce the policy” of the FOIA. 151 U. S. App. D. C., at 181-183, 466 F. 2d, at 352-354.
The court then turned to the exhaustion-of-administrative-remedies question. It observed that there is no general rule that it is always improper for a court to interfere with pending administrative proceedings, citing McKart v. United States, 395 U. S. 185, 193 (1969). It concluded that “when the purposes of the doctrine are individually measured against the facts of these cases, it is plain that no legitimate judicial policy would be served by depriving these appellees of the relief they seek.” 151 U. S. App. D. C., at 184, 466 F. 2d, at 355. In effect, the court reasoned that contractors need exhaust only their administrative remedies under the FOIA, and not their administrative remedies under the Renegotiation Act, as a condition precedent to requesting injunctive relief against renegotiation proceedings. The court found the contractors’ remedies before the Board and de novo proceedings in the Court of Claims inadequate to prevent irreparable harm.
The dissenting judge began with the accepted proposition that federal courts have only limited jurisdiction and stated that the majority’s observation, to the effect that the “existence of present need for judicial intervention does have a bearing on both jurisdiction and exhaustion,” is “an error bordering on constitutional dimensions,” for the appellees’ need “is wholly irrelevant to determination of the jurisdiction of the District Courts in these cases.” Id., at 191, 466 F. 2d, at 362.
The dissent then turned to the principle that where a statute creates a right and provides a special remedy, that remedy is exclusive. Thus, in the FOIA, Congress gave the general public an express right of access to all Federal Government information not within the exempted categories. This right was enforceable by “the specific, narrow, remedies of an injunction against withholding agency records and an affirmative order to produce such records improperly withheld.” Ibid. The dissent concluded that no jurisdiction to grant any other remedy was conferred by Congress and that the District Court, therefore, was without jurisdiction to enjoin the proceedings before the Renegotiation Board. Nothing in the congressional reports cited by the majority justified its contrary conclusion. The dissent further concluded that there was no suggestion that Congress had any concern with litigants before the administrative agencies, and that what they were concerned with was to make information available “to any member of the public without requiring any showing of need therefor.” Id., at 192, 466 F. 2d, at 363.
The dissent also was at odds with the majority’s disposition of the exhaustion issue. It asserted that the majority seriously misconstrued the intended functioning of the Renegotiation Board’s procedures, namely, that controlled access to information concerning the Government’s position plays a significant role in the administrative process; that interruption of the administrative proceedings totally destroys the balance of negotiating strength; and that the attempt to enjoin the ongoing negotiations was really not a request for relief under the FOIA but was a challenge to the Board’s procedures themselves. Id., at 194-195, 466 F. 2d, at 365-366.
We granted certiorari, 410 U. S. 907 (1973), because of the importance of the issue of the impact of the FOIA upon long-established procedures of the Renegotiation Board.
II
Before considering the issue of the District Court’s jurisdiction to enjoin a proceeding pending in the Renegotiation Board, it is helpful to review the provisions of the FOIA and of the Renegotiation Act of 1951:
A. The FOIA. This statute, 5 U. S. C. § 552, was enacted in 1966, 80 Stat. 383, as a revision of § 3 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 1002 (1964 ed.). S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3-4 (1965); H. R, Rep. No. 1497, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., 1-6 (1966). It was amended by Pub. L. 90-23, adopted June 5, 1967, 81 Stat. 54. '
Section 552 (a) states, “Each agency shall make available to the public” certain information of enumerated categories. This covers virtually all information not specifically exempted by § 552 (b). Section 552 (a) (2) provides the sanction that a “final order, opinion, statement of policy, interpretation, or staff manual or instruction” may not be relied upon as precedent by the agency against a party unless “it has been indexed and either made available or published,” or unless a party has “actual and timely notice of the terms thereof.” Section 552 (a) (3) specifically vests the District Court with jurisdiction “to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld.” It places the burden on the agency to sustain its action; it empowers the District Court to punish the responsible employee for contempt in the event of noncompliance; and it provides that the FOIA suit generally is to take precedence on the court's docket and is to be expedited on the calendar.
B. The Renegotiation Act of 1951. This statute, 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 1211-1233, enacted shortly after the close of World War II and at the height of the Korean conflict, recites that Congress had made available “extensive funds” for the execution of the national defense program and that “sound execution” of the program requires “the elimination of excessive profits from contracts made with the United States, and from related subcontracts.” § 101, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1211. The Renegotiation Board is established as an independent agency in the Executive Branch to accomplish this objective. § 107, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1217 (a). The Board’s functions are excluded from the operation of the Administrative Procedure Act (5 U. S. C. § 551 et seq., and § 701 et seq.) except the public information section thereof (5 U. S. C. § 552). § 111, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1221.
The Board operates primarily by informal negotiation with the contractor and not by formal hearing. It is directed to “endeavor to make an agreement with the contractor... with respect to the elimination of excessive profits.” § 105 (a), 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (a). The contractor subject to the Act must file, for its fiscal year, a detailed financial statement. §105 (e)(1), 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (e)(1). On the basis of this statement an initial determination of excessive profits is made. From the date of filing of the statement, the Board has one year to commence proceedings and, with stated exceptions, the renegotiation is to be completed within two years following its commencement or “all liabilities of the contractor... for excessive profits with respect to which such proceeding was commenced shall thereupon be discharged.” § 105 (c), 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (c).
If the Board and the contractor do not agree, the Board by order determines the excessive profits. § 105 (a), 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (a). At the request of the contractor, the Board shall furnish it “with a statement of such determination, of the facts used as a basis therefor, and of its reasons for such determination.” Ibid. The contractor then may initiate a de novo proceeding in the Court of Claims, which has exclusive jurisdiction to determine the contractor’s excessive profits. § 108, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1218 (1970 ed., Supp. II). The action “shall not be treated as a proceeding to review the determination of the Board,” ibid., and the Board’s statement “shall not be used in the Court of Claims as proof of the facts or conclusions stated therein,” § 105 (a), 50 U. S. C. App. § 1215 (a) (1970 ed., Supp. II).
The renegotiation process itself is initiated by notice to the contractor and by assignment of the contractor’s report to the appropriate Regional Board. 32 CFR § 1472.2 (1972). Personnel of the Regional Board then prepare a “Report of Renegotiation” which includes a “recommendation with respect to the amount, if any, of excessive profits for the fiscal year under review.” 32 CFR § 1472.3 (d). This is only the first of several steps within the agency structure. Thereafter the statement is reviewed, successively, by a panel of the Regional Board, by the Regional Board itself, and finally by the Renegotiation Board. At each level there is consultation with the contractor, the preparation of a report and analysis, and submission to the next higher level of a recommendation as to excessive profits. 32 CFR §§ 1472.3 (d) and (f)-(i), and §§ 1472.4 (b)-(d). At each stage, the contractor is entitled to a statement of the basis for the recommendation. Each level is free to make new findings and no level is bound by the determination of the level below; the recommended settlement may decrease or increase at each level. Ibid.
Ill
It is clear, we think, that the Renegotiation Board, as an entity, is not exempt from applicable provisions of the FOIA. The Board, of course, is an “independent establishment” in the Executive Branch. § 107 (a) of the Renegotiation Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 1217 (a). But “agency” is broadly defined to mean “each authority of the Government of the United States,” except the Congress, the courts, territorial governments, the government of the District of Columbia, and, with respect to 5 U. S. C. § 552, certain other specifically described entities and functions. 5 U. S. C. §551 (1). The Renegotiation Board is not among those excepted. Further, the House Committee’s discussion of the requirement of § 552 (a)(2), that an agency’s concurring and dissenting opinions, as well as final opinions, be made available, discloses that a reason for this provision was that “a recent survey indicated that five agencies— including... the Renegotiation Board — do not make public the minority views of their members.” H. R. Rep. No; 1497, supra, at 8. Thus, despite its unique operational methods, the Board falls within the definition of “agency” in § 551 (1).
So to conclude, however, does not provide automatically the answer to the question whether the FOIA authorizes a district court to enjoin Renegotiation Board proceedings until the court determines that the contractor is or is not entitled to information it claims under the FOIA.
As to this question, the respondent contractors assert that, although the FOIA does not grant this injunctive power in express terms, the power is to be implied from the court's inherent capacity to provide appropriate equitable relief. The Board, on the other hand, emphasizes that Congress in the Act expressly authorized the court to compel the production of agency records improperly withheld, placed the burden on the agency to sustain its action, and directed precedence on the docket for suits under the Act “over all other causes” and expedition of those suits “in every way.” 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a)(3). The Board then contends that these provisions constitute the exclusive method for enforcing the disclosure requirements of the Act and that any implication of other injunctive power, at the behest of a litigant before the agency, would be inconsistent with the statutory language.
Clearly, as the Court of Appeals held, 151 U. S. App. D. C., at 181, 466 F. 2d, at 352, the Congress “was principally interested in opening administrative processes to the scrutiny of the press and general public when it passed the Information Act.” The Second Circuit has described the Act’s “ultimate purpose” as one “to enable the public to have sufficient information in order to be able, through the electoral process, to make intelligent, informed choices with respect to the nature, scope, and procedure of federal governmental activities” (footnote omitted). Frankel v. SEC, 460 F. 2d 813, 816, cert. denied, 409 U. S. 889 (1972). The Senate Report, too, expressed concern for “an informed electorate.” S. Rep. No. 813, 89th Cong., 1st Sess., 3 (1965).
The FOIA, 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a)(3), explicitly confers jurisdiction to grant injunctive relief of a described type, namely, “to enjoin the agency from withholding agency records and to order the production of any agency records improperly withheld from the complainant.” In addition, it provides a specific remedy for noncompliance.
This primary purpose of the FOIA, and this express grant of jurisdiction to enjoin in a specific way, coupled with a limited sanction, might suggest that the Act’s provision for compelled production was intended to be the exclusive enforcement method. It has been held that “where a statute creates a right and provides a special remedy, that remedy is exclusive.” United States v. Babcock, 250 U. S. 328, 331 (1919). And “Congress for reasons of its own decided upon the method for the protection of the 'right’ which it created. It selected the precise machinery and fashioned the tool which it deemed suited to that end.” Switchmen’s Union v. NMB, 320 U. S. 297, 301 (1943). See National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, 414 U. S. 453, 458 (1974). One therefore may argue, as the Board has argued here, that this is not a situation where “Congress has utilized... the broad equitable jurisdiction that inheres in courts and where the proposed exercise of that jurisdiction is consistent with the statutory language and policy, the legislative background and the public interest.” Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U. S. 395, 403 (1946).
There is significant authority, however, that points to the opposite conclusion. Porter itself, although recognizing the kind of situation to which Babcock is applicable, 328 U. S., at 403, upheld broad equitable power in the District Court under a statute authorizing the court to grant injunctive and restraining relief “or other order,” and did so, not only because of the presence of the “other order” language, but because of the “traditional equity powers of a court.” Id., at 400. Emphasis on broad equity power, even in the face of a silent statute, also appears in Mitchell v. Robert DeMario Jewelry, Inc., 361 U. S. 288, 290-291 (1960); Scripps-Howard Radio, Inc. v. FCC, 316 U. S. 4 (1942); Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658, 671 n. 22 (1963); see L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 659 (1965), and is sometimes related to the All Writs Act, 28 U. S. C. § 1651 (a). FTC v. Dean Foods Co., 384 U. S. 597, 603-604 (1966).
The broad language of the FOIA, with its obvious emphasis on disclosure and with its exemptions carefully delineated as exceptions; the truism that Congress knows how to deprive a court of broad equitable power when it chooses so to do, Scripps-Howard, supra, 316 U. S., at 17; and the fact that the Act, to a definite degree, makes the district courts the enforcement arm of the statute, 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a) (3), persuade us that the Babcock and Switchmen’s Union principle of a statutorily prescribed special and exclusive remedy is not applicable to FOIA cases. With the express vesting of equitable jurisdiction in the district court by § 552 (a), there is little to suggest, despite the Act’s primary purpose, that Congress sought to limit the inherent powers of an equity court.
IY
We find it unnecessary, however, to decide in these cases, whether, or under what circumstances, it would be proper for the District Court to exercise jurisdiction to enjoin agency action pending the resolution of an asserted FOIA claim. We hold only that in a renegotiation case the contractor is obliged to pursue its administrative remedy and, when it fails to do so, may not attain its ends through the route of judicial interference. The nature of the renegotiation process mandates this result, and, were it otherwise, the effect would be that renegotiation, and its aims, would be supplanted and defeated by an FOIA suit.
Before the adoption of the FOIA this Court consistently held that the design of the Renegotiation Act was to have renegotiation proceed expeditiously without interruption for judicial review, and that the Board’s proceedings were not to be enjoined prior to the exhaustion of the administrative process. This was the result where the proceedings were challenged on constitutional grounds, Aircraft & Diesel Equipment Corp. v. Hirsch, 331 U. S. 752 (1947); Lichter v. United States, 334 U. S. 742, 789-793 (1948), on statutory grounds, Macauley v. Waterman S. S. Corp., 327 U. S. 540 (1946), and on procedural grounds, Lichter, 334 U. S., at 791. The Court’s emphasis was on the absence of any “lawful function” on the part of the courts “to anticipate the administrative decision with their own,” Aircraft, 331 U. S., at 767; on the availability of a due process hearing in the post-administrative de novo proceeding in the Tax Court, Macauley, 327 U. S., at 543, where constitutional as well as nonconstitutional issues could be resolved, Aircraft, 331 U. S., at 769 n. 30, citing 89 Cong. Rec. 9930 (1943), and at 771; and on the Act’s provisions for expeditious settlement in informal negotiation free “from the tedious burden of litigation.” Id., at 770.
In Aircraft the Court rejected arguments substantially the same as those advanced by the respondents here, id., at 758 n. 12 (inability to participate effectively because of lack of information upon which the Board had relied, see No. 95, O. T. 1946, Tr. of R., Vol. I, p. 141), and refused to permit renegotiation to be enjoined. “To countenance short-circuiting of the Tax Court proceedings here would be, under all the circumstances but more especially in view of Congress’ policy and command with respect to those proceedings, a long overreaching of equity’s strong arm.” 331 U. S., at 781.
Reflection upon the nature of the Renegotiation Board’s process fortifies these conclusions. The character and the entire atmosphere of the process is negotiation — that is, renegotiation — of an existing contract. And negotiation is a bargaining process, with give and take, and with stress upon and use of the strengths of one’s own position and the weaknesses of the position of the other party. It is in a process such as this where the phrase "leading from strength” has been so effectively transferred in practical application from the card table to the world of commerce. It is part of the warp and woof of production. It is pure bargaining — permitted by the statute with respect to contracts already made — the same kind of bargaining that produces the union-employer agreement or the transfer of substantial property from the willing seller to the interested buyer.
We see nothing in the adoption of the FOIA in 1966 that impinges upon the settled law of the Aircraft-Lichter-Macauley cases or that warrants an exception to the principle they espouse. Nothing new by way of due process emerged with the FOIA. Nothing therein indicates that Congress wished to change the Renegotiation Act’s purposeful design of negotiation without interruption for judicial review. FOIA’s stress was on disclosure, to be sure, but it was on disclosure for the public, EPA v. Mink, 410 U. S. 73, 80 (1973), and not for the negotiating self-interested contractor. Id,., at 86; see K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 3A.4, p. 120, § 3A.29, p. 171 (Supp. 1970). And when Congress in 1971 reviewed the Renegotiation Act and substituted the Court of Claims for the Tax Court, no other significant change in the existing process was effected. See S. Rep. No. 92-245 (1971), accompanying. H. R. 8311, which became the amending statute, Pub. L. 92-41, 85 Stat. 97.
It is no answer to say, as Bannercraft and Astro urge, that Aircraft, Lichter, and Macauley relate only to issues on the merits over which Congress had vested jurisdiction in the first instance in the Board and then in the Tax Court. We read those decisions otherwise.
Seeking injunctive relief during the pendency of renegotiation encourages delay through resort to preliminary litigation over an FOIA claim. The delay is not imaginary or without ultimate consequence. The present cases provide an example of this, for each has been pending now for more than three years. The Government is foreclosed from taking action to recover excessive profits until the Board’s final order is entered; even then, interest does not begin to run until 30 days after the entry of that order. 50 U. S. C. App. §§ 1215 (b)(1) and (2). The contractor, by delay, has little to lose and much to gain.
There is no limitation or denial of the contractor’s normal litigation rights when the renegotiation process is at end. The contractor may institute its de novo proceeding in the Court of Claims, unfettered by any prejudice from the agency proceeding and free from any claim that the Board’s determination is supported by substantial evidence. There the usual rights of discovery are available. And there the parties are not bound by a prior determination made at any level of the Renegotiation Board structure. 50 U. S. C. App. § 1218. That proceeding is the judicial remedy at law provided by the Renegotiation Act and is adequate protection against injury. Note, 41 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1072, 1084 (1973). We note that a contractor does not become obligated to remit excessive profits until termination of the Court of Claims suit, if it elects that course. The injury suffered, absent an injunction, is no more than the risk of being unsuccessful in the de novo bargaining process and the incurrence of the expense incident to renegotiation. Mere litigation expense, even substantial and unrecoupable cost, does not constitute irreparable injury. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U. S. 41, 51-52 (1938); L. Jaffe, Judicial Control of Administrative Action 429 (1965). Without a clear showing of irreparable injury, see Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Assn. v. FPC, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 106, 111, 259 F. 2d 921, 926 (1958), failure to exhaust administrative remedies serves as a bar to judicial intervention in the agency process. Myers, supra; Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. NLRB, 153 U. S. App. D. C. 380, 382, 473 F. 2d 91, 93 (1972).
Interference with the agency proceeding opens the way to the use of the FOIA as a tool of discovery, see Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. NLRB, 433 F. 2d 210, 211 (CA6 1970), over and beyond that provided by the regulations issued by the Renegotiation Board for its proceedings. See 32 CFR §§ 1480.1-1480.12 (1972). Discovery for litigation purposes is not an expressly indicated purpose of the Act. Protection for the contractor in the renegotiation process is afforded through the injunctive power specifically bestowed by 5 U. S. C. § 552 (a)(3).
The Renegotiation Act and its predecessors obviously emerged from congressional awareness that, with the vastness of defense expenditure, overcharging and misappropriation of public funds by unscrupulous contractors and those fortuitously placed to perform needed work were almost inevitable. The target of the legislation was excessive profit, not the fair and reasonable one. The latter was anticipated and accepted. The line between a reasonable profit and excessive profit is not always easily ascertained or brightly lit. But the ascertainment of excessive profits was a duty vested by the Congress in the Renegotiation Board in the first instance. The Board thus is the fulcrum of a process that enables the Government initially to consult a contractor, to make a contract with it, and then to have the contract subject to modification for excessive profits, whenever they materialize, without violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The disgorging of excessive profits is not by way of a tax,.but the process is not unlike the imposition of a tax equivalent to the excessive profits. Congress’ initial placing of the contractor-initiated final proceeding in the Tax Court is indicative of the relationship.
Of course, there is uncertainty in the renegotiation process. And, of course, that uncertainty is lessened or eliminated if the contractor, like the poker player, is able to ascertain all the cards in the Board’s hand. There is risk, also, when the contractor accepts the determination of excessive profits made at any level of the renegotiation process. These risks, however, are the same risks that are inherent in the negotiation and voluntary settlement of any dispute. The one who pays possibly might pay less if he resorts to the factfinder instead of making the settlement. But he might pay more. That is the calculated risk he takes. It is the calculated risk provided for by Congress in the administrative process it prescribed in the Renegotiation Act. It is not a risk ungenerously laid upon the contractor, for it is counterbalanced by the profound interest of the public in the recapture of excessive profits that may flow to the contractor under its government contracts.
We stress, 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: | 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.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The petitioners, both of whom are lawyers, were adjudged guilty and each was fined $50 for contempt of court by the Circuit Court of the City of Hopewell, Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting petitioners’ contentions that their convictions violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 205 Va. 332, 136 S. E. 2d 809. We granted certiorari. 379 U. S. 957.
The charges against petitioners came about in this way. Petitioner Dawley represented certain defendants in a libel suit pending before Circuit Judge Holladay. The libel case was dismissed by agreement of the parties. After the dismissal Judge Holladay had the court clerk and counsel, including the petitioner Dawley, come into the judge’s chambers and there the judge asked Dawley three times if he had had anything to do with making the defendants in the libel case “unavailable to be served with subpoenas.” Dawley refused to answer and later, in court, again refused to answer. Judge Holladay then directed the Commonwealth’s Attorney to prepare an order directing Dawley to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt. Dawley thereafter filed a motion requesting Judge Holladay to disqualify himself from trying the contempt case. Judge Holladay denied this motion. Dawley then filed a motion for change of venue. Petitioner Holt appeared as counsel representing Dawley and read this motion to the judge as a part of his argument urging a change of venue. It is upon the allegations about Judge Holladay in that motion and the reading of them by Holt that the present convictions for contempt are based.
The motion for change of venue charged, among other things, that because of local prejudice Dawley could not get a fair trial in Hopewell and, crucial to this contempt conviction,
“3. That the said Judge Carlton E. Holladay, who presided as Judge in said libel suit, and who fails and refuses to disqualify himself as Judge in the pending trial of the Defendant, E. A. Dawley, Jr., has, with respect to said contempt action and is now in effect and/or in fact acting as police officer, chief prosecution witness, adverse witness for the defense, grand jury, chief prosecutor and judge.
"4. That in addition to the foregoing, said Judge Carlton E. Holladay did intimidate and harass and is intimidating and harassing the lawyer representing said E. A. Dawley, Jr., viz, Leonard W. Holt, Esq., the effect of which is to seriously hamper the efforts of said Leonard W. Holt in defending the said E. A. Dawley, Jr.; that said harassment and intimidation arises out of and is connected solely with said Leonard W. Holt’s participating in the defense of said E. A. Dawley, Jr. in the contempt action; that part of said harassment and intimidation occurred at a hearing of this contempt action in the Hopewell Circuit Court on January 8, 1962, at which hearing the said Carlton E. Holladay revealed that he had been making an independent investigation and inquiry of Mr. Holt’s conduct in this contempt defense, and said Judge at said place and time made the statement that he would ‘deal with’ said Leonard W. Holt after he, the judge, had dealt with said E. A. Dawley, Jr.”
After these charges were read to Judge Holladay by Holt, this colloquy took place:
“The Court: On the motion for change of venue, does that apply whether your client would be tried before a jury or before the Court? Does it apply in both cases?
“Mr. Holt: We say it would apply.
“The Court: Apply in both cases.
“At this time I might say that I do not see how that this Court can pass unnoticed the matters and things that have been presented to the Court by Mr. Dawley in a plea filed in the Court and presented here in Court and by Mr. Holt as his counsel and argued in court. I think that the plea is contemptuous, I think the argument is contemptuous.
“At this time both E. A. Dawley, Jr., and Leonard W. Holt are held and adjudged summarily to be in contempt of this Court.
“I will take under advisement the punishment and advise you of it during the day.
“Court will adjourn for lunch.
“Mr. Holt: Please, before the Court adjourns, may we get the specificity on the part of the Court regarding what is considered in the pleading, if anything, contemptuous? I think under the laws of the Commonwealth and United States we are in this position — that if something has been said which is contemptuous, there be elements of intent that should be present, and if the element of intent be present, and there are certain things which flow under it in terms—
“The Court: I don't think that you need any specification or bill of particulars on that. I think that you can read it, Mr. Dawley can read it, and I think it is plain to the people who are in the courtroom that the remarks are contemptuous, and you summarily have been held in contempt of Court.
“And Court stands adjourned at this time for lunch.”
Thereafter the judge denied the motion for change of venue and fined each petitioner $50.
The Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, in affirming, held that the language used in the motion violated Va. Code Ann. § 18.1-292 (1960 Repl. Vol.), which authorizes summary punishment of a person who misbehaves in the presence of the court so as to obstruct justice, or who uses “[v]ile, contemptuous or insulting language” to or about a judge in respect of his official acts. Petitioners contend that their convictions through this application of the state law to them in several respects deny due process of law guaranteed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The view we take regarding one of these contentions makes it unnecessary for us to consider the others.
It is not charged that petitioners here disobeyed any valid court order, talked loudly, acted boisterously, or attempted to prevent the judge or any other officer of the court from carrying on his court duties. Their convictions rest on nothing whatever except allegations made in motions for change of venue and disqualification of Judge Holladay because of alleged bias on his part. It is not claimed, and probably could not. seriously be claimed, that petitioners, by filing their motions, violated any duty they owed the court. Dawley had been ordered by the judge to appear to defend himself against a charge of contempt and Holt appeared as his counsel. And it is settled'that due process and the Sixth Amendment guarantee a defendant charged with contempt such as this “an opportunity to be heard in his defense — a right to his day in court— . . . and to be represented by counsel.” In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 273. See also Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335. The right to be heard must necessarily embody a right to file motions and pleadings essential to present claims and raise relevant issues. See Willner v. Committee on Character and Fitness, 373 U. S. 96, 105. And since “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process,” In re Murchison, 349 U. S. 133, 136, it necessarily follows that motions for change of venue to escape a biased tribunal raise constitutional issues both relevant and essential. Cf. Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U. S. 717, 722; Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U. S. 510. Consequently, neither Dawley nor his counsel could consistently with due process be convicted for contempt for filing these motions unless it might be thought that there is something about the language used which would justify the conviction.
As previously stated, the words used in the motions were plain English, in no way offensive in themselves, and wholly appropriate to charge bias in the community and bias of the presiding judge. The Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia considered the motion for change of venue “a vehicle to heap insults upon the court, a studied attempt to smear the judge.” 205 Va., at 338, 136 S. E. 2d, at 814. But if the charges were “insulting” it was inherent in the issue of bias raised, an issue which we have seen had to be raised, according to the charges, to escape the probability of a constitutionally unfair trial. Virginia apparently contends here that the right to present a defense is not involved in this case either (1) because the motion for change of venue was not in the proper form and not authorized by state law in such circumstances, or (2) because the charges of bias were false. As to the first argument, assuming it could have any relevance where a defendant asserts a federally guaranteed right to a fair trial, the motion for change of venue was duly filed with the clerk, and the trial court without objection set it down for hearing, specifically invited argument on it, and decided the motion on the merits, without any intimation that a motion for change of venue was not proper in these circumstances. Nor can we accept Virginia’s apparent contention that the contempt convictions should be sustained on the ground that petitioners’ charges of bias were false. The issue of truth or falsity of these charges was not heard, the trial court choosing instead to convict and sentence petitioners for having done nothing more than make the charges. Even if failure to prove their allegations of bias could under any circumstances ever be made part of the basis of a contempt charge against petitioners, these convictions cannot rest on any such unproven assumption.
Our conclusion is that these petitioners have been punished by Virginia for doing nothing more than exercising the constitutional right of an accused and his counsel in contempt cases such as this to defend against the charges made. The judgment of conviction is reversed and the cause is remanded to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
“The courts and judges may issue attachments for contempt, and punish them summarily, only in the cases following:
“(1) Misbehavior in the presence of the court, or so near thereto as to obstruct or interrupt the administration of justice; .
“(2) Violence, or threats of violence, to a judge or officer of the court, or to a juror, witness or party going to, attending or returning from the court, for or in respect of any act or proceeding had or to be had in such court;
“(3) Vile, contemptuous or insulting language addressed to or published of a judge for or in respect, of any act or proceeding had, or to be had, in such court, or like language used in his presence and intended for his hearing for or in respect of such act or proceeding;
“ (4) Misbehavior of an officer of the court in his official character;
“(5) Disobedience or resistance of an officer of the court, juror, witness or other person to any lawful process, judgment, decree or order of the court.” Va. Code Ann. § 18.1-292 (1960 Repl. Vol.).
We neither reach nor consider the questions whether the summary convictions of both Dawley and Holt were invalid because their alleged misconduct did not disturb the court’s business or threaten demoralization of its authority, cf. In re Oliver, 333 U. S. 257, 277-278, whether summary conviction of Dawley was invalid because he committed no act in open court, and whether Judge Holladay was so personally embroiled and interested in the controversy that he should not have decided the contempt issue.
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.
Per Curiam.
Appellant contends that the use of one submitter’s data, filed prior to 1970, in the consideration of another person’s application for registration of pesticides under § 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), as added by the Federal Environmental Pesticide Control Act of 1972, 86 Stat. 979, and as amended, 89 Stat. 755, 7 U. S. C. § 136a, effects a taking for private use and without compensation in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution and that the Act is to that extent invalid. A three-judge court was convened under former 28 U. S. C. § 2282 (1970 ed.) and proceeded to reject these contentions. Appellant seeks to appeal directly to this Court. Having examined the Act and the papers before us, however, we are convinced that whatever may be true with respect to data submitted after January 1, 1970, the FIFRA, as amended, does not at all address the issues of the conditions under which pre-1970 data may be used in considering another application. It neither authorizes, forbids, nor requires the existing agency practice with respect to pre-1970 data. As a legal matter, then, appellant’s attack is on agency practice, not on the statute. The three-judge court was thus improperly convened, William Jameson & Co. v. Morgenthau, 307 U. S. 171, 173-174 (1939), and this Court does not have jurisdiction to entertain a direct appeal from the judgment in such case. See 28 U. S. C. § 1253; Norton v. Mathews, 427 U. S. 524, 528-530 (1976). The appeal is accordingly dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
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: | 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 Alito
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA) restricts the circumstances under which a federal habeas court may grant relief to a state prisoner whose claim has already been “adjudicated on the merits in State court.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). Specifically, if a claim has been “adjudicated on the merits in State court,” a federal habeas court may not grant relief unless “the adjudication of the 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.” Ibid.
Because the requirements of § 2254(d) are difficult to meet, it is important whether a federal claim was “adjudicated on the merits in State court,” and this case requires us to ascertain the meaning of the adjudication-on-the-merits requirement. This issue arises when a defendant convicted in state court attempts to raise a federal claim, either on direct appeal or in a collateral state proceeding, and a state court rules against the defendant and issues an opinion that addresses some issues but does not expressly address the federal claim in question. If this defendant then raises the same claim in a federal habeas proceeding, should the federal court regard the claim as having been adjudicated on the merits by the state court and apply deference under § 2254(d)? Or may the federal court assume that the state court simply overlooked the federal claim and proceed to adjudicate the claim de novo, the course taken by the Court of Appeals in the ease at hand?
We believe that the answer to this question follows logically from our decision in Harrington v. Richter, 562 U. S. 86 (2011). In that case, we held that, when a state court issues an order that summarily rejects without discussion all the claims raised by a defendant, including a federal claim that the defendant subsequently presses in a federal habeas proceeding, the federal habeas court must presume (subject to rebuttal) that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits. We see no reason why this same rule should not apply when the state court addresses some of the claims raised by a defendant but not a claim that is later raised in a federal habeas proceeding.
Applying this rule in the present case, we hold that the federal claim at issue here (a Sixth Amendment jury trial claim) must be presumed to have been adjudicated on the merits by the California courts, that this presumption was not adequately rebutted, that the restrictive standard of review set out in § 2254(d)(2) consequently applies, and that under that standard respondent is not entitled to habeas relief. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
A
In October 1993, respondent Tara Williams took two of her friends for a drive in southern California with the objective of committing a robbery. They stopped at a liquor store in Long Beach, and while Williams waited in the getaway car, her friends stole money from the cash register and fatally shot the store’s owner. Williams then drove one of her friends away, and the other fled on foot. Williams avoided capture for five years but was ultimately apprehended and charged with first-degree murder.
At trial, Williams admitted that she had served as the getaway driver but claimed that she did not know that her friends were going to rob the liquor store at the particular time in question. Instead, she contended that the three friends had agreed only that they would “case” the store and would possibly return later that evening to rob it. The State countered that, regardless of whether Williams knew precisely when and where the robbery was to take place, she had agreed to help commit a robbery and that this was sufficient to provide the predicate for felony murder under California law.
After deliberating for about three hours, the jury foreman sent the judge two notes. The first note asked the following question:
“ Ts it legally permissible for a juror to interpret. . . the jury instructions to mean that the conspiracy should involve a plan to commit a specific robbery rather than a general plan to commit robberies in the future?’” Tr. 1247.
The second note stated:
“I wish to inform you that we have one juror who . . . has expressed an intention to disregard the law . . . and ... has expressed concern relative to the severity of the charge (first degree murder).” Id., at 1246.
The judge told the jury that the answer to the question in the first note was “no.” Id., at 1249. Then, over Williams’ objection, the judge briefly questioned the foreman outside the presence of the rest of the jury about the second note. The foreman said that he thought the judge’s answer to the first note might resolve the problem, and the judge instructed the jury to resume its deliberations.
The next morning, once again over Williams’ objection, the judge decided to inquire further about the foreman’s second note. On questioning by the judge and lawyers for both parties, the foreman testified that Juror 6 had brought up past instances of jury nullification. The foreman also expressed doubt about whether Juror 6 was willing to apply the felony-murder rule. The trial judge then ordered questioning of Juror 6, who first denied and then admitted bringing up instances of nullification. Juror 6 also testified that this was a serious case and that he would vote to convict only if he was “very convinced ... beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 1280. He later clarified that in his view “convinced beyond a reasonable doubt” and “very convinced beyond a reasonable doubt” meant the same thing. Id., at 1281. After taking testimony from the remaining jurors, who corroborated the foreman’s testimony to varying degrees, the trial judge dismissed Juror 6 for bias. With an alternate juror in place, the jury convicted Williams of first-degree murder.
B
On appeal to the California Court of Appeal, Williams argued, among other things, that the discharge of Juror 6 violated both the Sixth Amendment and the California Penal Code, which allows a California trial judge to dismiss a juror who “upon ... good cause shown to the court is found to be unable to perform his or her duty.” Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 1089 (West 2004). Although Williams’ brief challenged the questioning and dismissal of Juror 6 on both state and federal grounds, it did not clearly distinguish between these two lines of authority.
In a written opinion affirming Williams’ conviction, the California Court of Appeal devoted several pages to discussing the propriety of the trial judge’s decision to dismiss the juror. People v. Taylor, No. B137365 (Mar. 27, 2001). The court held that Juror 6 had been properly dismissed for bias and quoted this Court’s definition of “impartiality” in United States v. Wood, 299 U. S. 123, 145-146 (1936). But despite its extended discussion of Juror 6’s dismissal and the questioning that preceded it, the California Court of Appeal never expressly acknowledged that it was deciding a Sixth Amendment issue.
Williams petitioned the California Supreme Court for review, and while her petition was pending, that court decided People v. Cleveland, 25 Cal. 4th 466, 21 P. 3d 1225 (2001), which held that a trial court had abused its discretion by dismissing for failure to deliberate a juror who appeared to disagree with the rest of the jury about the evidence. The California Supreme Court granted Williams’ petition for review and remanded her case for further consideration in light of this intervening authority. People v. Taylor, No. S097387 (July 11, 2001).
On remand, the California Court of Appeal issued a revised opinion holding that the trial court had not abused its discretion by questioning the jury and dismissing Juror 6. Williams argued that Juror 6—like the holdout juror in Cleveland—was dismissed because he was uncooperative with other jurors who did not share his view of the evidence. But the California Court of Appeal disagreed, explaining that Williams’ argument “not only misstate[d] the evidence,” but also “ignore[d] the trial court’s explanation that it was discharging Juror No. 6 because he had shown himself to be biased, not because he was failing to deliberate or engaging in juror nullification.” People v. Taylor, No. B137365 (Jan. 18, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert. 105a. As in its earlier opinion, the California Court of Appeal quoted our definition of juror bias in Wood, but the court did not expressly acknowledge that Williams had invoked a federal basis for her argument. Despite that omission, however, Williams did not seek rehearing or otherwise suggest that the court had overlooked her federal claim. Instead, she filed another petition for review in the California Supreme Court, but this time that court denied relief in a one-sentence order. People v. Taylor, No. S104661 (Apr. 10, 2002), App. to Pet. for Cert. 85a.
Williams sought but failed to obtain relief through state habeas proceedings, and she then filed a federal habeas petition under 28 U. S. C. § 2254. The District Court applied AEDPA’s deferential standard of review for claims previously adjudicated on the merits and denied relief. Williams v. Mitchell, No. 03-2691 (CD Cal., May 30, 2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 57a. In so holding, the District Court adopted a Magistrate Judge’s finding that the evidence “amply supported] the trial judge’s determination that good cause existed for the discharge of Juror 6.” Williams v. Mitchell, No. 03-2691 (CD Cal., Mar. 19, 2007), id., at 70a.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. Unlike the District Court, the Ninth Circuit declined to apply the deferential standard of review contained in § 2254(d). The Ninth Circuit took this approach because it thought it “obvious” that the State Court of Appeal had “overlooked or disregarded” Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim. Williams v. Cavazos, 646 F. 3d 626, 639 (2011). The Ninth Circuit reasoned that Cleveland, the State Supreme Court decision on which the State Court of Appeal had relied, “was not a constitutional decision,” 646 F. 3d, at 640, and the Ninth Circuit attributed no significance to the state court’s citation of our decision in Wood. Reviewing Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim de novo, the Ninth Circuit applied its own precedent and held that the questioning and dismissal of Juror 6 violated the Sixth Amendment. 646 F. 3d, at 646-647. We granted the warden’s petition for a writ of certiorari, 565 U. S. 1153 (2012), in order to decide whether the Ninth Circuit erred by refusing to afford AEDPA deference to the California Court of Appeal’s decision.
II
A
As noted above, AEDPA sharply limits the circumstances in which a federal court may issue a writ of habeas corpus to a state prisoner whose claim was “adjudicated on the merits in State court proceedings.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d). In Richter, 562 U. S., at 100, we held that § 2254(d) “does not require a state court to give reasons before its decision can be deemed to have been ‘adjudicated on the merits.’” Rather, we explained, “[w]hen a federal claim has been presented to a state court and the state court has denied relief, it may be presumed that the state court adjudicated the claim on the merits in the absence of any indication or state-law procedural principles to the contrary.” Id., at 99.
Our reasoning in Richter points clearly to the answer to the question presented in the case at hand. Although Rich-. ter itself concerned a state-court order that did not address any of the defendant’s claims, we see no reason why the Richter presumption should not also apply when a state-court opinion addresses some but not all of a defendant's claims. There would be a reason for drawing a distinction between these two situations if opinions issued by state appellate courts always separately addressed every single claim that is mentioned in a defendant’s papers. If there were such a uniform practice, then federal habeas courts could assume that any unaddressed federal claim was simply overlooked.
No such assumption is warranted, however, because it is not the uniform practice of busy state courts to discuss separately every single claim to which a defendant makes even a passing reference. On the contrary, there are several situations in which state courts frequently take a different course.
First, there are circumstances in which a line of state precedent is viewed as fully incorporating a related federal constitutional right. In California, for example, the state constitutional right to be present at trial “‘is generally coextensive with’ ” the protections of the Federal Constitution. People v. Butler, 46 Cal. 4th 847, 861, 209 P. 3d 596, 606 (2009); see also, e.g., Commonwealth v. Prunty, 462 Mass. 295, 305, n. 14, 968 N. E. 2d 361, 371, n. 14 (2012) (standard for racial discrimination in juror selection “ ‘is the same under the Federal Constitution and the [Massachusetts] Declaration of Rights’ ”); State v. Krause, 817 N. W. 2d 136, 144 (Minn. 2012) (“ ‘The due process protection provided under the Minnesota Constitution is identical to the due procesfe] guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States’”); State v. Engelhardt, 280 Kan. 113, 122, 119 P. 3d 1148, 1158 (2005) (observing that a Kansas statute is “analytically and functionally identical to the requirements under the Confrontation Clause and the Due Process Clause of the federal Constitution”). In this situation, a state appellate court may regard its discussion of the state precedent as sufficient to cover a claim based on the related federal right.
Second, a state court may not regard a fleeting reference to a provision of the Federal Constitution or federal precedent as sufficient to raise a separate federal claim. Federal courts of appeals refuse to take cognizance of arguments that are made in passing without proper development. See, e. g., United States v. Cloud, 680 F. 3d 396, 409, n. 7 (CA4 2012); United States v. Mitchell, 502 F. 3d 931, 953, n. 2 (CA9 2007); United States v. Charles, 469 F. 3d 402, 408 (CA5 2006); Reynolds v. Wagner, 128 F. 3d 166, 178 (CA3 1997); Carducci v. Regan, 714 F. 2d 171, 177 (CADC 1983). State appellate courts are entitled to follow the same practice.
Third, there are instances in which a state court may simply regard a claim as too insubstantial to merit discussion. Indeed, the California Court of Appeal has expressly stated that it has no obligation to address claims that lack arguable merit. See People v. Rojas, 118 Cal. App. 3d 278, 290, 174 Cal. Rptr. 91, 93 (1981) (per curiam). That court has explained: “In an era in which there is concern that the quality of justice is being diminished by appellate backlog with its attendant delay, which in turn contributes to a lack of finality of judgment, it behooves us as an appellate court to ‘get to the heart’ of cases presented and dispose of them expeditiously.” Ibid. See also People v. Burke, 18 Cal. App. 72, 79, 122 P. 435, 439 (1912) (“The author of an opinion ... must follow his own judgment as to the degree of elaboration to be accorded to the treatment of any proposition and as to the questions which are worthy of notice at all” (emphasis added)). While it is preferable for an appellate court in a criminal case to list all of the arguments that the court recognizes as having been properly presented, see R. Aldisert, Opinion Writing 95-96 (3d ed. 2012), federal courts have no authority to impose mandatory opinion-writing standards on state courts, see Coleman v. Thompson, 501 U. S. 722, 739 (1991) (“[W]e have no power to tell state courts how they must write their opinions”). The caseloads shouldered by many state appellate courts are very heavy, and the opinions issued by these courts must be read with that factor in mind.
In sum, because it is by no means uncommon for a state court to fail to address separately a federal claim that the court has not simply overlooked, we see no sound reason for failing to apply the Richter presumption in cases like the one now before us. When a state court rejects a federal claim without expressly addressing that claim, a federal habeas court must presume that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits—but that presumption can in some limited circumstances be rebutted.
B
Not satisfied with a strong but rebuttable presumption, petitioner urges us to make the presumption irrebuttable. Specifically, petitioner contends that a state court must be regarded as having adjudicated a federal claim on the merits if the state court addressed “the substance of [an] asserted trial error.” Brief for Petitioner 27. Suppose, for example, that a defendant claimed in state court that something that occurred at trial violated both a provision of the Federal Constitution and a related provision of state law, and suppose further that the state court, in denying relief, made no reference to federal law. According to petitioner’s argument, a federal habeas court would be required to proceed on the assumption that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits.
This argument goes too far. To be sure, if the state-law rule subsumes the federal standard—that is, if it is at least as protective as the federal standard—then the federal claim may be regarded as having been adjudicated on the merits. See Early v. Packer, 537 U. S. 3, 8 (2002) (per curiam). But what if, for example, in at least some circumstances the state standard is less protective? Or what if the state standard is quite different from the federal standard, and the defendant’s papers made no effort to develop the basis for the federal claim? What if a provision of the Federal Constitution or a federal precedent was simply mentioned in passing in a footnote or was buried in a string cite? In such circumstances, the presumption that the federal claim was adjudicated on the merits may be rebutted—either by the habeas petitioner (for the purpose of showing that the claim should be considered by the federal court de novo) or by the State (for the purpose of showing that the federal claim should be regarded as procedurally defaulted). See Coleman, supra, at 739 (re-buttable presumption of no independent and adequate state ground applies so long as “it fairly appears that a state court judgment rested primarily on federal law or was interwoven with federal law”). Thus, while the Richter presumption is a strong one that may be rebutted only in unusual circumstances, it is not irrebuttable. “Per se rules should not be applied ... in situations where the generalization is incorrect as an empirical matter,” Coleman, supra, at 737, and an irre-buttable presumption that state courts never overlook federal claims would occasionally miss the mark.
The language of 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d) makes it clear that this provision applies only when a federal claim was “adjudicated on the merits in State court.” A judgment is normally said to have been rendered “on the merits” only if it was “delivered after the court . . . heard and evaluated the evidence and the parties’ substantive arguments.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1199 (9th ed. 2009) (emphasis added). And as used in this context, the word “merits” is defined as “[t]he intrinsic rights and wrongs of a case as determined by matters of substance, in distinction from matters of form.” Webster’s New International Dictionary 1540 (2d ed. 1954) (emphasis added); see also, e. g., 9 Oxford English Dictionary 634 (2d ed. 1989) {“the intrinsic ‘rights and wrongs’ of the matter, in contradistinction to extraneous points such as the competence of the tribunal or the like” (emphasis added)); Random House Dictionary of the English Language 897 (1967) (“the intrinsic right and wrong of a matter, as a law case, unobscured by procedural details, technicalities, personal feelings, etc.” (emphasis added)). If a federal claim is rejected as a result of sheer inadvertence, it has not been evaluated based on the intrinsic right and wrong of the matter. Justice Scalia is surely correct that such claims have been adjudicated and present federal questions we may review, post, at 309 (opinion eoncuring in judgment), but it does not follow that they have been adjudicated “on the merits.” By having us nevertheless apply AEDPA’s deferential standard of review in such cases, petitioner’s argument would improperly excise § 2254(d)’s on-the-merits requirement.
Nor does petitioner’s preferred approach follow inexorably from AEDPA’s deferential architecture. Even while leaving “primary responsibility” for adjudicating federal claims to the States, Woodford v. Visciotti, 537 U. S. 19, 27 (2002) (per curiam), AEDPA permits de novo review in those rare cases when a state court decides a federal claim in a way that is “contrary to” clearly established Supreme Court precedent, see Panetti v. Quarterman, 551 U. S. 930, 953 (2007). When the evidence leads very clearly to the conclusion that a federal claim was inadvertently overlooked in state court, § 2254(d) entitles the prisoner to an unencumbered opportunity to make his case before a federal judge.
We are not persuaded that applying a rebuttable presumption in this context will be unduly burdensome for federal courts. Before Richter, every Court of Appeals to consider the issue allowed a prisoner to argue that a state court had overlooked his federal claim. That approach did not prompt an unmanageable flood of litigation, and we see no reason to fear that it will do so now.
HH H-i
Applying the presumption of merits adjudication to the facts of this case, we hold that the Ninth Circuit erred by finding that the California Court of Appeal overlooked Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim. Several facts make this conclusion inescapable.
Most important is the state court’s discussion of Cleveland, 25 Cal. 4th 466, 21 P. 3d 1225, a California Supreme Court decision on which the Court of Appeal solicited briefing. Cleveland held that a California trial court, “if put on notice that a juror is not participating in deliberations,” may “conduct 'whatever inquiry is reasonably necessary to determine’ whether such grounds exist and ... discharge the juror if it appears as a ‘demonstrable reality’ that the juror is unable or unwilling to deliberate.” Id., at 484, 21 P. 3d, at 1237 (citations omitted). The Cleveland court acknowledged “[t]he need to protect the sanctity of jury deliberations,” id., at 476, 21 P. 3d, at 1231, and included a lengthy discussion of three Federal Court of Appeals cases that it said had “considered these issues in depth,” id., at 480-484, 21 P. 3d, at 1234-1237. Those three cases—United States v. Symington, 195 F. 3d 1080 (CA9 1999), United States v. Thomas, 116 F. 3d 606 (CA2 1997), and United States v. Brown, 823 F. 2d 591 (CADC 1987)—concern the discharge of holdout jurors in federal court. Each case discusses the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and concludes that a trial court should not inquire further if it appears that there is “ ‘any reasonable possibility that the impetus for a juror’s dismissal stems from the juror’s views on the merits of the case.’ ” Cleveland, supra, at 484, 21 P. 3d, at 1237 (quoting Symington, supra, at 1087); see also Thomas, supra, at 621-622; Brown, supra, at 596. Though the Cleveland court found much to praise in these decisions, it expressly declined to follow them on this point. 25 Cal. 4th, at 483-484, 21 P. 3d, at 1236-1237.
Cleveland did not expressly purport to decide a federal constitutional question, but its discussion of Symington, Thomas, and Brown shows that the California Supreme Court understood itself to be, deciding a question with federal constitutional dimensions. See 25 Cal. 4th, at 487, 21 P. 3d, at 1239 (Werdegar, J., concurring) (emphasizing importance of careful appellate review in juror discharge cases in light of the “constitutional dimension to the problem”). Indeed, it is difficult to imagine the California Supreme Court announcing an interpretation of Cal. Penal Code Ann. § 1089 that it believed to be less protective than the Sixth Amendment, as any such interpretation would provide no guidance to state trial judges bound to follow both state and federal law.
The Ninth Circuit’s conclusion to the contrary rested on the fact that Cleveland refused to follow Symington, Brown, and Thomas. 646 F. 3d, at 640. But the views of the federal courts of appeals do not bind the California Supreme Court when it decides a federal constitutional question, and disagreeing with the lower federal courts is not the same as ignoring federal law. The Ninth Circuit’s apparent assumption that the California Supreme Court could not refuse to follow federal court of appeals precedent without disregarding the Federal Constitution would undo §2254(d)’s “contrary to” provision, which requires deference unless a state court fails to follow Supreme Court precedent. 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(1).
Regardless of whether a California court would consider Williams’ § 1089 and Sixth Amendment claims to be perfectly coextensive, the fact that these claims are so similar makes it unlikely that the California Court of Appeal decided one while overlooking the other. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any panel of appellate judges reading Cleveland and passing on the propriety of dismissing a holdout juror under § 1089 without realizing that such situations also bear on the federal constitutional right to a fair trial. The California Court of Appeal’s quotation of our definition of “impartiality” from Wood, 299 U. S., at 145-146, points to the same conclusion, confirming that the state court was well aware that the questioning and dismissal of Juror 6 implicated both state and federal law.
Williams’ litigation strategy supports the same result. Throughout her state proceedings, Williams treated her state and federal claims as interchangeable, and it is hardly surprising that the state courts did so as well. See Brief for Appellant in No. B137365 (Cal. App.), App. 29 (citing § 1089 precedent and concluding that Williams “was accordingly denied her Sixth Amendment right to a unanimous jury”). After the California Court of Appeal rendered its decision, Williams neither petitioned that court for rehearing nor argued in the subsequent state and federal proceedings that the state court had failed to adjudicate her Sixth Amendment claim on the merits. The possibility that the California Court of Appeal had simply overlooked Williams’ Sixth Amendment claim apparently did not occur to anyone until that issue was raised by two judges during the oral argument in the Ninth Circuit. See 646 F. 3d, at 638, n. 7. Williams presumably knows her case better than anyone else, and the fact that she does not appear to have thought that there was an oversight makes such a mistake most improbable.
We think it exceedingly unlikely that the California Court of Appeal overlooked Williams’ federal claim, and the Ninth Circuit’s judgment to the contrary is reversed. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Consistent with our decision in Ylst v. Nunnemaker, 501 U. S. 797, 806 (1991), the Ninth Circuit “lookfed] through” the California Supreme Court's summary denial of Williams’ petition for review and examined the California Court of Appeal’s opinion, the last reasoned state-court decision to address Juror 6’s dismissal. Williams v. Cavazos, 646 F. 3d 626, 635 (2011).
See, e. g., Judicial Council of California, 2011 Court Statistics Report, Statewide Caseload Trends, 2000-2001 Through 2009-2010, p. 15 (observing that in fiscal year 2009-2010, the 105-judge California Court of Appeal produced opinions in 10,270 cases), online at http://www.courts.ca.gov/ documents/201 lCourtStatisticsReport.pdf (all Internet materials as visited Jan. 24, 2013, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file); In re Certification of Need for Additional Judges, 105 So. 3d 1271 (Fla. 2012) (per curiam) (in fiscal year 2011-2012, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal received appeals in 6,834 eases); Supreme Court of Ohio, 2011 Ohio Courts Statistical Report, p. 14 (observing that in 2011 the State’s 69 intermediate appellate judges rendered decisions in 7,129 cases), online at http://www.supremecourt.ohio.gov/publications/annrep/110CS/20110CS.pdf; Court Statistics Project, Examining the Work of State Courts: An Analysis of 2010 State Court Caseloads 40 (2012) (noting that in 2010 state appellate courts received appeals in over 270,000 eases).
For example, when a defendant does so little to raise his claim that he fails to “'fairly present’” it in “each appropriate state court,” Baldwin v. Reese, 541 U. S. 27, 29 (2004), the Richter presumption is fully rebutted.
See, e.g., Lyell v. Renico, 470 F. 3d 1177, 1181-1182 (CA6 2006); Billings v. Polk, 441 F. 3d 238, 252 (CA4 2006); Espy v. Massac, 443 F. 3d 1362, 1364-1365, and n. 2 (CA11 2006); Brown v. Luebbers, 371 F. 3d 458, 460-461 (CA8 2004) (en banc); Chadwick v. Janecka, 312 F. 3d 597, 606 (CA3 2002); Norde v. Keane, 294 F. 3d 401, 410 (CA2 2002); Duckett v. Mullin, 306 F. 3d 982, 990 (CA10 2002); Fortini v. Murphy, 257 F. 3d 39, 47 (CA1 2001).
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 Fortas
delivered the opinion of the Court. I
I.
Petitioner isservinga life sentence in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. In February 1965 he was transferred to the maximum security building in the prison for violation of a prison regulation which provides:
“No inmate will advise, assist or otherwise contract to aid another, either with or without a fee, to prepare Writs or other legal matters. It is not intended that an innocent man be punished. When a man believes he is unlawfully held or illegally convicted, he should prepare a brief or state his complaint in letter form and address it to his lawyer or a judge. A formal Writ is not necessary to receive a hearing. False charges or untrue complaints may be punished. Inmates are forbidden to set themselves up as practitioners for the purpose of promoting a business of writing Writs.”
In July 1965 petitioner filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee a “motion for law books and a typewriter,” in which he sought relief from his confinement in the maximum security building. The District Court treated this motion as a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and, after a hearing, ordered him released from disciplinary confinement and restored to the status of an ordinary prisoner. The District Court held that the regulation was void because it in effect barred illiterate prisoners from access to federal habeas corpus and conflicted with 28 U. S. C. § 2242. 252 F. Supp. 783.
By the time the District Court order was entered, petitioner had been transferred from the maximum security building, but he had been put in a disciplinary cell block in which he was entitled to fewer privileges than were given ordinary prisoners. Only when he promised to refrain from assistance to other inmates was he restored to regular prison conditions and privileges. At a second hearing, held in March 1966, the District Court explored these issues concerning the compliance of the prison officials with its initial order. After the hearing, it reaffirmed its earlier order.
The State appealed. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, concluding that the regulation did not unlawfully conflict with the federal right of habeas corpus. According to the Sixth Circuit, the interest of the State in preserving prison discipline and in limiting the practice of law to licensed attorneys justified whatever burden the regulation might place on access to federal habeas corpus. 382 F. 2d 353.
II.
This Court has constantly emphasized the fundamental importance of the writ of habeas corpus in our constitutional scheme, and the Congress has demonstrated its solicitude for the vigor of the Great Writ. The Court has steadfastly insisted that “there is no higher duty than to maintain it unimpaired.” Bowen v. Johnston, 306 U. S. 19, 26 (1939).
Since the basic purpose of the writ is to enable those unlawfully incarcerated to obtain their freedom, it is fundamental that access of prisoners to the courts for the purpose of presenting their complaints may not be denied or obstructed. For example, the Court has held that a State may not validly make the writ available only to prisoners who could pay a $4 filing fee. Smith v. Bennett, 366 U. S. 708 (1961). And it has insisted that, for the indigent as well as for the affluent prisoner, post-conviction proceedings must be more than a formality. For instance, the State is obligated to furnish prisoners not otherwise able to obtain it, with a transcript or equivalent recordation of prior habeas corpus hearings for use in further proceedings. Long v. District Court, 385 U. S. 192 (1966). Cf. Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U. S. 12 (1956).
Tennessee urges, however, that the contested regulation in this case is justified as a part of the State’s disciplinary administration of the prisons. There is no doubt that discipline and administration of state detention facilities are state functions. They are subject to federal authority only where paramount federal constitutional or statutory rights supervene. It is clear, however, that in instances where state regulations applicable to inmates of prison facilities conflict with such rights, the regulations may be invalidated.
For example, in Lee v. Washington, 390 U. S. 333 (1968), the practice of racial segregation of prisoners was justified by the State as necessary to maintain good order and discipline. We held, however, that the practice was constitutionally prohibited, although we were careful to point out that the order of the District Court, which we affirmed, made allowance for “the necessities of prison security and discipline.” Id., at 334. And in Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546 (1941), this Court invalidated a state regulation which required that habeas corpus petitions first be submitted to prison authorities and then approved by the “legal investigator” to the parole board as “properly drawn” before being transmitted to the court. Here again, the State urged that the requirement was necessary to maintain prison discipline. But this Court held that the regulation violated the principle that “the state and its officers may not abridge or impair petitioner’s right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus.” 312 U. S., at 549. Cf. Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U. S. 255, 257 (1942).
There can be no doubt that Tennessee could not constitutionally adopt and enforce a rule forbidding illiterate or poorly educated prisoners to file habeas corpus petitions. Here Tennessee has adopted a rule which, in the absence of any other source of assistance for such prisoners, effectively does just that. The District Court concluded that “[f]or all practical purposes, if such prisoners cannpt have the assistance of a 'jail-house lawyer,’ their possibly valid constitutional claims will never be heard in any court.” 252 F. Supp., at 784. The record supports this conclusion.
Jails and penitentiaries include among their inmates a high percentage of persons who are totally or functionally illiterate, whose educational attainments are slight, and whose intelligence is limited. This appears to be equally true of Tennessee’s prison facilities.
In most federal courts, it is the practice to appoint counsel in post-conviction proceedings only after a petition for post-conviction relief passes initial judicial evaluation and the court has determined that issues are presented calling for an evidentiary hearing. E. g., Taylor v. Pegelow, 335 F. 2d 147 (C. A. 4th Cir. 1964); United States ex rel. Marshall v. Wilkins, 338 F. 2d 404 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1964). See 28 U. S. C. § 1915 (d); R. Sokol, A Handbook of Federal Habeas Corpus 71-73 (1965).
It has not been held that there is any general obligation of the courts, state or federal, to appoint counsel for prisoners who indicate, without more, that they wish to seek post-conviction relief. See, e. g., Barker v. Ohio, 330 F. 2d 594 (C. A. 6th Cir. 1964). Accordingly, the initial burden of presenting a claim to post-conviction relief usually rests upon the indigent prisoner himself with such help as he can obtain within the prison walls or the prison system. In the case of all except those who are able to help themselves — usually a few old hands or exceptionally gifted prisoners — the prisoner is, in effect, denied access to the courts unless such help is available.
It is indisputable that prison “writ writers” like petitioner are sometimes a menace to prison discipline and that their petitions are often so unskillful as to be a burden on the courts which receive them. But, as this Court held in Ex parte Hull, supra, in declaring invalid a state prison regulation which required that prisoners’ legal pleadings be screened by state officials:
“The considerations that prompted [the regulation’s] formulation are not without merit, but the state and its officers may not abridge or impair petitioner’s right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus.” 312 U. S., at 549.
Tennessee does not provide an available alternative to the assistance provided by other inmates. The warden of the prison in which petitioner was confined stated that the prison provided free notarization of prisoners’ petitions. That obviously meets only a formal requirement. He also indicated that he sometimes allowed prisoners to examine the listing of attorneys in the Nashville telephone directory so they could select one to write to in an effort to interest him in taking the case, and that “on several occasions” he had contacted the public defender at the request of an inmate. There is no contention, however, that there is any regular system of assistance by public defenders. In its brief the State contends that “[t]here is absolutely no reason to believe that prison officials would fail to notify the court should an inmate advise them of a complete inability, either mental or physical, to prepare a habeas application on his own behalf,” but there is no contention that they have in fact ever done so.
This is obviously far short of the showing required to demonstrate that, in depriving prisoners of the assistance of fellow inmates, Tennessee has not, in substance, deprived those unable themselves, with reasonable adequacy, to prepare their petitions, of access to the constitutionally and statutorily protected availability of the writ of habeas corpus. By contrast, in several States, the public defender system supplies trained attorneys, paid from public funds, who are available to consult with prisoners regarding their habeas corpus petitions. At least one State employs senior law students to interview and advise inmates in state prisons. Another State has a voluntary program whereby members of the local bar association make periodic visits to the prison to consult with prisoners concerning their cases. We express no judgment concerning these plans, but their existence indicates that techniques are available to provide alternatives if the State elects to prohibit mutual assistance among inmates.
Even in the absence of such alternatives, the State may impose reasonable restrictions and restraints upon the acknowledged propensity of prisoners to abuse both the giving and the seeking of assistance in the preparation of applications for relief: for example, by limitations on the time and location of such activities and the imposition of punishment for the giving or receipt of consideration in connection with such activities. Cf. Hatfield v. Bailleaux, 290 F. 2d 632 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1961) (sustaining as reasonable regulations on the time and location of prisoner work on their own petitions). But unless and until the State provides some reasonable alternative to assist inmates in the preparation of petitions for post-conviction relief, it may not validly enforce a regulation such as that here in issue, barring inmates from furnishing such assistance to other prisoners.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
28 U. S. C. §2242 provides in part: “Application for a writ of habeas corpus shall be in writing signed and verified by the person for whose relief it is intended or by someone acting in his behalf.”
E. g., Fay v. Noia, 372 U. S. 391 (1963).
28 U. S. C. §§ 2241-2255.
See Note, Constitutional Law: Prison “No-Assistance” Regulations and the Jailhouse Lawyer, 1968 Duke L. J. 343, 347-348, 360-361.
Tennessee Department of Correction, Departmental Report: Fiscal Years 1965-1966, 1966-1967.
Tennessee’s post-conviction procedure provides for appointment of counsel “if necessary.” Tenn. Code Ann. §§40-3821, 40-2019 (Supp. 1967).
See, e. g., Speetor, A Prison Librarian Looks at Writ-Writing, 56 Calif. L. Rev. 365 (1968).
Note, supra, n. 4, at 349, n. 27, and 359. See also Rossmoore & Koenigsberg, Habeas Corpus and the Indigent Prisoner, 11 Rutgers L. Rev. 611, 619-622 (1957).
At the time of the second hearing in petitioner’s case, the warden testified, the State was considering setting up a program under which senior law students from Vanderbilt Law School would assist prisoners in the preparation of post-conviction relief applications. For whatever it may be worth, petitioner testified that he would stop helping other inmates if such a system were in existence.
One State has designated an inmate as the oficial prison writ-writer. See Note, supra, n. 4, at 359.
In reversing the District Court, the Court of Appeals relied on the power of the State to restrict the practice of law to licensed attorneys as a source of authority for the prison regulation. The power of the States to control the practice of law cannot be exercised so as to abrogate federally protected rights. NAACP v. Button, 371 U. S. 415 (1963); Sperry v. Florida, 373 U. S. 379 (1963). In any event, the type of activity involved here — preparation of petitions for post-conviction relief — though historically and traditionally one which may benefit from the sendees of a trained and dedicated lawyer, is a function often, perhaps generally, performed by laymen. Title 28 U. S. C. § 2242 apparently contemplates that in many situations petitions for federal habeas corpus relief will be prepared by laymen.
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.
In this case we decide whether a regulation of the Department of Veterans Affairs, 38 CFR § 3.358(c)(3) (1993), requiring a claimant for certain veterans’ benefits to prove that disability resulted from negligent treatment by the VA or an accident occurring during treatment, is consistent with the controlling statute, 38 U. S. C. § 1151 (1988 ed., Supp. V). We hold that it is not.
I
Fred R Gardner, a veteran of the Korean conflict, received surgical treatment in a VA facility for a herniated disc unrelated to his prior military service. Gardner then had pain and weakness in his left calf, ankle, and foot, which he alleged was the result of the surgery. He claimed disability benefits under § 1151, which provides that the VA will compensate for “an injury, or an aggravation of an injury,” that occurs “as the result of hospitalization, medical or surgical treatment, or the pursuit of a course of vocational rehabilitation” provided under any of the laws administered by the VA, so long as the injury was “not the result of such veteran’s own willful misconduct. . . .” The VA and the Board of Veterans’ Appeals denied Gardner’s claim for benefits, on the ground that § 1151, as interpreted by 38 CFR § 3.358(c)(3) (1993), only covers an injury if it “proximately resulted [from] carelessness, negligence, lack of proper skill, error in judgment, or similar instances of indicated fault” on the part of the VA, or from the occurrence during treatment or rehabilitation of an “accident,” defined as an “unforeseen, untoward” event. The Court of Veterans Appeals reversed, holding that § 1151 neither imposes, nor authorizes adoption of the fault-or-accident requirement set out in § 3.358(c)(3), Gardner v. Derwinski, 1 Vet. App. 584 (1991), and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed, 5 F. 3d 1456 (1993). We granted certiorari, 511 U. S. 1017, and now affirm.
II
Despite the absence from the statutory language of so much as a word about fault on the part of the VA, the Government proposes two interpretations in attempting to reveal a fault requirement implicit in the text of § 1151, the first being that fault inheres in the concept of compensable “injury.” We think that no such inference can be drawn in this instance, however. Even though “injury” can of course carry a fault connotation, see Webster’s New International Dictionary 1280 (2d ed. 1957) (an “actionable wrong”), it just as certainly need not do so, see ibid. (“[d]amage or hurt done to or suffered by a person or thing”). The most, then, that the Government could claim on the basis of this term is the existence of an ambiguity to be resolved in favor of a fault requirement (assuming that such a resolution would be possible after applying the rule that interpretive doubt is to be resolved in the veteran’s favor, see King v. St. Vincent's Hospital, 502 U. S. 215, 220-221, n. 9 (1991)). But the Government cannot plausibly make even this claim here. Ambiguity is a creature not of definitional possibilities but of statutory context, see id., at 221 (“[T]he meaning of statutory language, plain or not, depends on context”), and this context negates a fault reading. Section 1151 provides com-pensability not only for an “injury,” but for an “aggravation of an injury” as well. “Injury” as used in this latter phrase refers to a condition prior to the treatment in question, and hence cannot carry with it any suggestion of fault attributable to the VA in causing it. Since there is a presumption that a given term is used to mean the same thing throughout a statute, Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U. S. 427, 433 (1932), a presumption surely at its most vigorous when a term is repeated within a given sentence, it is virtually impossible to read “injury” as laden with fault in the sentence quoted.
Textual cross-reference confirms this conclusion. “Injury” is employed elsewhere in the veterans’ benefits statutes as an instance of the neutral term “disability,” appearing within a series whose other terms exemplify debility free from any fault connotation. See 38 U. S. C. § 1701(1) (1988 ed., Supp. V) (“The term ‘disability’ means a disease, injury, or other physical or mental defect”). The serial treatment thus indicates that the same fault-free sense should be attributed to the term “injury” itself. Jarecki v. G. D. Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961) (“[A] word is known by the company it keeps”). Moreover, in analogous statutes dealing with service-connected injuries the term “injury” is again , used without any suggestion of fault, as the administrative regulation applicable to these statutes confirms by its failure to impose any fault requirement. Compare 38 U. S. C. § 1110 (1988 ed., Supp. V) (“disability resulting from personal injury suffered or disease contracted in line of duty, or for aggravation of a preexisting injury suffered or disease contracted in line of duty, . . . during a period of war,” is compensable) and 38 U. S. C. § 1131 (1988 ed., Supp. V) (“dis-. ability resulting from personal injury suffered or disease contracted in line of duty, of for aggravation of a preexisting injury suffered or disease contracted in line of duty,... during other than a period of war,” is compensable) with 38 CFR § 3.310(a) (1993) (“Disability which is proximately due to or the result of a service-connected disease or injury shall be service connected. When service connection is thus established for a secondary condition, the secondary condition shall be considered a part of the original condition”).
In a second attempt to impose a VA-fault requirement, the Government suggests that the “as a result of” language of § 1151 signifies a proximate cause requirement that incorporates a fault test. Once again, we find the suggestion implausible. This language is naturally read simply to impose the requirement of a causal connection between the “injury” or “aggravation of an injury” and “hospitalization, medical or surgical treatment, or the pursuit of a course of vocational rehabilitation.” Assuming that the connection is limited to proximate causation so as to narrow the class of compensable cases, that narrowing occurs by eliminating remote consequences, not by requiring a demonstration of fault. See generally W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Pros-ser and Keeton on Law of Torts §42 (5th ed. 1984). The eccentricity of reading a fault requirement into the “result of” language is underscored by the incongruity of applying it to the fourth category for which compensation is available under § 1151, cases of injury resulting from a veteran’s “pursuit of vocational rehabilitation.” If Congress had meant to require a showing of VA fault, it would have been odd to refer to “the pursuit [by the veteran] of vocational rehabilitation” rather than to “the provision [by the VA] of vocational rehabilitation.”
The poor fit of this language with any implicit requirement of VA fault is made all the more obvious by the statute’s express treatment of a claimant’s fault. The same sentence of §1151 that contains the terms “injury” and “as a result of” restricts compensation to those whose additional disability was not the result of their “own willful misconduct.” This reference to claimant’s fault in a statute keeping silent about any fault on the VA’s part invokes the rule that “[w]here Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion.” Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). Without some mention of the VA’s fault, it would be unreasonable to read the text of § 1151 as imposing a burden of demonstrating it upon seeking compensation for a further disability.
In sum, the text and reasonable inferences from it give a clear answer against the Government, and that, as we have said, is “‘the end of the matter.’” Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, 508 U. S. 402, 409 (1993) (quoting Chevron U S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837, 842 (1984)). Thus this clear textually grounded conclusion in Gardner’s favor is fatal to the remaining principal arguments advanced against it.
The Government contends that Congress ratified the VA’s practice of requiring a showing of fault when it reenacted the predecessor of § 1151 in 1934, or, alternatively, that Congress’s legislative silence as to the VA’s regulatory practice over the last 60 years serves as an implicit endorsement of its fault-based policy. There is an obvious trump to the reenactment argument, however, in the rule that “[w]here the law is plain, subsequent reenactment does not constitute an adoption of a previous administrative construction.” Demarest v. Manspeaker, 498 U. S. 184, 190 (1991). See also Massachusetts Trustees of Eastern Gas & Fuel Associates v. United States, 377 U. S. 235, 241-242 (1964) (congressional reenactment has no interpretive effect where regulations clearly contradict requirements of statute). But even without this sensible rule, the reenactment would not carry the day. Setting aside the disputed question whether the VA used a fault rule in 1934, the record of congressional discussion preceding reenactment makes no reference to the VA regulation, and there is no other evidence to suggest that Congress was even aware of the VA’s interpretive position. “In such circumstances we consider the . . . re-enactment to be without significance.” United States v. Calamaro, 354 U. S. 351, 359 (1957).
Congress’s post-1934 legislative silence on the VA’s fault approach to § 1151 is likewise unavailing to the Government. As we have recently made clear, congressional silence “ ‘lacks persuasive significance,’ ” Central Bank of Denver, N. A. v. First Interstate Bank of Denver, N. A., 511 U. S. 164, 187 (1994) (quoting Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation v. LTV Corp., 496 U. S. 633, 650 (1990)), particularly where administrative regulations are inconsistent with the controlling statute, see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 175, n. 1 (1989) (“Congressional inaction cannot amend a duly enacted statute”). See also Zuber v. Allen, 396 U. S. 168, 185-186, n. 21 (1969) (“The verdict of quiescent years cannot be invoked to baptize a statutory gloss that is otherwise impermissible. . . . Congressional inaction frequently betokens unawareness, preoccupation, or paralysis”).
Finally, we dispose of the Government’s argument that the VA’s regulatory interpretation of § 1151 deserves judicial deference due to its undisturbed endurance for 60 years. A regulation’s age is no antidote to clear inconsistency with a statute, and the fact, again, that § 3.358(c)(3) flies against the plain language of the statutory text exempts courts from any obligation to defer to it. Dole v. Steelworkers, 494 U. S. 26, 42-43 (1990); Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., supra, at 842-843. But even if this were a close case, where consistent application and age can enhance the force of administrative interpretation, see Zenith Radio Corp. v. United States, 437 U. S. 443, 450 (1978), the Government’s position would suffer from the further factual embarrassment that Congress established no judicial review for VA decisions until 1988, only then removing the VA from what one congressional Report spoke of as the agency’s “splendid isolation.” H. R. Rep. No. 100-963, pt. 1, p. 10 (1988). As the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit aptly stated: “Many VA regulations have aged nicely simply because Congress took so long to provide for judicial review. The length of such regulations’ unscrutinized and unscrutinizable existence” could not alone, therefore, enhance any claim to deference. 5 F. 3d, at 1463-1464.
Ill
Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Section 1151 is invoked typically to provide benefits to veterans for nonservice related disabilities, although it is not so limited by its terms. See Pet. for Cert. 6, n. 3. The statute’s history begins in 1924 when Congress enacted § 213 of the World War Veterans’ Act, 1924, ch. 320, 43 Stat. 623. Section 213 was repealed in 1933, as part of the Economy Act of 1933, ch. 3, Tit. I, § 17, 48 Stat. 11-12, and reenacted in nearly the same form in 1934, Act of Mar. 28, 1934, ch. 102, Tit. Ill, §31, 48 Stat. 526.
“Fault” is shorthand for fault-or-accident, the test imposed by the regulation. Section 3.358(c)(3) leaves the additional burden imposed by the “accident” requirement unclear, defining the term to mean simply an “unforeseen, untoward” event. Although the appropriate scope of the “accident” requirement is not before us, on one plausible reading of the regulation some burden additional to the statutory obligation would be imposed as an alternative to fault.
We do not, of course, intend to east any doubt on the regulations insofar as they exclude coverage for incidents of a disease’s or injury’s natural progression, occurring after the date of treatment. See 38 CFR § 3.358(b)(2) (1993). VA action is not the cause of the disability in these situations. Nor do we intend to exclude application of the doctrine volenti non fit injuria. See generally M. Bigelow, Law of Torts 39-43 (8th ed. 1907). It would be unreasonable, for example, to believe that Congress intended to compensate veterans for the necessary consequences of treatment to which they consented (i. e., compensating a veteran who consents to the amputation of a gangrenous limb for the loss of the limb).
At the time of the 1934 reenactment, the regulation in effect precluded compensation for the “ ‘usual after[-]results of approved medical care and treatment properly administered.’” See Brief for Respondent 31.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
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Mr. Justice Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The three petitioners were convicted on Count 1 of an indictment brought under 18 U. S. C. § 371 for conspiracy to defraud the United States with reference to certain tax matters. Petitioner Halperin was also convicted on Counts 5, 6, and 7 of the same indictment, charging him with violating 18 U. S. C. § 1503 by endeavoring corruptly to influence certain witnesses before a grand jury which was investigating matters involved in the conspiracy charged in Count 1 of the indictment. Each petitioner was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and fined under Count 1. On each of Counts 5, 6, and 7, Halperin was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of $1,000, the prison sentences on these Counts and that on Count 1 to run concurrently. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, with the late Judge Frank dissenting. 233 F. 2d 556. We granted certiorari, 352 U. S. 866, in order to resolve important questions relating to (a) the statute of limitations in conspiracy prosecutions, as to which the decision below was alleged to be in conflict with this Court’s decisions in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440, and Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S. 604; and (b) the use on Halperin’s cross-examination of his prior claim of the Eifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination before a grand jury. For the reasons discussed hereafter, we conclude that these convictions must be reversed, and the petitioners granted a new trial.
On October 25, 1954, a grand jury returned an indictment, Count 1 of which charged petitioners and others with conspiring among themselves and with others “to defraud the United States in the exercise of its governmental functions of administering the internal revenue laws and of detecting and prosecuting violations of the internal revenue laws free from bribery, unlawful impairment, obstruction, improper influence, dishonesty, fraud and corruption....” The indictment further charged that a part of the conspiracy was an agreement to conceal the acts of the conspirators. Overt acts within three years of the date of the indictment were charged. Counts 5, 6, and 7 of the indictment charged petitioners with violating 18 U. S. C. §.1503 in the manner already indicated.
The proofs at the trial presented a sordid picture of a ring engaged in the business of “fixing” tax fraud cases by the use of bribes and improper influence. In general outline, the petitioners’ scheme, which is set forth in more detail in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, was as follows:
In 1947 and 1948 two New York business firms, Patullo Modes and Gotham Beef Co., were under investigation by the Bureau of Internal Revenue for suspected fraudulent tax evasion. Through intermediaries, both firms established contact with Halperin, a New York attorney, and his associates in law practice. Halperin in turn conducted negotiations on behalf of these firms with Grüne-wald, an “influential” friend in Washington, and reported that Grünewald, for a large cash fee, would undertake to prevent criminal prosecution of the taxpayers. Grüne-wald then used his influence with Bolich, an official in the Bureau, to obtain “no prosecution” rulings in the two tax cases. These rulings were handed down in 1948 and 1949. Grünewald, through Halperin, was subsequently paid $60,000 by Gotham and $100,000 by Patullo.
Subsequent activities of the conspirators were directed at concealing the irregularities in the disposition of the Patullo and Gotham cases. Bolich attempted to have the Bureau of Internal Revenue report on the Patullo case “doctored,” and careful steps were taken to cover up the traces of the cash fees paid to Grünewald. In 1951 a congressional investigation' was started by the King Committee of the House of Representatives; the conspirators felt themselves threatened and took steps to hide their traces. Thus Bolich caused the disappearance of certain records linking him to Grünewald, and the taxpayers were repeatedly warned to keep quiet. In 1952 the taxpayers and the conspirators were called before a Brooklyn grand jury. Halperin attempted to induce the taxpayers not to reveal the conspiracy, and Grünewald asked his secretary not to talk to the grand jury. These attempts at concealment were, however, in vain. The taxpayers and some of Halperin’s associates revealed the entire scheme, and petitioners’ indictment and conviction followed.
The first question before us is whether the prosecution of these petitioners on Count 1 of the indictment was barred by the applicable three-year statute of limitations.
The indictment in these cases was returned on October 25, 1954. It was therefore incumbent on the Government to prove that the conspiracy, as contemplated in the agreement as finally formulated, was still in existence on October 25, 1951, and that at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy was performed after that date. For where substantiation of a conspiracy charge requires proof of an overt act, it must be shown both that the conspiracy still subsisted within the three years prior to the return of the indictment, and that at least one overt act in furtherance of the conspiratorial agreement was performed within that period. Hence, in both of these aspects, the crucial question in determining whether the statute of limitations has run is the scope of the conspiratorial agreement, for it is that which determines both the duration of the conspiracy, and whether the act relied on as an overt act may properly be regarded as in furtherance of the conspiracy.
Petitioners, in contending that this prosecution was barred by limitations, state that the object of the conspiratorial agreement was a narrow one: to obtain “no prosecution” rulings in the two tax cases. When these rulings were obtained, in October 1948 in the case of Gotham Beef, and in January 1949 in the case of Patullo Modes, the criminal object of the conspiracy, petitioners say, was attained and the conspirators’ function ended. They argue, therefore, that the.statute of limitations started running no later than January 1949, and that the prosecution was therefore barred by 1954, when the indictment was returned.
The Government counters with two principal contentions: First, it urges that even if the main object of the conspiracy was to obtain decisions from the Bureau of Internal Revenue not to institute criminal tax prosecutions — decisions obtained in 1948 and 1949 — the indictment alleged, and the proofs showed, that the conspiracy also included as a subsidiary element an agreement to conceal the conspiracy to “fix” these tax cases, to the end that the conspirators would escape detection and punishment for their crime. Says the Government, “from the very nature of the conspiracy... there had to be, and was, from the outset a conscious, deliberate, agreement to conceal... each and every aspect of the conspiracy....” It is then argued that since the alleged conspiracy to conceal clearly continued long after the main criminal purpose of the conspiracy was accomplished, and since overt acts in furtherance of the agreement to conceal were performed well within the indictment period, the prosecution was timely.
Second, and alternatively, the Government contends that the central aim of the conspiracy was to obtain for these taxpayers, not merely a “no prosecution” ruling, but absolute immunity from tax prosecution; in other words, that the objectives of the conspiracy were not attained until 1952, when the statute of limitations ran on the tax cases which these petitioners undertook to “fix.” The argument then is that since the conspiracy did not end until 1952, and since the 1949-1952 acts of concealment may be regarded as, at least in part, in furtherance of the objective of the conspirators to immunize the taxpayers from tax prosecution, the indictment was timely.
For reasons hereafter given, we hold that the Government’s first contention must be rejected, and that as to its second, which the Court of Appeals accepted, a new trial must be ordered.
I.
We think that the Government’s first theory — that an agreement to conceal a conspiracy can, on facts such as these, be deemed part of the conspiracy and can extend its duration for the purposes of the statute of limitations— has already been rejected by this Court in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U. S. 440, and in Lutwak v. United States, 344 U. S. 604.
In Krulewitch the question before the Court was whether certain hearsay declarations could be introduced against one of the conspirators. The declarations in question were made by one named in the indictment as a co-conspirator after the main object of the conspiracy (transporting a woman to Florida for immoral purposes) had been accomplished. The Government argued that the conspiracy was not ended, however, since it included an implied subsidiary conspiracy to conceal the crime after its commission, and that the declarations were therefore still in furtherance of the conspiracy and binding on co-conspirators. This Court rejected the Government’s argument. It then stated:
“Conspirators about' to commit crimes always expressly or implicitly agree to collaborate with each other to conceal facts in order to prevent detection, conviction and punishment. Thus the [Government’s] argument is that even after the central criminal objectives of a conspiracy have succeeded or failed, an implicit subsidiary phase of the conspiracy always survives, the phase which has concealment as its sole objective.
“We cannot accept the Government’s contention.... The rule contended for by the Government could have far-reaching results. For under this rule plausible arguments could generally be made in conspiracy cases that most out-of-court statements offered in evidence tended to shield co-conspirators. We are not persuaded to adopt the Government’s implicit conspiracy theory which in all criminal conspiracy cases would create automatically a further breach of the general rule against the admission of hearsay evidence.”
Mr. Justice Jackson, concurring, added:
“I suppose no person planning a crime would accept as a collaborator one on whom he thought he could not rely for help if he were caught, but I doubt that this fact warrants an inference of conspiracy for that purpose....
“It is difficult to see any logical limit to the ‘implied conspiracy,’ either as to duration or means.... On the theory that the law will impute to the confederates a continuing conspiracy to defeat justice, one conceivably could be bound by another’s unauthorized and unknown commission of perjury, bribery of a juror or witness, [etc.]....
“Moreover, the assumption of an indefinitely continuing offense would result in an indeterminate extension of the statute of limitations. If the law implies an agreement to cooperate in defeating prosecution, it must imply that it continues as long as prosecution is a possibility, and prosecution is a possibility as long as the conspiracy to defeat it is implied to continue.”
The Krulewitch case was reaffirmed in Lutwak v. United States, supra. Here again the question was the admissibility of hearsay declarations of co-conspirators after the main purpose of the conspiracy had been accomplished; again the Government attempted to extend the life of the conspiracy by an alleged subsidiary conspiracy to conceal. Although in Lutwak, unlike in Krulewitch, the existence of a subsidiary conspiracy to conceal was charged in the indictment, the Court again rejected the Government’s theory, holding that no such agreement to conceal had been proved or could be implied.
The Government urges us to distinguish Krulewitch and Lutwak on the ground that in those cases the attempt was to imply a conspiracy to conceal from the mere fact that the main conspiracy was kept secret and that overt acts of concealment occurred. In contrast, says the Government, here there was an actual agreement to conceal the conspirators, which was charged and proved to be an express part of the initial conspiracy itself.
We are unable to agree with the Government that, on this record, the cases before us can be distinguished on such a basis.
The crucial teaching of Krulewitch and Lutwak is that after the central criminal purposes of a conspiracy have been attained, a subsidiary conspiracy to conceal may not be implied from circumstantial evidence showing merely that the conspiracy was kept a secret and that the conspirators took care to cover up their crime in order to escape detection and punishment. As was there stated, allowing such a conspiracy to conceal to be inferred or implied from mere overt acts of concealment would result in a great widening of the scope of conspiracy prosecutions, since it would extend the life of a conspiracy indefinitely. Acts of covering up, even though done in the context of a mutually understood need for secrecy, cannot themselves constitute proof that concealment of the crime after its commission was part of the initial agreement among the conspirators. For every conspiracy is by its very nature secret; a case can hardly be supposed where men concert together for crime and advertise their purpose to the world. And again, every conspiracy will inevitably be followed by actions taken to cover the conspirators’ traces. Sanctioning the Government’s theory would for all practical purposes wipe out the statute of limitations in conspiracy cases, as well as extend indefinitely the time within which hearsay declarations will bind co-conspirators.
A reading of the record before us reveals that on the facts of this case the distinction between “actual” and “implied” conspiracies to conceal, as urged upon us by the Government, is no more than a verbal tour de force. True, in both Krulewitch and Lutwak there is language in the opinions stressing the fact that only an implied agreement to conceal was relied on. Yet when we look to the facts of the present cases, we see that the evidence from which the Government here asks us to deduce an “actual” agreement to conceal reveals nothing beyond that adduced in prior cases. What is this evidence? First, we have the fact that from the beginning the conspirators insisted on secrecy. Thus the identities of Grünewald and Bolich were sedulously kept from the taxpayers; careful steps were taken to hide the conspiracy from an independent law firm which was also working on Patullo’s tax problems; and the taxpayers were told to make sure that their books did not reflect the large cash payments made to Grünewald. Secondly, after the “no prosecution” rulings were obtained, we have facts showing that this secrecy was still maintained. Thus, a deliberate attempt was made to make the above-mentioned independent law firm believe that it was its (quite legitimate) efforts which produced the successful ruling. Finally, we have the fact that great efforts were made to conceal the conspiracy when the danger of exposure appeared. For example, Bolich got rid of certain records showing that he had used Grunewald’s hotel suite in Washington; Patullo’s accountant was persuaded to lie to the grand jury concerning a check made out to an associate of the conspirators; Grünewald attempted to persuade his secretary not to talk to the grand jury; and the taxpayers were repeatedly told by Halperin and his associates to keep quiet.
We find in all this nothing more than what was involved in Krulewitch, that is, (1) a criminal conspiracy which is carried out in secrecy; (2) a continuation of the secrecy after the accomplishment of the crime; and (3) desperate attempts to cover up after the crime begins to come to fight; and so we cannot agree that this case does not fall within the ban of those prior opinions.
In effect, the differentiation pressed upon us by the Government is one of words rather than of substance. In Krulewitch it was urged that a continuing agreement to conceal should be implied out of the mere fact of conspiracy, and that acts of concealment should be taken as overt acts in furtherance of that implied agreement to conceal. Today the Government merely rearranges the argument. It states that the very same acts of concealment should be used as circumstantial evidence from which it can be inferred that there was from the beginning an “actuar’ agreement to conceal. As we see it, the two arguments amount to the same thing: a conspiracy to conceal is being implied from elements which will be present in virtually every conspiracy case, that is, secrecy plus overt acts of concealment. There is not a shred of direct evidence in this record to show anything like an express original agreement among the conspirators to continue to act in concert in order to cover up, for their own self-protection, traces of the crime after its commission.
Prior cases in this Court have repeatedly warned that we will view with disfavor attempts to broaden the already pervasive and wide-sweeping nets of conspiracy prosecutions. The important considerations of policy behind such warnings need not be again detailed. See Jackson, J., concurring in Krulewitch v. United States, supra. It is these considerations of policy which govern our holding today. As this case was tried, we have before us a typical example of a situation where the Government, faced by the bar of the three-year statute, is attempting to open the very floodgates against which Krulewitch warned. We cannot accede to the proposition that the duration of a conspiracy can be indefinitely lengthened merely because the conspiracy is kept a secret, and merely because the conspirators take steps to bury their traces, in order to avoid detection and punishment after the central criminal purpose has been accomplished.
By no means does this mean that acts of concealment can never have significance in furthering a criminal conspiracy. But a vital distinction must be made between acts of concealment done in furtherance of the main criminal objectives of the conspiracy, and acts of concealment done after these central objectives have been attained, for the purpose only of covering up after the crime. Thus the Government argues in its brief that “in the crime of kidnapping, the acts of conspirators in hiding while waiting for ransom would clearly be planned acts of concealment which would be in aid of the conspiracy to kidnap. So here, there can be no doubt that... all acts of concealment, whether to hide the identity of the conspirators or the action theretofore taken, were unquestionably in furtherance of the initial conspiracy....” We do not think the analogy is valid. Kidnapers in hiding, waiting for ransom, commit acts of concealment in furtherance of the objectives of the conspiracy itself, just as repainting a stolen car would be in furtherance of a conspiracy to steal; in both cases the successful accomplishment of the crime necessitates concealment. More closely analogous to our case would be conspiring kidnapers who cover their traces after the main conspiracy is finally ended — i. e., after they have abandoned the kidnaped person and then take care to escape detection. In the latter case, as here, the acts of covering up can by themselves indicate nothing more than that the conspirators do not wish to be apprehended — a concomitant, certainly, of every crime since Cain attempted to conceal the murder of Abel from the Lord.
We hold, therefore, that, considering the main objective of the conspiracy to have been the obtaining of “no prosecution” rulings, prosecution was barred by the three-year statute of limitations, since no agreement to conceal the conspiracy after its accomplishment was shown or can be implied on the evidence before us to have been part of the conspiratorial agreement.
II.
In view of how the case was submitted to the jury, we are also unable to accept the Government’s second theory for avoiding the statute of limitations. This theory is (1) that the main objective of the conspiracy was not merely to obtain the initial “no prosecution” rulings in 1948 and 1949, but to obtain final immunity for Gotham and Patullo from criminal tax prosecution; (2) that such immunity was not obtained until 1952, when the statute of limitations had run on the tax-evasion cases which the petitioners conspired to fix; (3) that the conspiracy therefore did not end until 1952, when this object was attained; (4) that the acts of concealment within the indictment period were overt acts in furtherance of this conspiracy; and (5) that the prosecution was thus timely. In short, the contention is that the agreement to conceal was to protect the taxpayers rather than the conspirators, and as such was part of the main conspiracy rather than a subsidiary appendage to it, as under the Government’s first theory.
The Court of Appeals accepted this theory of the case in affirming these convictions. It stated:
“What the fixers had to sell was freedom from criminal prosecution for tax frauds. What the taxpayers bargained for was protection from a tax evasion prosecution.
“This conspiracy is wholly unlike the ordinary illegal scheme in that the jury may well have inferred that the official announcement that there would be no criminal prosecution of the taxpayers was merely the delivery of a substantial installment of what appellants agreed to deliver for the huge sums paid. The six-year Statute of Limitations... did not run in favor of the taxpayers until some time after the commission of the overt acts relied upon. In the interval there was no assurance, other than continuing efforts by Grünewald, Bolich and the others, that the whole nefarious business might not be brought to light, followed by the revocation of the decision not to criminally prosecute the taxpayers. This is a significant element in the proofs adduced by the government, as concealment of the conspiratorial acts was necessary not only to protect the conspirators from a conspiracy prosecution but also to protect the taxpayers from a tax evasion prosecution.” 233 F. 2d, at 564-565.
We find the legal theory of the Court of Appeals unexceptionable. If the central objective of the conspiracy was to protect the taxpayers from tax-evasion prosecutions, on which the statute of limitations did not run until 1952, and if the 1948 and 1949 “no prosecution” rulings were but an “installment” of what the conspirators aimed to accomplish, then it is clear that the statute of limitations on the conspiracy did not begin to run until 1952, within three years of the indictment.
Furthermore, we agree with the Court of Appeals that there is evidence in this record which would warrant submission of the case to the jury on the theory that the central object of the conspiracy was not attained in 1948 and 1949, but rather was to immunize the taxpayers completely from prosecution for tax evasion and thus continued into 1952. The many overt acts of concealment occurring after 1949 could easily have been motivated at least in part by the purpose of the conspirators to deliver the remaining “installments” owing under the bargain— to wit, the safeguarding of the continued vitality of the “no prosecution” rulings. Furthermore, there is evidence showing that from the beginning the aim of the scheme was not restricted to the merely provisional and necessarily precarious “fixing” of the taxpayers’ troubles which was achieved in 1948 and 1949. A jury might therefore fairly infer that it was part of the conspiratorial agreement that Grünewald and Bolich would make continuing efforts to safeguard the fruits of the partial victories won in 1948 and 1949 by trying to immunize the “no prosecution” rulings from change. In other words, we think a jury could infer from this evidence that the conspirators were prepared and had agreed to engage in further frauds and bribery if necessary in order to maintain in effect the tentative rulings obtained in 1948 and 1949.
If, therefore, the jury could have found that the aim of the conspiratorial agreement was to protect the taxpayers from tax prosecution, and that the overt acts occurring in the indictment period were in furtherance of that aim, we would affirm. We do not think, however, that we may safely assume that the jury so found, for we cannot agree with the Court of Appeals’ holding that this theory of the case was adequately submitted to the jury.
The trial judge’s charge on the problem of the scope and duration of the conspiracy was as follows:
“You will recall that the indictment states, among other things, that it was part of the conspiracy that the defendants and co-conspirators would make ‘continuing efforts to avoid detection and prosecution by any governmental body, executive, legislative, and judicial of tax frauds perpetrated by the defendants and co-conspirators through the use of any means whatsoever including but not limited to... the influencing, intimidating, and impeding of prospective witnesses to refrain from disclosing the true facts.’ In other words, the indictment alleges that the conspiracy comprehended within it a conspiracy to conceal the true facts from investigation, should investigation thereafter eventuate. This is an important element of the first count of the indictment which you must take into consideration, inasmuch as the Statute of Limitations on the charge of criminal conspiracy is three years and unless the conspiracy was continuing to a period within three years prior to the date of the indictment, October 25, 1954, and some overt act was performed within that three-year period, the crime, if any, alleged in the first count of the indictment would be outlawed. It is the contention of the government that the conspiracy did not end when the taxpayers were advised that there would be no criminal prosecution recommended by the Special Agent’s office, but that an integral part of the entire conspiracy was an agreement to conceal the acts of the conspirators and that when thereafter an investigation was started by Congress and by the Grand Jury in the Eastern District of New York, the conspirators performed overt acts in pursuance of the original conspiracy designed to conceal the true facts; and that these acts occurred within three years prior to the date of the indictment. On this issue, it will be necessary for you to determine whether, beyond a reasonable doubt, you can conclude that the conspiracy was of the nature described in the first count of the indictment and comprehended an agreement to conceal and whether some overt act took place in the period of three years prior to October 25, 1954 to carry out such purpose of the conspiracy.
“To determine whether certain of the alleged overt acts were in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy, you have to determine the duration of the conspiracy. Did it end when the Pattullo [sfc] Modes people and the Gotham Beef people received an assurance of no prosecution from the Bureau of Internal Revenue, or was a part of the conspiracy a continuing agreement to conceal the acts done pursuant thereto? In determining whether a part of the conspiracy was an agreement to continue to conceal the illegal acts after their consummation, you may not imply that such an agreement was part of the conspiracy. You would have to find from the evidence of the acts and declarations of the co-conspirators that there was an understanding or agreement to conceal the conspiracy. If you find that such an agreement or understanding to conceal the conspiracy was not a part of the conspiracy to defraud the government, but no more than an afterthought brought to the surface when the co-conspirators were confronted with the Grand Jury and King Committee investigations, then you must find, as a matter of law, that the defendants are not guilty of the crime charged in the first count of the indictment. If you find that the evidence shows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that as a part of a conspiracy to defraud the government, there was an agreement or understanding to conceal the illegal acts and that this too was an objective or part of the conspiracy, then you may find that such understanding was a part of the conspiracy. However, you must additionally determine whether this objective of the conspiracy was known to the defendants. If this objective was known originally by only part of the conspirators but thereafter during the existence of the conspiracy, the scope of the conspiracy was extended so as to include such an agreement to conceal, and if you find that some of the defendants did not know of the expansion to include the agreement to conceal, you may not impute to them the knowledge of their co-conspirators and they could not be found guilty of the crime charged in Count One.”
We are constrained to agree with Judge Frank that this charge did not adequately enlighten the jury as to what they would have to find in order to conclude that the conspiracy was still alive after October 25, 1951. For the charge as given failed completely to distinguish between concealment in order to achieve the central purpose of the conspiracy (that is, the immunization of the taxpayers from tax-evasion prosecution), and concealment intended solely to cover up an already executed crime (that is, the obtaining of the “no prosecution” rulings). The jury was never told that these overt acts of concealment could be taken as furthering the conspiracy only if the basic criminal aim of the conspiracy was not yet attained in 1949. On the charge as given, the jury might easily have concluded that the petitioners were guilty even though they found merely (1) that the central aim of the conspiracy was accomplished in 1949, and (2) that the subsequent acts of concealment were motivated exclusively by the conspirators’ fear of a conspiracy prosecution. As far as we know, therefore, the present convictions were based on the impermissible theory discussed in the first part of this opinion — namely, that a subordinate agreement to conceal the conspiracy continued after the central aim of the conspiracy had been accomplished.
Furthermore, if the convictions were based on a finding that the overt acts of concealment were done with the single intention of protecting the conspirators’ own interests, then it is irrelevant that these acts in fact happened to have the effect also of protecting the taxpayers against revocation of the “no prosecution” rulings. For overt acts in a prosecution such as this one are meaningful only if they are within the scope of the conspiratorial agreement. If that agreement did not, expressly or impliedly, contemplate that the conspiracy would continue in its efforts to protect the taxpayers in order to immunize them from tax prosecution, then the scope of the agreement cannot be broadened retroactively by the fact that the conspirators took steps after the conspiracy which incidentally had that effect.
We thus find that the judge’s charge left it open for the jury to convict even though they found that the acts of concealment were motivated purely by the purpose of the conspirators to cover up their already accomplished crime. And this, we think, was fatal error. For the facts in this record are equivocal. The jury might easily have concluded that the aim of the conspiracy was accomplished in 1949, and that the overt acts of concealment occurring after that date were done pursuant to the alleged conspiracy to hide the conspirators. As we have said, a conviction on such a theory could not be sustained. Under such circumstances, therefore, it was essential for the judge to charge clearly and unequivocally that on these facts the jury could not infer a continuing conspiracy to conceal the conspiracy, whether actual or implied. Further, it was incumbent on the judge to charge that in order to convict the jury would have to find that the central aim of the conspiracy was to immunize the taxpayers from tax prosecution, that this objective continued in being through 1951, and that the overt acts of concealment proved at trial were at least partly calculated to further this aim.
Since, under the judge’s charge, the convictions on Count 1 might have rested on an impermissible ground, we conclude that they cannot stand, and the petitioners must be given a new trial as to this Count.
III.
What we have held as to the statute of limitations disposes of the conviction of the three petitioners under Count 1, but does not touch Halperin’s conviction on Counts 5, 6, and 7 for violating 18 U. S. C. § 1503. As to those Counts, Halperin, who took the stand in his own defense at the trial, contends (a) that the Government was improperly allowed to cross-examine him as to the assertion of his Fifth Amendment privilege before a grand jury investigating this conspiracy, before which he had been called as a witness, and (b) that the evidence did not justify his conviction on these Counts. For the reasons given hereafter we think that the first contention is well taken, but that the second one is untenable.
In 1952 Halperin was subpoenaed before a Brooklyn grand jury which was investigating corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue. Testimony had already been received by the grand jury from the Patullo and Gotham taxpayers, which linked Halperin with the tax-fixing ring. Halperin was asked a series of questions before the grand jury, including, among others, such questions as whether he knew Max Steinberg (an employee of the Bureau of Internal Revenue and a co-defendant in the charge under Count 1); whether he knew Grünewald; whether he had held and delivered escrow money paid to Grünewald by Gotham after the “no prosecution” ruling; and whether he had phoned Grünewald to arrange a meeting between one of his own associates and Bolich. Halperin declined to answer any of these questions, on the ground that the answers would tend to incriminate him and that the Fifth Amendment therefore entitled him not to answer. He repeatedly insisted, before the grand jury that he was wholly innocent, and that he pleaded his Fifth Amendment privilege only on the advice of counsel that answers to these questions might furnish evidence which could be used against him, particularly when he was not represented by counsel and could not cross-examine witnesses before the grand jury.
When the Government cross-examined Halperin at the trial some of the questions which he had been asked before the grand jury were put to him. He answered each question in a way consistent with innocence. The Government was then allowed, over objection, to bring out in cross-examination that petitioner had pleaded his privilege before the grand jury as to these very questions. Later, in his charge to the jury, the trial judge informed them that petitioner’s Fifth Amendment plea could be taken only as reflecting on his credibility, and that no inference as to guilt or innocence could be drawn therefrom as to Halperin or any co-defendant.
In thus allowing this cross-examination, the District Court relied on Raffel v. United States, 271 U. S. 494, where this Court held that a defendant’s failure to take the stand at his first trial to deny testimony as to an incriminating admission could be used on cross-examination at the second trial, where he did take the stand, to impugn the credibility of his denial of the same admission. In upholding the District Court here, the Court of Appeals likewise relied on Raffel, and also on one of its own earlier decisions. Halperin attacks these rulings on these principal grounds: (a) Raffel is distinguishable from the present case; (b) if Raffel permitted this cross-examination, then the trial court erred in refusing to charge, as Halperin requested, that “an innocent man may honestly claim that his answers may tend to incriminate him”; (c) in any case Raffel has impliedly been overruled by Johnson v. United States, 318 U. S. 189; and (d) compelling Halperin to testify before the grand jury, when he had already been marked as a putative defendant, violated his constitutional rights, so that, by analogy to the rule of Weeks v. United States, 232 U. S. 383, his claim of privilege could in no event be used against him. We find that in the circumstances presented here Raffel is not controlling, and that this cross-examination was not permissible.
It is, of course, an elementary rule of evidence that prior statements may be used to impeach the credibility of a criminal defendant or an ordinary witness. But this can be done only if the judge is satisfied that the prior statements are in fact inconsistent. 3 Wigmore, Evidence, § 1040. And so the threshold question here is simply whether, in the circumstances of this case, the trial court erred in holding that Halperin’s plea of the Fifth Amendment privilege before the grand jury involved such inconsistency with any of his trial testimony as to permit its use against him for impeachment purposes. We do not think that Raff el is properly to be read either as dispensing with the need for such preliminary scrutiny by the judge, op as establishing as a matter of law that such a prior claim of privilege with reference to a question later answered at the trial is always to be deemed to be a prior inconsistent statement, irrespective of the circumstances under which the claim of privilege was made. The issue decided in Raffel came to the Court as a certified question in quite an abstract form, and was really centered on the question whether a defendant who takes the stand on a second trial can continue to take advantage of the privilege asserted at
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case requires that we decide whether certain jury instructions in a criminal prosecution in which intent is an element of the crime charged and the only contested issue at trial satisfy the principles of Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (1979). Specifically, we must evaluate jury instructions stating that: (1) “[t]he acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of the person’s will, but the presumption may be rebutted” and (2) “[a] person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts but the presumption may be rebutted.” App. 8a-9a. The question is whether these instructions, when read in the context of the jury charge as a whole, violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s requirement that the State prove every element of a criminal offense beyond a reasonable doubt. See Sandstrom, supra; In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970).
1 — 1
Respondent Raymond Lee Franklin, then 21 years old and imprisoned for offenses unrelated to this case, sought to escape custody on January 17, 1979, while he and three other prisoners were receiving dental care at a local dentist’s office. The four prisoners were secured by handcuffs to the same 8-foot length of chain as they sat in the dentist’s waiting room. At some point Franklin was released from the chain, taken into the dentist’s office and given preliminary treatment, and then escorted back to the waiting room. As another prisoner was being released, Franklin, who had not been reshackled, seized a pistol from one of the two officers and managed to escape. He forced the dentist’s assistant to accompany him as a hostage.
In the parking lot Franklin found the dentist’s automobile, the keys to which he had taken before escaping, but was unable to unlock the door. He then fled with the dental assistant after refusing her request to be set free. The two set out across an open clearing and came upon a local resident. Franklin demanded this resident’s car. When the resident responded that he did not own one, Franklin made no effort to harm him but continued with the dental assistant until they came to the home of the victim, one Collie. Franklin pounded on the heavy wooden front door of the home and Collie, a retired 72-year-old carpenter, answered. Franklin was pointing the stolen pistol at the door when Collie arrived. As Franklin demanded his car keys, Collie slammed the door. At this moment Franklin’s gun went off. The bullet traveled through the wooden door and into Collie’s chest killing him. Seconds later the gun fired again. The second bullet traveled upward through the door and into the ceiling of the residence.
Hearing the shots, the victim’s wife entered the front room. In the confusion accompanying the shooting, the dental assistant fled and Franklin did not attempt to stop her. Franklin entered the house, demanded the car keys from the victim’s wife, and added the threat “I might as well kill you.” When she did not provide the keys, however, he made no effort to thwart her escape. Franklin then stepped outside and encountered the victim’s adult daughter. He repeated his demand for car keys but made no effort to stop the daughter when she refused the demand and fled. Failing to obtain a car, Franklin left and remained at large until nightfall.
Shortly after being captured, Franklin made a formal statement to the authorities in which he admitted that he had shot the victim but emphatically denied that he did so voluntarily or intentionally. He claimed that the shots were fired in accidental response to the slamming of the door. He was tried in the Superior Court of Bibb County, Georgia, on charges of malice murder — a capital offense in Georgia— and kidnaping. His sole defense to the malice murder charge was a lack of the requisite intent to kill. To support his version of the events Franklin offered substantial circumstantial evidence tending to show a lack of intent. He claimed that the circumstances surrounding the firing of the gun, particularly the slamming of the door and the trajectory of the second bullet, supported the hypothesis of accident, and that his immediate confession to that effect buttressed the assertion. He also argued that his treatment of every other person encountered during the escape indicated a lack of disposition to use force.
On the dispositive issue of intent, the trial judge instructed the jury as follows:
“A crime is a violation of a statute of this State in which there shall be a union of joint operation of act or omission to act, and intention or criminal negligence. A person shall not be found guilty of any crime committed by misfortune or accident where it satisfactorily appears there was no criminal scheme or undertaking or intention or criminal negligence. The acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of the person’s will, but the presumption may be rebutted. A person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts but the presumption may be rebutted. A person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the trier of facts, that is, the Jury, may find criminal intention upon a consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted.” App. 8a-9a.
Approximately one hour after the jury had received the charge and retired for deliberation, it returned to the courtroom and requested reinstruction on the element of intent and the definition of accident. Id., at 13a-14a. Upon receiving the requested reinstruction, the jury deliberated 10 more minutes and returned a verdict of guilty. The next day Franklin was sentenced to death for the murder conviction.
Franklin unsuccessfully appealed the conviction and sentence to the Georgia Supreme Court. Franklin v. State, 245 Ga. 141, 263 S. E. 2d 666, cert. denied, 447 U. S. 930 (1980). He then unsuccessfully sought state postconviction relief. See Franklin v. Zant, Habeas Corpus File No. 5025 (Super. Ct. Butts Cty., Ga., Sept. 10, 1981), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 938 (1982). Having exhausted state postconviction remedies, Franklin sought federal habeas corpus relief, pursuant to 28 U. S. C. §2254, in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia on May 14, 1982. That court denied the application without an evidentiary hearing. App. 16a.
Franklin appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court and ordered that the writ issue. 720 F. 2d 1206 (1983). The court held that the jury charge on the dis-positive issue of intent could have been interpreted by a reasonable juror as a mandatory presumption that shifted to the defendant a burden of persuasion on the intent element of the offense. For this reason the court held that the jury charge ran afoul of fundamental Fourteenth Amendment due process guarantees as explicated in Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510 (1979). See 720 F. 2d, at 1208-1212. In denying petitioner Francis’ subsequent petition for rehearing, the panel elaborated its earlier holding to make clear that the effect of the presumption at issue had been considered in the context of the jury charge as a whole. See 723 F. 2d 770, 771-772 (1984) (per curiam).
We granted certiorari. 467 U. S. 1225 (1984). We affirm.
I — H I
The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment “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.” In re Winship, 397 U. S., at 364. This “bedrock, ‘axiomatic and elementary’ [constitutional] principle,” id., at 363, prohibits the State from using evidentiary presumptions in a jury charge that have the effect of relieving the State of its burden of persuasion beyond a reasonable doubt of every essential element of a crime. Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, at 520-524; Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S. 197, 210, 215 (1977); Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S. 684, 698-701 (1975); see also Morissette v. United States, 342 U. S. 246, 274-275 (1952). The prohibition protects the “fundamental value determination of our society,” given voice in Justice Harlan’s concurrence in Winship, that “it is far worse to convict an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free.” 397 U. S., at 372. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525-526 (1958). The question before the Court in this case is almost identical to that before the Court in Sandstrom: “whether the challenged jury instruction had the effect of relieving the State of the burden of proof enunciated in Winship on the critical question of... state of mind,” 442 U. S., at 521, by creating a mandatory presumption of intent upon proof by the State of other elements of the offense.
The analysis is straightforward. “The threshold inquiry in ascertaining the constitutional analysis applicable to this kind of jury instruction is to determine the nature of the presumption it describes.” Id., at 514. The court must determine whether the challenged portion of the instruction creates a mandatory presumption, see id., at 520-524, or merely a permissive inference, see Ulster County Court v. Allen, 442 U. S. 140, 157-163 (1979). A mandatory presumption instructs the jury that it must infer the presumed fact if the State proves certain predicate facts. A permissive inference suggests to the jury a possible conclusion to be drawn if the State proves predicate facts, but does not require the jury to draw that conclusion.
Mandatory presumptions must be measured against the standards of Winship as elucidated in Sandstrom. Such presumptions violate the Due Process Clause if they relieve the State of the burden of persuasion on an element of an offense. Patterson v. New York, supra, at 215 (“[A] State must prove every ingredient of an offense beyond a reasonable doubt and... may not shift the burden of proof to the defendant by presuming that ingredient upon proof of the other elements of the offense”). See also Sandstrom, supra, at 520-524; Mullaney v. Wilbur, supra, at 698-701. A permissive inference does not relieve the State of its burden of persuasion because it still requires the State to convince the jury that the suggested conclusion should be inferred based on the predicate facts proved. Such inferences do not necessarily implicate the concerns of Sandstrom. A permissive inference violates the Due Process Clause only if the suggested conclusion is not one that reason and common sense justify in light of the proven facts before the jury. Ulster County Court, supra, at 157-163.
Analysis must focus initially on the specific language challenged, but the inquiry does not end there. If a specific portion of the jury charge, considered in isolation, could reasonably have been understood as creating a presumption that relieves the State of its burden of persuasion on an element of an offense, the potentially offending words must be considered in the context of the charge as a whole. Other instructions might explain the particular infirm language to the extent that a reasonable juror could not have considered the charge to have created an unconstitutional presumption. Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 147 (1973). This analysis “requires careful attention to the words actually spoken to the jury..., for whether a defendant has been accorded his constitutional rights depends upon the way in which a reasonable juror could have interpreted the instruction.” Sandstrom, supra, at 514.
A
Franklin levels his constitutional attack at the following two sentences in the jury charge: “The acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of the person’s will, but the presumption may be rebutted. A person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts but the presumption may be rebutted.” App. 8a-9a. The Georgia Supreme Court has interpreted this language as creating no more than a permissive inference that comports with the constitutional standards of Ulster County Court v. Allen, supra. See Skrine v. State, 244 Ga. 520, 521, 260 S. E. 2d 900, 901 (1979). The question, however, is not what the State Supreme Court declares the meaning of the charge to be, but rather what a reasonable juror could have understood the charge as meaning. Sandstrom, 442 U. S., at 516-517 (state court “is not the final authority on the interpretation which a jury could have given the instruction”). The federal constitutional question is whether a reasonable juror could have understood the two sentences as a mandatory presumption that shifted to the defendant the burden of persuasion on the element of intent once the State had proved the predicate acts.
The challenged sentences are cast in the language of command. They instruct the jury that “acts of a person of sound mind and discretion are presumed to be the product of the person’s will,” and that a person “is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts,” App. 8a-9a (emphasis added). These words carry precisely the message of the language condemned in Sandstrom, 442 U. S., at 515 (“ ‘The law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts’”). The jurors “were not told that they had a choice, or that they might infer that conclusion; they were told only that the law presumed it. It is clear that a reasonable juror could easily have viewed such an instruction as mandatory.” Ibid, (emphasis added). The portion of the jury charge challenged in this case directs the jury to presume an essential element of the offense — intent to kill — upon proof of other elements of the offense — the act of slaying another. In this way the instructions “undermine the factfinder’s responsibility at trial, based on evidence adduced by the State, to find the ultimate facts beyond a reasonable doubt.” Ulster County Court v. Allen, supra, at 156 (emphasis added). acknowledged that the instructions there challenged could have been reasonably understood as creating an irrebuttable presumption, 442 U. S., at 517, it was not on this basis alone that the instructions were invalidated. Had the jury reasonably understood the instructions as creating a mandatory rebuttable presumption the instructions would have been no less constitutionally infirm. Id., at 520-524.
An irrebuttable or conclusive presumption reheves the State of its burden of persuasion by removing the presumed element from the case entirely if the State proves the predicate facts. A mandatory rebuttable presumption does not remove the presumed element from the case if the State proves the predicate facts, but it nonetheless relieves the State of the affirmative burden of persuasion on the presumed element by instructing the jury that it must find the presumed element unless the defendant persuades the jury not to make such a finding. A mandatory rebuttable presumption is perhaps less onerous from the defendant’s perspective, but it is no less unconstitutional. Our cases make clear that “[s]uch shifting of the burden of persuasion with respect to a fact which the State deems so important that it must be either proved or presumed is impermissible under the Due Process Clause.” Patterson v. New York, 432 U. S., at 215. In Mullaney v. Wilbur we explicitly held unconstitutional a mandatory rebuttable presumption that shifted to the defendant a burden of persuasion on the question of intent. 421 U. S., at 698-701. And in Sandstrom we similarly held that instructions that might reasonably have been understood by the jury as creating a mandatory rebuttable presumption were unconstitutional. 442 U. S., at 524.
When combined with the immediately preceding mandatory language, the instruction that the presumptions “may be rebutted” could reasonably be read as telling the jury that it was required to infer intent to kill as the natural and probable consequence of the act of firing the gun unless the defendant persuaded the jury that such an inference was unwarranted. The very statement that the presumption “may be rebutted” could have indicated to a reasonable juror that the defendant bore an affirmative burden of persuasion once the State proved the underlying act giving rise to the presumption. Standing alone, the challenged language undeniably created an unconstitutional burden-shifting presumption with respect to the element of intent.
B
The jury, of course, did not hear only the two challenged sentences. The jury charge taken as a whole might have explained the proper allocation of burdens with sufficient clarity that any ambiguity in the particular language challenged could not have been understood by a reasonable juror as shifting the burden of persuasion. See Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141 (1973). The State argues that sufficient clarifying language exists in this case. In particular, the State relies on an earlier portion of the charge instructing the jurors that the defendant was presumed innocent and that the State was required to prove every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt. The State also points to the sentence immediately following the challenged portion of the charge, which reads: “[a] person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention....” App. 9a.
As we explained in Sandstrom, general instructions on the State’s burden of persuasion and the defendant’s presumption of innocence are not “rhetorically inconsistent with a conclusive or burden-shifting presumption,” because “[t]he jury could have interpreted the two sets of instructions as indicating that the presumption was a means by which proof beyond a reasonable doubt as to intent could be satisfied.” 442 U. S., at 518-519, n. 7. In light of the instructions on intent given in this case, a reasonable juror could thus have thought that, although intent must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, proof of the firing of the gun and its ordinary consequences constituted proof of intent beyond a reasonable doubt unless the defendant persuaded the jury otherwise. Cf. Mullaney v. Wilbur, 421 U. S., at 703, n. 31. These general instructions as to the prosecution’s burden and the defendant’s presumption of innocence do not dissipate the error in the challenged portion of the instructions.
Nor does the more specific instruction following the challenged sentences — “A person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the trier of facts, that is, the Jury, may find criminal intention upon a consideration of the words, conduct, demeanor, motive and all other circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted,” App. 9a — provide a sufficient corrective. It may well be that this “criminal intention” instruction was not directed to the element of intent at all, but to another element of the Georgia crime of malice murder. The statutory definition of capital murder in Georgia requires malice aforethought. Ga. Code Ann. § 16-5-1(1984) (formerly Ga. Code Ann. § 26-1101(a)(1978)). Under state law malice aforethought comprises two elements: intent to kill and the absence of provocation or justification. See Patterson v. State, 239 Ga. 409, 416-417, 238 S. E. 2d 2, 8 (1977); Lamb v. Jernigan, 683 F. 2d 1332, 1337 (CA11 1982) (interpreting Ga. Code Ann. § 16-5-1), cert. denied, 460 U. S. 1024 (1983). At another point in the charge in this case, the trial court, consistently with this understanding of Georgia law, instructed the jury that malice is “the unlawful, deliberate intention to kill a human being without justification or mitigation or excuse.” App. 10a.
The statement “criminal intention may not be presumed” may well have been intended to instruct the jurors that they were not permitted to presume the absence of provocation or justification but that they could infer this conclusion from circumstantial evidence. Whatever the court’s motivation in giving the instruction, the jury could certainly have understood it this way. A reasonable juror trying to make sense of the juxtaposition of an instruction that “a person of sound mind and discretion is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts,” id., at 8a-9a, and an instruction that “[a] person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention,” id., at 9a, may well have thought that the instructions related to different elements of the crime and were therefore not contradictory — that he could presume intent to kill but not the absence of justification or provocation.
Even if a reasonable juror could have understood the prohibition of presuming “criminal intention” as applying to the element of intent, that instruction did no more than contradict the instruction in the immediately preceding sentence. A reasonable juror could easily have resolved the contradiction in the instruction by choosing to abide by the mandatory presumption and ignore the prohibition of presumption. Nothing in these specific sentences or in the charge as a whole makes clear to the jury that one of these contradictory instructions carries more weight than the other. Language that merely contradicts and does not explain a constitutionally infirm instruction will not suffice to absolve the infirmity. A reviewing court has no way of knowing which of the two irreconcilable instructions the jurors applied in reaching their verdict. Had the instruction “[a] person... is presumed to intend the natural and probable consequences of his acts,” App. 8a-9a, been followed by the instruction “this means that a person will not be presumed to act with criminal intention but the jury may find criminal intention upon consideration of all circumstances connected with the act for which the accused is prosecuted,” a somewhat stronger argument might be made that a reasonable juror could not have understood the challenged language as shifting the burden of persuasion to the defendant. Cf. Sandstrom, 442 U. S., at 517 (“[GJiven the lack of qualifying instructions as to the legal effect of the presumption, we cannot discount the possibility that the jury may have interpreted the instruction” in an unconstitutional manner). See also Corn v. Zant, 708 F. 2d 549, 559 (CA11 1983), cert. denied, 467 U. S. 1220 (1984). Whether or not such explanatory language might have been sufficient, however, no such language is present in this jury charge. If a juror thought the “criminal intention” instruction pertained to the element of intent, the juror was left in a quandary as to whether to follow that instruction or the immediately preceding one it contradicted.
Because a reasonable juror could have understood the challenged portions of the jury instruction in this case as creating a mandatory presumption that shifted to the defendant the burden of persuasion on the crucial element of intent, and because the charge read as a whole does not explain or cure the error, we hold that the jury charge does not comport with the requirements of the Due Process Clause.
I — I HH
Petitioner argues that even if the jury charge fails under Sandstrom this Court should overturn the Court of Appeals because the constitutional infirmity in the charge was harmless error on this record. This Court has not resolved whether an erroneous charge that shifts a burden of persuasion to the defendant on an essential element of an offense can ever be harmless. See Connecticut v. Johnson, 460 U. S. 73 (1983). We need not resolve the question in this case. The Court of Appeals conducted a careful harmless-error inquiry and concluded that the Sandstrom error at trial could not be deemed harmless. 720 F. 2d, at 1212. The court noted:
“[Franklin’s] only defense was that he did not have the requisite intent to kill. The facts did not overwhelmingly preclude that defense. The coincidence of the first shot with the slamming of the door, the second shot's failure to hit anyone, or take a path on which it would have hit anyone, and the lack of injury to anyone else all supported the lack of intent defense. A presumption that Franklin intended to kill completely eliminated his defense of 'no intent.’ Because intent was plainly at issue in this case, and was not overwhelmingly proved by the evidence... we cannot find the error to be harmless.” Ibid.
Even under the harmless-error standard proposed by the dissenting Justices in Connecticut v. Johnson, swpra, at 97, n. 5 (evidence “so dispositive of intent that a reviewing court can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have found it unnecessary to rely on the presumption”) (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Rehnquist and O’Connor, JJ., dissenting), this analysis by the Court of Appeals is surely correct. The jury’s request for reinstruction on the elements of malice and accident, App. 13a-14a, lends further substance to the court’s conclusion that the evidence of intent was far from overwhelming in this case. We therefore affirm the Court of Appeals on the harmless-error question as well.
IV
Sandstrom v. Montana made clear that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the State from making use of jury instructions that have the effect of relieving the State of the burden of proof enunciated in Winship on the critical question of intent in a criminal prosecution. 442 U. S., at 521. Today we reaffirm the rule of Sandstrom and the wellspring due process principle from which it was drawn. The Court of Appeals faithfully and correctly applied this rule, and the court’s judgment is therefore
Affirmed.
The malice murder statute at the time in question provided:
“A person commits murder when he unlawfully and with malice aforethought, either express or implied, causes the death of another human being.... Malice shall be implied where no considerable provocation appears and where all the circumstances of the killing show an abandoned and malignant heart.” Ga. Code Ann. § 26-1101(a) (1978).
A mandatory presumption may be either conclusive or rebuttable. A conclusive presumption removes the presumed element from the ease once the State has proved the predicate facts giving rise to the presumption. A rebuttable presumption does not remove the presumed element from the case but nevertheless requires the jury to find the presumed element unless the defendant persuades the jury that such a finding is unwarranted. See Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U. S. 510, 517-518 (1979).
We are not required to decide in this case whether a mandatory presumption that shifts only a burden of production to the defendant is consistent with the Due Process Clause, and we express no opinion on that question.
Intent to kill is an element of the offense of malice murder in Georgia. See Patterson v. State, 239 Ga. 409, 416-417, 238 S. E. 2d 2, 8 (1977).
Justice Rehnquist’s suggestion in dissent that our holding with respect to the constitutionality of mandatory rebuttable presumptions “extends” prior law, post, at 332, is simply inaccurate. In Sandstrom v. Montana our holding rested on equally valid alternative rationales: “[T]he question before this Court is whether the challenged jury instruction had the effect of relieving the State of the burden of proof enunciated in Winship on the critical question of petitioner’s state of mind. We conclude that under either of the two possible interpretations of the instruction set out above, precisely that effect would result, and that the instruction therefore represents constitutional error.” 442 U. S., at 521 (emphasis added). In any event, the principle that mandatory rebuttable presumptions violate due process had been definitively established prior to Sandstrom. In Mullaney v. Wilbur, it was a mandatory rebuttable presumption that we held unconstitutional. 421 U. S., at 698-701. As we explained in Patterson v. New York:
“Mullaney surely held that a State... may not shift the burden of proof to the defendant by presuming that ingredient upon proof of the other elements of the offense.... Such shifting of the burden of persuasion with respect to a fact which the State deems so important that it must be either proved or presumed is impermissible under the Due Process Clause.” 432 U. S., at 215.
An irrebuttable presumption, of course, does not shift any burden to the defendant; it eliminates an element from the case if the State proves the requisite predicate facts. Thus the Court in Patterson could only have been referring to a mandatory rebuttable presumption when it stated that “such shifting of the burden of persuasion... is impermissible.” Ibid. (emphasis added).
These portions of the instructions read:
“I charge you that before the State is entitled to a verdict of conviction of this defendant at your hands... the burden is upon the State of proving the defendant’s guilt as charged... beyond a reasonable doubt.” App. 4a.
“Now... the defendant enters upon his trial with the presumption of innocence in his favor and this presumption... remains with him throughout the trial, unless it is overcome by evidence sufficiently strong to satisfy you of his guilt... beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id., at 5a.
Because the jurors heard the divergent intent instructions before they heard the instructions about absence of justification, Justice Rehnquist’s dissent argues that no reasonable juror could have understood the criminal intent instruction as referring to the absence of justification. The dissent reproves the Court for reading the instructions “as a ‘looking-glass charge’ which, when held to a mirror, reads more clearly in the opposite direction.” Post, at 340. A reasonable juror, however, would have sought to make sense of the conflicting intent instructions not only at the initial moment of hearing them but also later in the jury room after having heard the entire charge. One would expect most of the juror’s reflection about the meaning of the instructions to occur during this subsequent deliberative stage of the process. Under these circumstances, it is certainly reasonable to expect a juror to attempt to make sense of a confusing earlier portion of the instruction by reference to a later portion of the instruction. The dissent obviously accepts this proposition because much of the language the dissent marshals to argue that the jury would not have misunderstood the intent instruction appears several paragraphs after the conflicting sentences about intent. Indeed much of this purportedly clarifying language appears after the portion of the charge concerning the element of absence of justification. See post, at 336 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting), quoting App. 10a.
It is puzzling that the dissent thinks it “defies belief” to suggest that a reasonable juror would have related the contradictory intent instructions to the later instructions about the element of malice. Post, at 339. As the portion of the charge quoted in the dissent makes clear, the later malice instructions specifically spoke of intent: “Malice... is the unlawful, deliberate intention to kill a human being without justification or mitigation or excuse, which intention must exist at the time of the killing.” App. 10a. See post, at 336 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting). A reasonable juror might well have sought to understand this language by reference to the earlier instruction referring to criminal intent.
Finally, the dissent’s representation of the language in this part of the charge as a clarifying “express statemen[t]... that there was no burden on the defendant to disprove malice,” post, at 340, is misleading. The relevant portion of the charge reads: “it is not required of the accused to prove an absence of malice, if the evidence for the State shows facts which may excuse or justify the homicide.” App. 10a. This language is most naturally read as implying that if the State’s evidence does not show mitigating facts the defendant does have the burden to prove absence of malice. Thus, if anything, this portion of the charge exacerbates the potential for an unconstitutional shifting of the burden to the defendant.
Justice Rehnquist’s dissent would hold a jury instruction invalid only when “it must at least be likely” that a reasonable juror would have understood the charge unconstitutionally to shift a burden of persuasion. Post, at 342. Apparently this “at least likely” test would not be met even when there exists a reasonable possibility that a juror would have understood the instructions unconstitutionally, so long as the instructions admitted of a “more ‘reasonable’” constitutional interpretation. Post, at 340-341. Apart from suggesting that application of the “at least likely” standard would lead to the opposite result in the present case, the dissent leaves its proposed alternative distressingly undefined. Even when faced with clearly contradictory instructions respecting allocation of the burden of persuasion on a crucial element of an offense, a reviewing court apparently would be required to intuit, based on its sense of the “tone” of the jury instructions as a whole, see ibid., whether a reasonable juror was more likely to have reached a constitutional understanding of the instructions than an unconstitutional understanding of the instructions.
This proposed alternative standard provides no sound basis for appellate review of jury instructions. Its malleability will certainly generate inconsistent appellate results and thereby compound the confusion that has plagued this area of the law. Perhaps more importantly, the suggested approach provides no incentive for trial courts to weed out potentially infirm language from jury instructions; in every case, the “presumption of innocence” boilerplate in the instructions will supply a basis from which to argue that the “tone” of the charge as a whole is not unconstitutional. For these reasons, the proposed standard promises reviewing courts, including this Court, an unending stream of cases in which ad hoe decisions will have to be made about the “tone” of jury instructions as a whole.
Most importantly, the dissent’s proposed standard is irreconcilable with bedrock due process principles. The Court today holds that contradictory instructions as to intent — one of which imparts to the jury an unconstitutional understanding of the allocation of burdens of persuasion — create a reasonable likelihood that a juror understood the instructions in an unconstitutional manner, unless other language in the charge explains the infirm language sufficiently to eliminate this possibility. If such a reasonable possibility of an unconstitutional understanding exists, “we have no way of knowing that [the defendant] was not convicted on the basis of the unconstitutional instruction.” Sandstrom, 442 U. S., at 526. For this reason, it has been settled law since Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359 (1931), that when there exists a reasonable possibility that the jury relied on an unconstitutional understanding of the law in reaching a guilty verdict, that verdict must be set aside. See Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 31-32 (1969); Bachellar v. Maryland, 397 U. S. 564, 571 (1970). The dissent’s proposed alternative cannot be squared with this principle; notwithstanding a substantial doubt as to whether the jury decided that the State proved intent beyond a reasonable doubt, the dissent would uphold this conviction based on an impressionistic and intuitive judgment that it was more likely that the jury understood the charge in a constitutional manner than in an unconstitutional manner.
Rejecting this conclusion, Justice Rehnquist’s dissent “simply do[es] not believe” that a reasonable juror would have paid sufficiently close attention to the particular language of the jury instructions to have been perplexed by the contradictory intent instructions. See post, at 340. See also Sandstrom v. Montana, supra, at 528 (Rehnquist, J., concurring) (“I continue to have doubts as to whether this particular jury was so attentively attuned to the instructions of the trial court that it divined the difference recognized by lawyers between ‘infer’ and ‘presume’ ”). Apparently the dissent would have the degree of attention
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Chief Justice Warren
delivered the opinion of the Court.
These cases come to us from the Supreme Court of Louisiana and draw in question the constitutionality of the petitioners’ convictions in the 19th Judicial District Court, Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, for the crime of disturbing the peace. The petitioners were brought to trial and convicted on informations charging them with violating Title 14, Article 103 (7), of the Louisiana Criminal Code, 1942, in that “they refused to move from a cafe counter seat . . . after having been ordered to do so by the agent [of the establishment]; said conduct being in such manner as to unreasonably and foreseeably disturb the public . . . .” In accordance with state procedure, petitioners sought post-conviction review in the Supreme Court of Louisiana through writs of certiorari, mandamus and prohibition. They contended that the State had presented no evidence to support the findings of statutory violation, and that their convictions were invalid on other constitutional grounds, both state and federal. Relief was denied. Federal questions were properly raised and preserved throughout the proceedings, and timely petitions for certiorari filed in this Court were granted. 365 U. S. 840. The United States Government appeared as amicus curiae urging, on various grounds, that the convictions be reversed. An amicus brief also urging reversal was filed by the Committee on the Bill of Rights of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
In our view of these cases and for our disposition of them, the slight variance in the facts of the three cases is immaterial. Although the alleged offenses did not occur on the same day or in the same establishment, the petitioners were all arrested by the same officers, charged with commission of the same acts, represented by the same counsel, tried and convicted by the same judge, and given identical sentences. Because of this factual similarity and the identical nature of the problems involved in granting certiorari, we ordered the cases consolidated for argument and now deem it sufficient to file one opinion. In addition, as the facts are simple, we think it sufficient to recite but one of the cases in detail, noting whatever slight variations exist in the others.
In No. 28, Hoston et al. v. Louisiana, Jannette Hoston, a student at Southern University, and six of her colleagues took seats at a lunch counter in Kress’ Department Store in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on March 29, 1960. In Kress’, as in Sitman’s Drug Store in No. 26 where Negroes are considered “very good customers,” a segregation policy is maintained only with regard to the service of food. Hence, although both stores solicit business from white and Negro patrons, and the latter as well as the former may make purchases in the general merchandise sections without discrimination, the stores do not provide integrated service at their lunch counters.
The manager at Kress’ store, who was also seated at the lunch counter, told the waitress to advise the students that they could be served at the counter across the aisle, which she did. The petitioners made no response and remained quietly in their seats. After the manager had finished his lunch, he telephoned the police and told them that “[some Negroes] were seated at the counter reserved for whites.” The police arrived at the store and ordered the students to leave. The arresting officer testified that the petitioners did and said nothing except that one of them stated that she would like a glass of iced tea, but that he believed they were disturbing the peace “by sitting there.” When none of the petitioners showed signs of leaving their seats, they were placed under arrest and taken to the police station. They were then charged with violating Title 14, Article 103 (7), of the Louisiana Criminal Code, a section of the Louisiana disturbance of the peace statute.
Before trial, the petitioners moved for a bill of particulars as to the details of their allegedly disruptive behavior and to quash the informations for failure to state any unlawful acts of which they could be constitutionally convicted. The motions were denied, and the petitioners applied to the Supreme Court of Louisiana for writs of certiorari, prohibition and mandamus to review the rulings. The Supreme Court denied the writs on the ground that an adequate remedy was available through resort to its supervisory jurisdiction in the event of a conviction. The petitioners were then tried and convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment for four months, three months of which would be suspended upon the payment of a fine of $100. Subsequent to their convictions, the Supreme Court, in denying relief on appeal, issued the following oral opinion in each case.
“Writs refused.
“This court is without jurisdiction to review facts in criminal cases. See Art. 7, Sec. 10, La. Constitution of 1921.
“The rulings of the district judge on matters of law are not erroneous. See Town of Ponchatoula vs. Bates, 173 La., 824, 138 So., 851.”
Before this Court, petitioners and the amici have presented a number of questions claiming deprivation of rights guaranteed to petitioners by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. The petitioners contend:
(a) The decision below affirms a criminal conviction based upon no evidence of guilt and, therefore, deprives them of due process of law as defined in Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199.
(b) The petitioners were convicted of a crime under the provisions of a state statute which, as applied to their acts, is so vague, indefinite and uncertain as to offend the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
(c) The decisions below conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression.
(d) The decision below conflicts with prior decisions of this Court which condemn racially discriminatory administration of State criminal laws in contravention of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
With regard to argument (d), the petitioners and the New York Committee on the Bill of Rights contend that the participation of the police and the judiciary to enforce a state custom of segregation resulted in the use of “state action” and was therefore plainly violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. The petitioners also urge that even if these cases contain a relevant component of “private action,” that action is substantially infected with state power and thereby remains state action for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In the view we take of the cases we find it unnecessary to reach the broader constitutional questions presented, and in accordance with our practice not to formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts presented in the record, for the reasons hereinafter stated, we hold that the convictions in these cases are so totally devoid of evidentiary support as to render them unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As in Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199, our inquiry does not turn on a question of sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction, but on whether these convictions rest upon any evidence which would support a finding that the petitioners’ acts caused a disturbance of the peace. In addition, we cannot be concerned with whether the evidence proves the commission of some other crime, for it is as much a denial of due process to send an accused to prison following conviction for a charge that was never made as it is to convict him upon a charge for which there is no evidence to support that conviction.
The respondent, in both its brief and its argument to this Court, implied that the evidence proves the elements of a criminal trespass. In oral argument it contended that the real question here “is whether or not a private property owner and proprietor of a private establishment has the right to serve only those whom he chooses and to refuse to serve those whom he desires not to serve for whatever reason he may determine.” That this is not a question presented by the records in these cases seems too apparent for debate. Even assuming it were the question, however, which it clearly is not, these convictions could not stand for the reason stated in Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196.
Under our view of these cases, our task is to determine whether there is any evidence in the records to show that the petitioners, by their actions at the lunch counters in the business establishments involved, violated Title 14, Article 103 (7), of the Louisiana Criminal Code. At the time of petitioners’ acts, Article 103 provided:
“Disturbing the peace is the doing of any of the following in such a manner as would foreseeably disturb or alarm the public:
“(1) Engaging in a fistic encounter; or
“(2) Using of any unnecessarily loud, offensive, or insulting language; or
“(3) Appearing in an intoxicated condition; or
“(4) Engaging in any act in a violent and tumultuous manner by any three or more persons; or
“(5) Holding of an unlawful assembly; or
“(6) Interruption of any lawful assembly of people; or
“(7) Commission of any other act in such a manner as to unreasonably disturb or alarm the public.”
I.
Our initial inquiry is necessarily to determine the type of conduct proscribed by this statute and the elements of guilt which the evidence must prove to support a criminal conviction thereunder. First, it is evident from a reading of the statute that the accused must conduct himself in a manner that would “foreseeably disturb or alarm the public.” In addition, when a person is charged with a violation of Paragraph 7, an earlier version of which was aptly described by the Supreme Court of Louisiana as “the general portion of the statute which does not define the 'conduct or acts’ the members of the Legislature had in mind” (State v. Sanford, 203 La. 961, 967, 14 So. 2d 778, 780), it would also seem apparent from the words of the statute that the acts, whatever they might be, must be done “in such a manner as to [actually] unreasonably disturb or alarm the public.” However, because we find the records barren of any evidence that would support a finding that the petitioners’ conduct would even “foreseeably” have disturbed the public, we need not consider whether the statute also requires the acts to be done in a manner as actually to disturb the peace.
We of course are bound by a State’s interpretation of its own statute and will not substitute our judgment for that of the State’s when it becomes necessary to analyze the evidence for the purpose of determining whether that evidence supports the findings of a state court. Hence, we must look to Louisiana for guidance in the meaning of the phrase “foreseeably disturb or alarm the public” in order to determine the type of conduct proscribed by La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 14:103 (7).
The Supreme Court of Louisiana has had occasion in the past, in interpreting the predecessor of Article 103, to give content to these words, and it is evident from the court’s prior treatment of them that they were not intended to embrace peaceful conduct. On the contrary, it is plain that under the court’s application of the statute these words encompass only conduct which is violent or boisterous in itself, or which is provocative in the sense that it induces a foreseeable physical disturbance. In State v. Sanford, 203 La. 961, 14 So. 2d 778, the evidence showed that thirty Jehovah’s Witnesses approached a Louisiana town for the purpose of distributing religious tracts and persuading the public to make contributions to their cause. The Witnesses were warned by the mayor and police officers that “their presence and activities would cause trouble among the population and asked them to stay away from the town . . . .” 203 La., at 964, 14 So. 2d, at 779. The Witnesses failed to yield to the warning and proceeded on their mission. The trial court found that the acts of the Witnesses in entering the town and stopping passers-by in the crowded street “might or would tend to incite riotous and disorderly conduct.” 203 La., at 965, 14 So. 2d, at 779. The Supreme Court of Louisiana set aside convictions for breach of the peace, holding that the defendants did not commit any unlawful act or pursue any disorderly course of conduct which would tend to disturb the peace, thus, in effect, that peaceful conduct, even though conceivably offensive to another class of the public, is not conduct which may be proscribed by Louisiana’s disturbance of the peace statute without evidence that the actor conducted himself in some outwardly unruly manner.
The conclusion of the highest Louisiana court that the breach of the peace statute does not reach peaceful and orderly conduct is substantiated by the conclusion drawn from reading the statute as a whole. The catch-all provision under which the petitioners were tried and convicted follows an enumeration of six specific offenses, each of which describes overtly tumultuous or disruptive behavior. It would therefore normally be interpreted in the light of the preceding sections as an effort to cover other forms of violence or loud and boisterous conduct not already listed. We do not mean to imply that an ejusdem generis reading of the statute is constitutionally compelled to the exclusion of other reasonable interpretations, but we do note that here such a reading is consistent with the Louisiana Supreme Court's application in Sanford.
Further evidence that Article 103 (7) was not designed to encompass the petitioners’ conduct in these cases has been supplied by the Louisiana Legislature. Shortly after the events for which the petitioners were arrested took place, the legislature amended its disturbance of the peace statute in an obvious attempt to reach the type of activity involved in these cases. The contrast between the language of the present statute and the one under which the petitioners were convicted confirms the interpretation given the general terms of the latter by the Supreme Court in State v. Sanford and the natural meaning of the words used in Article 103.
We are aware that the Louisiana courts have the final authority to interpret and, where they see fit, to reinterpret that State’s legislation. However, we have seen no indication that the Louisiana Supreme Court has changed its Sanford interpretation of La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 14:103 (7), and we will not infer that an inferior Louisiana court intended to overrule a long-standing and reasonable interpretation of a state statute by that State’s highest court. Our reluctance so to infer is supported, moreover, by the fact that State v. Sanford was argued by the petitioners to both the trial court and the Supreme Court, and that neither court mentioned in its opinion that Sanford was no longer to be the law in Louisiana.
We think that the above discussion would give ample support to a conclusion that Louisiana law requires a finding of outwardly boisterous or unruly conduct in order to charge a defendant with “foreseeably” disturbing or alarming the public. However, because this case comes to us from a state court and necessitates a delicate involvement in federal-state relations, we are willing to assume with the respondent that the Louisiana courts might construe the statute more broadly to encompass the traditional common-law concept of disturbing the peace. Thus construed, it might permit the police to prevent an imminent public commotion even though caused by peaceful and orderly conduct on the part of the accused. Cf. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 308. We therefore treat these cases as though evidence of such imminent danger, as well as evidence of a defendant’s active conduct which is outwardly provocative, could support a finding that the acts might “foreseeably disturb or alarm the public” under the Louisiana statute.
II.
Having determined what evidence is necessary to support a finding of disturbing the peace under Louisiana law, the ultimate question, as in Thompson v. City of Louisville, supra, is whether the records in these cases contain any such evidence. With appropriate notations to the slight differences in testimony in the other two cases, we again turn to the record in No. 28. The manager of the department store in which the lunch counter was located testified that after the students had taken their seats at the “white lunch counter” where he was also occupying a seat, he advised the waitress on duty to offer the petitioners service at''the counter across the aisle which served Negroes. The petitioners, however, after being “advised that they would be served at the other counter,” remained in their seats, and the manager continued eating his lunch at the same counter. In No. 26, where there were no facilities to serve colored persons, the petitioners were merely told that they couldn’t be served, but were never even asked to move. In No. 27, a waitress testified that the petitioners were merely told that they would have to go “to the other side to be served.” The petitioners not only made no speeches, they did not even speak to anyone except to order food; they carried no placards, and did nothing, beyond their mere presence at the lunch counter, to attract attention to themselves or to others. In none of the cases was there any testimony that the petitioners were told that their mere presence was causing, or was likely to cause, a disturbance of the peace, nor that the petitioners were ever asked to leave the counters or the establishments by anyone connected with the stores.
The manager in No. 28 testified that after finishing his meal he went to the telephone and called the police department, advising them that Negroes were in his store sitting at the lunch counter reserved for whites. This is the only case in which “the owner or his agent” notified the police of the petitioners’ presence at the lunch counter, and even here the manager gave no indication to the officers that he feared any disturbance or that he had received any complaint concerning the petitioners’ presence. In No. 27, a waitress testified that a bus driver sitting in the restaurant notified the police that “there were several colored people sitting at the lunch counter.” In No. 26, the arresting officers were not summoned to the drugstore by anyone even remotely connected with Sitman’s but, rather, by a call from an officer on his “beat” who had observed the petitioners sitting quietly at the lunch counter.
Although the manager of Kress’ Department Store testified that the only conduct which he considered disruptive was the petitioners’ mere presence at the counter, he did state that he called the police because he “feared that some disturbance might occur.” However, his fear is completely unsubstantiated by the record. The manager continued eating his lunch in an apparently leisurely manner at the same counter at which the petitioners were sitting before calling the police. Moreover, not only did he fail to give the petitioners any warning of his alleged “fear,” but he specifically testified to the fact that the petitioners were never asked to move or to leave the store. Nor did the witness elaborate on the basis of his fear except to state that “it isn’t customary for the two races to sit together and eat together.” In addition, there is no evidence that this alleged fear was ever communicated to the arresting officers, either at the time the manager made the initial call to police headquarters or when the police arrived at the store. Under these circumstances, the manager’s general statement gives no support for the convictions within the meaning of Thompson v. City of Louisville, supra.
Subsequent to the manager’s notification, the police arrived at the store and, without consulting the manager or anyone else on the premises, went directly to confront the petitioners. An officer asked the petitioners to leave the counter because “they were disturbing the peace and violating the law by sitting there.” One of the students stated that she wished to get a glass of iced tea, but she and her friends were told, again by the police, that they were disturbing the peace by sitting at a counter reserved for whites and that they would have to leave. When the petitioners continued to occupy the seats, they were arrested, as the officer testified, for disturbing the peace “[b]y sitting there” “because that place was reserved for white people.” The same officer testified that the petitioners had done nothing other than take seats at that particular lunch counter which he considered to be a breach of the peace.
The respondent discusses at length the history of race relations and the high degree of racial segregation which exists throughout the South. Although there is no reference to such facts in the records, the respondent argues that the trial court took judicial notice of the general situation, as he may do under Louisiana law, and that it therefore became apparent to the court that the petitioners’ presence at the lunch counters might cause a disturbance which it was the duty of the police to prevent. There is nothing in the records to indicate that the trial judge did in fact take judicial notice of anything. To extend the doctrine of judicial notice to the length pressed by the respondent would require us to allow the prosecution to do through argument to this Court what it is required by due process to do at the trial, and would be “to turn the doctrine into a pretext for dispensing with a trial.” Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Comm’n, 301 U. S. 292, 302. Furthermore, unless an accused is informed at the trial of the facts of which the court is taking judicial notice, not only does he not know upon what evidence he is being convicted, but, in addition, he is deprived of any opportunity to challenge the deductions drawn from such notice or to dispute the notoriety or truth of the facts allegedly relied upon. Moreover, there is no way by which an appellate court may review the facts and law of a case and intelligently decide whether the findings of the lower court are supported by the evidence where that evidence is unknown. Such an assumption would be a denial of due process. Ohio Bell, supra.
Thus, having shown that these records contain no evidence to support a finding that petitioners disturbed the peace, either by outwardly boisterous conduct or by passive conduct likely to cause a public disturbance, we hold that these convictions violated petitioners’ rights to due process of law guaranteed them by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The undisputed evidence shows that the police who arrested the petitioners were left with nothing to support their actions except their own opinions that it was a breach of the peace for the petitioners to sit peacefully in a place where custom decreed they should not sit. Such activity, in the circumstances of these cases, is not evidence of any crime and cannot be so considered either by the police or by the courts.
The judgments are reversed.
Unless otherwise indicated, the term “petitioners” refers to the petitioners in all three cases, Nos. 26, 27 and 28.
In No. 26, Garner et al. v. Louisiana, the petitioners, two Negro students at Southern University, took seats at the lunch counter of Sitman’s Drug Store in Baton Rouge, and in No. 27, Briscoe et al. v. Louisiana, the lunch counter at which the seven Negro students sought service was in the restaurant section of the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Baton Rouge.
The same is true, of course, with regard to the bus terminal in No. 27. The terminal itself caters to both races, but separate facilities are maintained for the service of food.
In No. 26, one of the petitioners had purchased an umbrella in the drugstore just prior to taking his seat at the lunch counter, and had encountered no difficulty in making the purchase.
Although the problem was exactly the same in all three cases, the trial judge appeared to use different formulae for concluding petitioners’ guilt in each opinion. In No. 26, the acts of the petitioners were said to be “an act done in a manner calculated to, and actually did, unreasonably disturb and alarm the public.” In No. 27, the very same conduct was said to be “an act on their part as would unreasonably disturb and alarm the public.” In No. 28, it was declared that the conduct “joreseeably could alarm and disturb the public.” (Emphasis added.)
The opinions of the Supreme Court of Louisiana are not officially reported.
Under Art. 7, See. 10, of the Louisiana Constitution, the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court over criminal cases extends only to questions of law, and then only where, inter alia, a fine exceeding three hundred dollars or imprisonment exceeding six months has been imposed. See State v. Di Vincenti, 232 La. 13, 93 So. 2d 676; State v. Gaspard, 222 La. 222, 62 So. 2d 281; State v. Price, 164 La. 376, 113 So. 882. The Louisiana Supreme Court has held that a question of law is presented, and that a case is thus reviewable, where the contention is that there is no evidence to support an element of the crime charged. State v. Daniels, 236 La. 998, 109 So. 2d 896; State v. Brown, 224 La. 480, 70 So. 2d 96; State v. Sbisa, 232 La. 961, 95 So. 2d 619, and cases cited at n. 6, 232 La., at 969-970, 95 So. 2d, at 622. See Comment, 19 La. L. Rev. 843 (1959). Despite the court’s purported review of the questions of law in these cases, the degree of punishment inflicted would deprive the court of appellate jurisdiction under Art. 7, Sec. 10. However, the Supreme Court also has a general supervisory jurisdiction, exercised only in the sound discretion of the court (see State v. Morgan, 204 La. 499, 502, 15 So. 2d 866, 867), over all inferior courts under Art. 7, Sec. 10; it appears that this is the provision which the petitioners attempted to invoke with their extraordinary writs in these cases. See also Art. 7, Sec. 2, of the Louisiana Constitution.
In addition to the petitioners’ contentions the United States argues that in No. 27 the petitioners’ arrests and convictions deprived them of their rights under the Interstate Commerce Act to service on a nondiscriminatory basis in a restaurant of a bus terminal operated as part of interstate commerce. Cf. Boynton v. Virginia, 364 U. S. 454.
The Government, as well as petitioners, points out that in addition to state statutes requiring segregation in specific situations in Louisiana, the Louisiana Legislature in 1960 adopted the following preface to a joint resolution concerning the possible integration of any tax-supported facility in the State:
“WHEREAS, Louisiana has always maintained a policy of segregation of the races, and
“WHEREAS, it is the intention of the citizens of this sovereign state that such a policy be continued. . . .” Act No. 630 of 1960, to amend Article X of the Louisiana Constitution.
See Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199.
Cf. Cole v. Arkansas, 333 U. S. 196, 201. See Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U. S. 199, 206, and the cases cited at footnote 13.
Counsel for the respondent admitted on oral argument that the Louisiana trespass statute in force at the time of the petitioners’ arrests would probably not have applied to these facts. Apparently, the Louisiana Legislature agreed, for, in 1960, subsequent to petitioners’ acts, the legislature passed a new criminal trespass statute (La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 14:63.3 (1960 Supp.)), which reads:
“No person shall without authority of laws go into or upon . . . any structure . . . which belongs to another . . . after having been forbidden to do so . . . by any owner, lessee, or custodian of the property or by any other authorized person. . . .”
We express no opinion whether, on the facts of these cases, the petitioners’ conduct would have been unlawful under this statute.
The Supreme Court of Louisiana has also held that an accused may not be convicted on pleadings which fail to state the specific crime with which he is charged. State v. Morgan, 204 La. 499, 15 So. 2d 866 (1943).
We express no view as to the constitutionality of the petitioners’ convictions as attacked by their argument that the statute (§ 103 (7)) is so vague and uncertain, with its resulting lack of notice of what conduct the legislature intended to make criminal, as to violate due process. Cf. Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U. S. 451; Musser v. Utah, 333 U. S. 95; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507.
The predecessor of Title 14, Section 103, was Act No. 227 of 1934, which provided, inter alia, “That any person who shall go into any public place, [or] into or near any private house . . . and who shall [shout, swear, expose himself, discharge a firearm] ... or who shall do any other act, in a manner calculated to disturb or alarm the inhabitants thereof, or persons present . . .” should be adjudged guilty of breaching the peace. In State v. Sanford, 203 La. 961, 14 So. 2d 778, discussed immediately following in the text, the defendants were charged, as were the petitioners in the cases at bar, under the general, catch-all provision.
See Town of Ponchatoula v. Bates, 173 La. 824, 138 So. 851 (dictum).
See 2 Sutherland, Statutes and Statutory Construction, §§ 4909-4910 (Horack ed. 1943).
Such an interpretation has not been made where there was evidence of a contrary legislative intent or judicial reading. United States v. Alpers, 338 U. S. 680, 682-683; Gooch v. United States, 297 U. S. 124, 128; Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U. S. 84, 88-89.
See also Town of Ponchatoula v. Bates, supra, note 15.
La. Rev. Stat., 1950, §14:103.1 (1960 Supp.), now reads, in pertinent part, as follows:
“A. Whoever with intent to provoke a breach of the peace, or under circumstances such that a breach of the peace may be occasioned thereby:
“ (4) refuses to leave the premises of another when requested so to do by any owner, lessee, or any employee thereof, shall be guilty of disturbing the peace.”
In all three cases the prosecution called as witnesses only the arresting officer and an employee from the restaurant in question. In none of the cases did the petitioners themselves testify or introduce any witnesses in their defense.
There is some inconsistency in the record, not material to our disposition of the case (see No. 28), as to who called the police; a police officer made a statement based on hearsay that the desk sergeant was called by “some woman.”
As noted previously, this is the only case in which a representative of the restaurant called the police. In addition, this is the only case in which there is anything in the record concerning the possibility of a disturbance, and even here it is limited to the manager’s single statement noted above.
Of course, even such a warning was not sufficient evidence to support a finding of breach of the peace in State v. Sanford.
Compare the basis for the state action in Buchanan v. Warley, 245 U. S. 60, and Cooper v. Aaron, 358 U.S. 1.
The evidence in the records in Nos. 26 and 27 is similar. Each witness called by the State testified that the petitioners were arrested solely because they were Negroes sitting at a white lunch counter.
La. Rev. Stat., 1950, § 15:422 provides that Louisiana courts may take judicial notice of “social and racial conditions prevailing in [the] state.” See State v. Bessa et al., 115 La. 259, 38 So. 985.
Compare the evidence contained in the records in Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1; and in Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315.
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.
In this case, we are asked to determine whether the United States Court of Appeals exceeded its jurisdictional authority when, after affirming a decision of the United States Tax Court, it granted the taxpayer-estate’s request to forgive interest on the determined deficiency in estate tax and also to forgive a statutorily imposed late-payment penalty. We are constrained to hold that the Court of Appeals did exceed its authority.
I
Arthur H. McCoy died testate on April 23, 1980. His son, Robert McCoy, the respondent here, was appointed executor of his will. At his death, the decedent was the owner of an undivided interest in a family farm in Clinton County, Ohio. The then fair market value of that interest was $235,140. Under §2032A of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, as amended, 26 U. S. C. § 2032A (1982 ed. and Supp. Ill), however, an estate may elect a special method for valuing certain real property for federal estate tax purposes. This alternative usually is elected if it produces a lower valuation and a lower tax. At the time relevant for the McCoy estate, the election was available only if the land in question was “qualified real property,” see § 2032A(b)(l), and only if the election was made “not later than the time prescribed by section 6075(a) for filing the [estate tax] return . . . (including extensions thereof) . . . .” 26 U. S. C. §2032A(d)(l) (1976 ed.). Since § 6075(a) provided that the return was to be filed within nine months of the decedent’s death, and since no extension of time was obtained, respondent was required to make any election under §2032A not later than January 23, 1981.
Respondent, however, did not file the return for the decedent’s estate until February 11. In the return, the election as to the interest in the farm — which, it is conceded, would have been “qualified real property” — was asserted. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, however, took the position that the election was untimely under §§2032A and 6075(a), and that the farm interest therefore was to be valued at the date-of-death figure of $235,140, rather than at the special-use figure of $103,304.70 claimed in the return as filed. The lower value would have produced no tax. The Commissioner, using the higher value, determined a deficiency in estate tax of $22,159.72.
Respondent sought redetermination of the asserted deficiency in the United States Tax Court. He contended that the time for making the election under § 2032A had been extended retroactively by amendments to the statute effected by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981, Pub. L. 97-34, § 421(k)(5), 95 Stat. 314, note following 26 U. S. C. § 2032A.
The Tax Court rejected respondent’s contention and sustained the deficiency. Estate of McCoy, 50 TCM 1194 (1985), ¶ 85,509 P-H Memo TC. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 809 F. 2d 333 (CA6 1987). After the Tax Court’s decision, respondent did not file the appeal bond required by 26 U. S. C. § 7485, if assessment and collection of the deficiency were to be stayed. Despite the pendency of the appeal to the Sixth Circuit, the Commissioner therefore assessed the deficiency and issued a notice and demand for payment. When the deficiency was not paid within 10 days, an addition to tax accrued under 26 U. S. C. § 6651(a)(3). Shortly after the Court of Appeals issued its affirming opinion, respondent paid the tax but filed a petition with the Court of Appeals asking that that court “forgive” interest on the assessment and also the late-payment penalty. Respondent asserted that the case was one of first impression and that the estate would otherwise be the victim of an obscure after-the-fact statutory amendment. Respondent also claimed that he had litigated in good faith the validity of his § 2032A election.
The Court of Appeals on March 2, 1987, entered an order granting the relief requested by respondent’s petition. App. to Pet. for Cert. la. It noted that “the interest and penalties now exceed the assessed tax,” and it concluded that the interest and penalties should be forgiven “in order to achieve a fair and just result.” Ibid. The Commissioner seeks a writ of certiorari.
II
Under 26 U. S. C. § 7482(a), the regional federal courts of appeals have jurisdiction to review decisions of the Tax Court “in the same manner and to the same extent as decisions of the district courts in civil actions tried without a jury.” Section 7482(c)(1) provides that “such courts shall have power to affirm or, if the decision of the Tax Court is not in accordance with law, to modify or to reverse the decision of the Tax Court.” It follows that in reviewing a Tax Court decision, the duty of the court of appeals is to consider whether the Tax Court committed error. Plainly, the court of appeals lacks jurisdiction to decide an issue that was not the subject of the Tax Court proceeding or to grant relief that is beyond the powers of the Tax Court itself. Taylor v. Commissioner, 258 F. 2d 89, 91 (CA2 1958); Vandenberge v. Commissioner, 147 F. 2d 167, 168 (CA5), cert. denied, 325 U. S. 875 (1945). See Commissioner v. Gooch Milling & Elevator Co., 320 U. S. 418 (1943). But cf. Hormel v. Helvering, 312 U. S. 552 (1941); Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U. S. 106, 120-121 (1976).
The Court of Appeals in this case clearly exceeded its jurisdictional bounds. Its only jurisdiction, under § 7482(a), was “to review the decisio[n] of the Tax Court.” The latter court’s decision was that “there is a deficiency in the amount of $22,159.72 in [respondent’s] Federal estate tax.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 28a. The Court of Appeals ruled that that decision was correct. Its duty, then, was to affirm the decision. It was not empowered to proceed further to decide other questions relating to interest and penalty — questions that were not presented, and could not possibly have been presented, to the Tax Court — or to grant relief that the Tax Court itself had no jurisdiction to provide.
Interest on a tax deficiency is separately mandated by 26 U. S. C. § 6601(a). A penalty that accrues under § 6651(a)(3) is also separate and outside the scope of the petition to the Tax Court. The deficiency asserted here was not assessed, and could not have been assessed, until after the Tax Court had rendered its decision. See § 6213(a). The Tax Court is a court of limited jurisdiction and lacks general equitable powers. Commissioner v. Gooch Milling & Elevator Co., supra.
The estate, of course, was not without an opportunity to litigate the validity of the interest and the late-payment penalty. The proper procedure was for respondent to pay the interest and penalty and sue for their refund in an appropriate federal district court or in the Claims Court. The Sixth Circuit in the former case, and the Federal Circuit in the latter, then would have had jurisdiction to consider those issues on appeal.
We note in passing that the fact that the Court of Appeals’ order under challenge here is unpublished carries no weight in our decision to review the case. The Court of Appeals exceeded its jurisdiction regardless of nonpublication and regardless of any assumed lack of precedential effect of a ruling that is unpublished.
Certiorari is therefore granted and the order of March 2, 1987, 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: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
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: | 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.
Since its enactment in 1968, the Federal Magistrates Act has permitted district courts to assign magistrates certain described powers and duties, as well as “such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” The principal question presented is whether presiding at the selection of a jury in a felony trial without the defendant’s consent is among those “additional duties.”
I
Petitioners Jose Gomez and Diego Chavez-Tesina were among 11 persons named as defendants in a 21-count indictment alleging commission of multiple felonies, including conspiracy and racketeering, involving distribution of cocaine. Having elected to stand trial, petitioners and three codefendants appeared before the Federal Magistrate to whom the District Judge had delegated the task of selecting a jury. Defense counsel made timely objections to this assignment. Following a telephone conversation with the District Judge, the Magistrate noted their objections and commenced voir dire. App. 13-16. As is the practice in the Eastern District of New York, the Magistrate, rather than the attorneys, posed questions to the venirepersons. The Magistrate also introduced the prospective jurors to the offenses charged; instructed them on numerous points of law, including the presumption of innocence and the different burdens of persuasion in civil and criminal trials; and admonished chosen jurors not to discuss the case with anyone. See generally Tr. of Jury Selection. When defense counsel appeared before the District Judge eight days later, they renewed their objections to the Magistrate’s role in jury selection. The District Judge overruled the objections but said he would review any of the Magistrate’s rulings de novo. App. 19. Defendants registered no specific challenge to any juror, and trial proceeded; 10 days later, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all five defendants. Gomez received two concurrent 10-year sentences, to be followed by a special 10-year parole term; Chavez-Tesina was ordered to serve 20 years on one count, with three lesser sentences to run concurrently, and lifetime special parole.
On appeal, defendants made no special claim of prejudice. They contended, as petitioners do before this Court, that the Magistrate had no power to conduct the voir dire examination and jury selection. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals rejected this argument. United States v. Garcia, 848 F. 2d 1324 (CA2 1988). The court held that Congress intended the additional duties clause to be construed broadly enough to include jury selection by magistrates. Id., at 1329. Such a designation, the majority added, does not violate Article III or the Due Process Clause of the Federal Constitution. Id., at 1330-1333. The dissenting judge expressed doubts concerning both the majority’s statutory interpretation and its constitutional analysis, and concluded that the court should exercise its supervisory powers to forbid delegation of voir dire to magistrates “except, possibly, when the parties consent, and then only pursuant to rules controlling the district court’s review.”
The Second Circuit’s decision conflicts with the holding of the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Ford, 824 F. 2d 1430, 1438 (1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1034 (1988). The Government had urged the court to construe the additional duties clause of the Federal Magistrates Act to allow judges to delegate jury selection in felony trials even without the defendant’s consent. That construction would provoke “grave constitutional questions,” the en banc majority stated. 824 F. 2d, at 1430; see id., at 1435. After stressing the importance of jury selection and noting the specificity with which Congress defined magistrates’ duties regarding other judicial proceedings, the majority concluded:
“Additional duty is a residuum, granting the power to delegate any task not otherwise forbidden after we carve away that congery of duties that Congress never envisioned would be delegated. We are not persuaded that Congress intended to grant authority to judges to delegate to magistrates the authority to preside over felony trials and over activities integral to and intimately tied with trial.”
We granted certiorari to resolve this important conflict. 488 U. S. 838 (1989).
II
The Federal Magistrates Act provides that a “magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(3). Read literally and without reference to the context in which they appear, these words might encompass any assignment that is not explicitly prohibited by statute or by the Constitution. The Act itself specifies some proscriptions: magistrates “may hold no other civil or military office or employment under the United States,” § 631(c), nor “engage in the practice of law [or] any other business, occupation, or employment inconsistent with the expeditious, proper, and impartial performance of their duties as judicial officers,” § 632(a). The only legal constraint on many other assignments not expressly barred — whether supervising repair of the courthouse electrical system or presiding at felony trials — must be found, according to the literal reading, in the Constitution. The panel majority below and the dissenters in Ford embraced this construction, despite abiding concerns regarding the constitutionality of delegating felony trial duties to magistrates.
It is our settled policy to avoid an interpretation of a federal statute that engenders constitutional issues if a reasonable alternative interpretation poses no constitutional question. See, e. g., Commodity Futures Trading Comm’n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 841 (1986); United States v. Rumely, 345 U. S. 41, 45 (1953); Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 62 (1932). In these cases, such an alternative interpretation of the additional duties clause readily may be deduced from the context of the overall statutory scheme. Cf. Massachusetts v. Morash, ante, at 115 (“‘[I]n expounding a statute, we [are] not... guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy’”) (quoting Pilot Life Insurance Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 51 (1987); Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 11 (1962)). When a statute creates an office to which it assigns specific duties, those duties outline the attributes of the office. Any additional duties performed pursuant to a general authorization in the statute reasonably should bear some relation to the specified duties. Thus in United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667, 674-676 (1980); Mathews v. Weber, 423 U. S. 261 (1976); and Wingo v. Wedding, 418 U. S. 461 (1974), we interpreted the Federal Magistrates Act in light of its structure and purpose.
In Mathews, we considered whether preliminary review, argument, and preparation of recommended decisions in Social Security benefits cases were among the “additional duties” that a magistrate could perform. The Government opposed such referrals, arguing that Congress intended a magistrate to be a “‘supernotary/” assuming only the district judge’s “irksome, ministerial tasks,” while the benefits claimant likened the magistrate to a “ ‘para-judge’ ” with “a wide range of substantive judicial duties and advisory functions.” 423 U. S., at 268. Declining to choose either extreme or to read the “additional duties” language literally, we examined the Act’s structure and determined that limited, advisory review, subject to the district judge’s ongoing supervision and final decision, fell among the “range of duties” that Congress intended magistrates to perform. Id., at 270. In accordance with our reasoning in Mathews, our task is to consider the office of magistrate as it pertains to seating a jury in a felony case.
Ill
Before 1968, minor federal legal disputes were settled by United States commissioners, who collected fees for their services and often were not lawyers. Limitations on their jurisdiction resulted in the downgrading or dismissal of criminal offenses that otherwise would have to be tried by district judges. H. R. Rep. No. 1629, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 14 (1968). The new office of magistrate, in contrast, was to be filled in most instances by attorneys. 82 Stat. 1108, 28 U. S. C. § 631(b) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). Paid by salary, magistrates were to be appointed by district judges to definite terms from which they could be removed only for cause. 82 Stat. 1109, 28 U. S. C. §§ 631(e), (h).
With enhanced status came greater responsibility. The Act not only conferred upon magistrates all the powers that commissioners had enjoyed, § 636(a), but also permitted district courts to establish rules by which magistrates could be assigned
“such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States. The additional duties authorized by rule may include, but are not restricted to—
“(1) service as a special master in an appropriate civil action, pursuant to the applicable provisions of this title and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States district courts;
“(2) assistance to a district judge in the conduct of pretrial or discovery proceedings in civil or criminal actions; and
“(3) preliminary review of applications for post-trial relief made by individuals convicted of criminal offenses, and submission of a report and recommendations to facilitate the decision of the district judge having jurisdiction over the case as to whether there should be a hearing.” § 636(b).
Commissioners had tried only “petty offenses.” Magistrates were empowered to try “minor offenses,” but only upon special designation by the district court and only if the defendant, in writing, specifically waived his or her rights to trial before a judge and perhaps by a jury. 82 Stat. 1116, 18 U. S. C. §3401(b) (1964 ed., Supp. IV). A convicted defendant could appeal to the district court, § 3402, and Congress contemplated that district courts would retain “the greatest possible scrutiny and control of a magistrate’s trial jurisdiction,” H. R. Rep. No. 1629, at 21. Exempted from that jurisdiction were a number of minor offenses — such as bribery and public corruption, deprivation of rights under color of law, and jury tampering, 82 Stat. 1116, 18 U. S. C. § 3401(f) (1964 ed., Supp. IV) — that required the exercise of delicate judgment and “as a matter of sound congressional policy, ought to be tried in the U. S. district courts.” H. R. Rep. No. 1629, at 22.
In 1976, Congress amended the Act “to clarify and further define the additional duties which may be assigned to a United States Magistrate,” H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 2 (1976). Upon consent of the parties, a magistrate could be designated a special master in any civil case. 90 Stat. 2729, 28 U. S. C. § 636(b)(2) (1976 ed.). A magistrate also could be assigned to “hear and determine any pretrial matter,” subject to reconsideration by the district court on a showing that “the magistrate’s order is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” § 636(b)(1)(A). Excepted were eight categories of “dispositive” pretrial motions; with regard to these a magistrate might conduct evidentiary and other hearings and recommend dispositions. § 636(b)(1)(B). If a party objected to the magistrate’s recommendation, the judge was to “make a de novo determination” of the matter. § 636(b)(1)(C). The 1968 Act had listed such functions among a magistrate’s additional duties; the 1976 amendments, in contrast, first described specific duties and then stated in a separate subsection that a “magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” § 636(b)(3). A Committee Report explained:
“Under this subsection, the district courts would remain free to experiment in the assignment of other duties to magistrates which may not necessarily be included in the broad category of ‘pretrial matters.’ This subsection would permit, for example, a magistrate to review default judgments, order the exoneration or forfeiture of bonds in criminal cases, and accept returns of jury verdicts where the trial judge is unavailable. This subsection would also enable the court to delegate some of the more administrative functions to a magistrate, such as the appointment of attorneys in criminal cases and assistance in the preparation of plans to achieve prompt disposition of cases in the court.
“If district judges are willing to experiment with the assignment to magistrates of other functions in aid of the business of the courts, there will be increased time available to judges for the careful and unhurried performance of their vital and traditional adjudicatory duties.” H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, at 12.
By 1979, congressional concerns regarding magistrates’ abilities had decreased; a legislative Committee reported that “the magistrate system now plays an integral and important role in the Federal judicial system.” H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, p. 5 (1979). Accordingly, in the Federal Magistrates Act of 1979, Pub. L. 96-82, 93 Stat. 643-647, Congress enlarged the magistrate’s jurisdiction over civil and criminal trials, codifying some of the experiments conducted under the Act’s additional duties clause. See H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, at 2, 17. Thus since 1979 magistrates have been authorized to preside at, and enter final judgment in, civil trials, including those tried before a jury. 93 Stat. 643-644, 28 U. S. C. § 636(c). For the first time magistrates were permitted to conduct jury, as well as bench, trials on any misdemeanor charge. 93 Stat. 646, 18 U. S. C. § 3401(b). As before, however, a magistrate’s trial jurisdiction can be exercised only upon special designation by the district court, 93 Stat. 643, 28 U. S. C. § 636(c)(1); 93 Stat. 645, 18 U. S. C. § 3401(a), and it remains subject to judicial review.
A critical limitation on this expanded jurisdiction is consent. As amended in 1979, the Act states that “neither the district judge nor the magistrate shall attempt to persuade or induce any party to consent to reference of any civil matter to a magistrate.” 93 Stat. 643, 28 U. S. C. § 636(c)(2). In criminal cases, the Government may petition for trial before a district judge. “Defendants charged -with misdemeanors can refuse to consent to a magistrate and thus effect the same removal,” S. Rep. No. 96-74, p. 7 (1979), for the magistrate’s criminal trial jurisdiction depends on the defendant’s specific, written consent.
IV
Through gradual congressional enlargement of magistrates’ jurisdiction, the Federal Magistrates Act now expressly authorizes magistrates to preside at jury trials of all civil disputes and criminal misdemeanors, subject to special assignment, consent of the parties, and judicial review. The Act further details magistrates’ functions regarding pretrial and post-trial matters, specifying two levels of review depending on the scope and significance of the magistrate’s decision. The district court retains the power to assign to magistrates unspecified “additional duties,” subject only to conditions or review that the court may choose to impose. By a literal reading this additional duties clause would permit magistrates to conduct felony trials. But the carefully defined grant of authority to conduct trials of civil matters and of minor criminal cases should be construed as an implicit withholding of the authority to preside at a felony trial. The legislative history, with its repeated statements that magistrates should handle subsidiary matters to enable district judges to concentrate on trying cases, and its assurances that magistrates’ adjudicatory jurisdiction had been circumscribed in the interests of policy as well as constitutional constraints, confirms this inference. Similar considerations lead us to conclude that Congress also did not contemplate inclusion of jury selection in felony trials among a magistrate’s additional duties.
Even though it is true that a criminal trial does not commence for purposes of the Double Jeopardy Clause until the jury is empaneled and sworn, Serfass v. United States, 420 U. S. 377, 388 (1975), other constitutional rights attach before that point, see, e. g., Brewer v. Williams, 430 U. S. 387, 398 (1977) (assistance of counsel). Thus in affirming voir dire as a critical stage of the criminal proceeding, during which the defendant has a constitutional right to be present, the Court wrote: “ ‘[W]here the indictment is for a felony, the trial commences at least from the time when the work of empanelling the jury begins.’” Lewis v. United States, 146 U. S. 370, 374 (1892) (quoting Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574, 578 (1884)). See Swain v. Alabama, 380 U. S. 202, 219 (1965) (voir dire “a necessary part of trial by jury”); see also Ricketts v. Adamson, 483 U. S. 1, 3 (1987); United States v. Powell, 469 U. S. 57, 66 (1984). 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). Indications that Congress likewise considers jury selection part of a felony trial may be gleaned, inter alia, from its passage in 1975 of the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U. S. C. § 3161 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), and its placement of rules pertaining to criminal petit juries in a chapter entitled “Trial.” See Fed. Rules Crim. Proc. 23, 24; cf. id., Rule 43(a) (requiring defendant’s presence “at every stage of the trial including the impaneling of the jury”).
Even assuming that Congress did not consider voir dire to be part of trial, it is unlikely that it intended to allow a magistrate to conduct jury selection without procedural guidance or judicial review. Significantly, when Congress clarified the magistrate’s duties in 1976, it did not identify the selection of a jury as either a “dispositive” matter covered by § 636(b)(1)(B) or a “nondispositive” pretrial matter governed by § 636(b)(1)(A). To the limited extent that it fits into either category, we believe jury selection is more akin to those precisely defined, “dispositive” matters for which sub-paragraph (B) meticulously sets forth a de novo review procedure. It is incongruous to assume that Congress implicitly required such review for jury selection yet failed even to mention that matter in the statute. It is equally incongruous to assume, in the alternative, that Congress intended not to require any review — not even the less stringent clearly-erroneous standard applicable to other pretrial matters — of a magistrate’s selection of a jury. Yet one of those assumptions would be a necessary component of a conclusion that Congress intended jury selection to be one of a magistrate’s additional duties.
In any event, we harbor serious doubts that a district judge could review this function meaningfully. Far from an administrative empanelment process, voir dire represents jurors’ first introduction to the substantive factual and legal issues in a case. To detect prejudices, the examiner — often, in the federal system, the court — must elicit from prospective jurors candid answers about intimate details of their lives. The court further must scrutinize not only spoken words but also gestures and attitudes of all participants to ensure the jury’s impartiality. See, e. g., Wainwright v. Witt, 469 U. S. 412, 428, n. 9 (1985) (quoting Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 156-157 (1879)). But only words can be preserved for review; no transcript can recapture the atmosphere of the voir dire, which may persist throughout the trial. Cf. Waller v. Georgia, 467 U. S. 39, 49, n. 9 (1984) (“While the benefits of a public trial are frequently intangible, difficult to prove, or a matter of chance, the Framers plainly thought them nonetheless real”). The absence of a specific reference to jury selection in the statute, or indeed, in the legislative history, persuades us that Congress did not intend the additional duties clause to embrace this function.
V
The Government concedes, as it must, that errors occurring during jury selection may be grounds for reversal of a conviction. Brief for United States 44, n. 41 (citing Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79, 85 (1986); Witherspoon v. Illinois, 391 U. S. 510, 522 (1968)). Yet it argues that any error in these cases was harmless because petitioners allege no specific prejudice as a result of the Magistrate’s conducting the voir dire examination. Brief for United States’42-45. We find no merit to this argument. Among those basic fair trial rights that “ ‘can never be treated as harmless’ ” is a defendant’s “right to an impartial adjudicator, be it judge or jury.” Gray v. Mississippi, 481 U. S. 648, 668 (1987) (quoting Chapman v. California, 386 U. S. 18, 23 (1967)). Equally basic is a defendant’s right to have all critical stages of a criminal trial conducted by a person with jurisdiction to preside. Thus harmless-error analysis does not apply in a felony case in which, despite the defendant’s objection and without any meaningful review by a district judge, an officer exceeds his jurisdiction by selecting a jury.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
Pub. L. 90-578, 82 Stat. 1108, as amended, 28 U. S. C. §636(b)(3).
Both petitioners were charged with conspiracy to distribute, and actual distribution of, cocaine, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §§841, 846 (1982 ed. and Supp. V). In addition, petitioner Chavez-Tesina was charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1962(c), and the Travel Act, 18 U. S. C. § 1952 (1982 ed. and Supp. V). United States v. Garcia, 848 F. 2d 1324, 1327 (CA2 1988).
Cited as authority for the assignment was a local rule that states: “Full-time magistrates shall have jurisdiction to discharge the duties set forth in 28 U. S. C. See 636.” Fed. Local Ct. Rule 1 (EDNY 1988); see Garcia, 848 F. 2d, at 1327.
Id., at 1338 (Oakes, J., dissenting). Cf. Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 24(a).
848 F. 2d, at 1338 (Oakes, J.). Cf. United States v. Ford, 824 F. 2d 1430, 1440 (CA5 1987) (en bane) (Jolly, J., concurring in result) (“[I]t might be appropriate and wise for federal courts, in their supervisory capacity, to enact rules curtailing, or even precluding the use of magistrates at voir dire in certain situations”), cert. denied, 484 U. S. 1034 (1988).
824 F. 2d, at 1438. Nonetheless, because the defendant failed to object and “the trial was fundamentally fair,” the court held that the Magistrate’s participation was harmless error and affirmed the conviction. Id., at 1439; accord, ibid. (Jolly, J., concurring in result). In dissent, four judges maintained that the delegation fell within the express scope of the statute and withstood constitutional scrutiny. Id., at 1440-1448 (Rubin, J.).
The Eighth Circuit has followed the Fifth Circuit in Ford, while two Ninth Circuit opinions decide the issue much as the Second Circuit did below. Compare United States v. Trice, 864 F. 2d 1421 (CA8 1988), with United States v. Peacock, 761 F. 2d 1313 (CA9), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 847 (1986); United States v. Bezold, 760 F. 2d 999 (CA9 1985), cert. denied, 474 U. S. 1063 (1986). See also United States v. Rodriguez-Suarez, 856 F. 2d 135 (CA11 1988) (because no assertion of prejudice, declines to reach merits of claim), cert. denied, 488 U. S. 1045 (1989). In other opinions Courts of Appeals have rejected challenges to a magistrate’s presiding over jury selection on procedural grounds. United States v. Rivera-Sola, 713 F. 2d 866 (CA1 1983) (defendant failed to object, no plain error); United States v. DeFiore, 720 F. 2d 757 (CA2 1983) (failure to object), cert. denied sub nom. Coppola v. United States, 466 U. S. 906 (1984).
Garcia, 848 F. 2d, at 1329 (quoting In re Establishment Inspection of Gilbert & Bennett Manufacturing Co., 589 F. 2d 1335, 1340-1341 (CA7) (in sustaining inspection warrant issued by Magistrate, states that the “ ‘only limitations on section 636(b)(3) are that the duties be consistent with the Constitution and federal laws and that they not be specifically excluded by section 636(b)(1)’”), cert. denied sub nom. Chromalloy American Corp., Federal Malleable Div. v. Marshall, 444 U. S. 884 (1979)); Ford, 824 F. 2d, at 1441 (Rubin, J.).
See, e. g., Hearings on S. 3475 et al. before the Subcommittee on Improvements in Judicial Machinery of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 89th Cong., 2d Sess., and 90th Cong., 1st Sess., p. 109 (1966-1967) (statement of Assistant Attorney General Vinson) (magistrates’ jurisdiction to try minor criminal offenses unconstitutional even with defendant’s waiver of rights); H. R. Rep. No. 1629, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 21 (1968) (disagreeing with Vinson); 114 Cong. Rec. 27338-27343 (1968). See also Ford, 824 F. 2d, at 1437; H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, pp. 32-33 (1979) (dissenting views of Rep. Sensenbrenner).
The Government had argued:
“In the Magistrates Act, Congress gave magistrates only a limited role in the operation of the federal judicial system. District courts were not authorized to delegate to the magistrates all judicial functions that they deemed appropriate. Rather, the role of the magistrates was to assist, and lighten the workload of, district judges by performing relatively minor functions. The statutory phrase authorizing the district courts to assign to magistrates ‘duties... not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States’ must be read narrowly to reflect the limitations imposed upon the magistrates.” Brief for Petitioner in Mathews v. Weber, O. T. 1975, No. 74-850, p. 8.
“Petty offenses” included “[a]ny misdemeanor, the penalty for which... does not exceed imprisonment for a period of six months or a fine of not more than $500, or both,” 18 U. S. C. § 1(3) (1964 ed.), repealed by Pub. L. 98-473, § 218(a)(1), 98 Stat. 2027.
«<[]y[]inor offenses’ means misdemeanors punishable under the laws of the United States, the penalty for which does not exceed imprisonment for a period of one year, or a fine of not more than $1,000, or both,” 82 Stat. 1116, 18 U. S. C. § 3401(f) (1964 ed., Supp. IV).
“The district judges may, for instance, exercise a veto power over the magistrate’s jurisdiction in particular cases, require reports on eases pending before the magistrate, establish uniform procedures to be followed by all magistrates exercising minor offense trial jurisdiction, and generally supervise the magistrate in the exercise of his trial jurisdiction.” H. R. Rep. No. 1629, at 21.
In part, Congress intended to overturn judicial opinions limiting the scope of the Act, including Wingo v. Wedding, 418 U. S. 461 (1974) (magistrates not authorized to conduct evidentiary hearings in federal habeas corpus actions). H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, p. 5 (1976); S. Rep. No. 94-625, pp. 3-4 (1976). Our holding in Mathews v. Weber, 423 U. S. 261 (1976) (Act authorizes magistrates to review and recommend disposition on Social Security benefits appeals), meanwhile, garnered approval. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, at 6.
The relevant part of the 1976 Act, which has not been amended, reads as follows:
“An Act
“To improve judicial machinery by further defining the jurisdiction of United States magistrates, and for other purposes.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That section 636(b) of title 28, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
“(b)(1) Notwithstanding any provision of law to the contrary—
“(A) a judge may designate a magistrate to hear and determine any pretrial matter pending before the court, except a motion for injunctive relief, for judgment on the pleadings, for summary judgment, to dismiss or quash an indictment or information made by the defendant, to suppress evidence in a criminal case, to dismiss or to permit maintenance of a class action, to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and to involuntarily dismiss an action. A judge of the court may reconsider any pretrial matter under this subparagraph (A) where it has been shown that the magistrate’s order is clearly erroneous or contrary to law.
“(B) a judge may also designate a magistrate to conduct hearings, including evidentiary hearings, and to submit to a judge of the court proposed findings of fact and recommendations for the disposition, by a judge of the court, of any motion excepted in subparagraph (A), of applications for posttrial relief made by individuals convicted of criminal offenses and of prisoner petitions challenging conditions of confinement.
“(C) 'the magistrate shall file his proposed findings and recommendations under subparagraph (B) with the court and a copy shall forthwith be mailed to all parties.
“Within ten days after being served with a copy, any party may serve and file written objections to such proposed findings and recommendations as provided by rules of court. A judge of the court shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made. A judge of the court may accept, reject, or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate. The judge may also receive further evidence or recommit the matter to the magistrate with instructions.
“(2) A judge may designate a magistrate to serve as a special master pursuant to the applicable provisions of this title and the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States district courts. A judge may designate a magistrate to serve as a special master in any civil case, upon consent of the parties, without regard to the provisions of rule 53(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for the United States district courts.
“(3) A magistrate may be assigned such additional duties as are not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.” 90 Stat. 2729, 28 U. S. C. §636.
A table in a Committee Report listed the following as criminal pretrial matters handled by magistrates: arrest warrants, search warrants, bail hearings, preliminary examinations, removal hearings, postindictment arraignments, pretrial conferences, and pretrial motions. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1609, at 7; see id., at 9.
Accord, S. Rep. No. 96-74, pp. 3, 6 (1979). But see H. R. Rep. No. 96-287, at 31-33 (dissenting views of Rep. Holtzman and Rep. Sensenbrenner).
“A misdemeanor is any offense for which the maximum term of imprisonment that may be imposed does not exceed one year. An unlimited fine may also be imposed.” Id,., at 17. Accord, 18 U. S. C. §3559(a) (1982 ed., Supp. V).
Losing civil litigants are entitled to appeal to the district court or directly to the court of appeals and to seek discretionary review before this Court. 93 Stat. 643-644, 28 U. S. C. §§ 636(c)(3)-(6). Convicted defendants may take an appeal as of right to the district court. 18 U. S. C. § 3402.
Whereas the 1968 Act had excluded certain minor offenses from the magistrate’s jurisdiction, the 1979 amendments relaxed this requirement, providing:
“The district court may order that proceedings in any misdemeanor case be conducted before a district judge rather than a United States magistrate upon the court’s own motion or, for good cause shown, upon petition by the attorney for the Government. Such petition should note the novelty, importance, or complexity of the case, or other pertinent factors, and be filed in accordance with regulations promulgated by the Attorney General.” 93 Stat. 646, 18 U. S. C. § 3401(f).
United States Department of Justice regulations require that in eases involving many of the offenses excluded in the 1968 Act, the “attorney for the government shall consult with the Assistant Attorney General having supervisory authority over the subject
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 GINSBURGdelivered the opinion of the Court.
Texas, like all other States, draws its legislative districts on the basis of total population. Plaintiffs-appellants are Texas voters; they challenge this uniform method of districting on the ground that it produces unequal districts when measured by voter-eligible population. Voter-eligible population, not total population, they urge, must be used to ensure that their votes will not be devalued in relation to citizens' votes in other districts. We hold, based on constitutional history, this Court's decisions, and longstanding practice, that a State may draw its legislative districts based on total population.
I
A
This Court long resisted any role in overseeing the process by which States draw legislative districts. "The remedy for unfairness in districting," the Court once held, "is to secure State legislatures that will apportion properly, or to invoke the ample powers of Congress." Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 556, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946). "Courts ought not to enter this political thicket," as Justice Frankfurter put it. Ibid.
Judicial abstention left pervasive malapportionment unchecked. In the opening half of the 20th century, there was a massive population shift away from rural areas and toward suburban and urban communities. Nevertheless, many States ran elections into the early 1960's based on maps drawn to equalize each district's population as it was composed around 1900. Other States used maps allocating a certain number of legislators to each county regardless of its population. These schemes left many rural districts significantly underpopulated in comparison with urban and suburban districts. But rural legislators who benefited from malapportionment had scant incentive to adopt new maps that might put them out of office.
The Court confronted this ingrained structural inequality in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 191-192, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962). That case presented an equal protection challenge to a Tennessee state-legislative map that had not been redrawn since 1901. See also id., at 192, 82 S.Ct. 691(observing that, in the meantime, there had been "substantial growth and redistribution" of the State's population). Rather than steering clear of the political thicket yet again, the Court held for the first time that malapportionment claims are justiciable. Id., at 237, 82 S.Ct. 691("We conclude that the complaint's allegations of a denial of equal protection present a justiciable constitutional cause of action upon which appellants are entitled to a trial and a decision.").
Although the Court in Baker did not reach the merits of the equal protection claim, Baker's justiciability ruling set the stage for what came to be known as the one-person, one-vote principle. Just two years after Baker, in Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7-8, 84 S.Ct. 526, 11 L.Ed.2d 481 (1964), the Court invalidated Georgia's malapportioned congressional map, under which the population of one congressional district was "two to three times" larger than the population of the others. Relying on Article I, § 2, of the Constitution, the Court required that congressional districts be drawn with equal populations. Id., at 7, 18, 84 S.Ct. 526. Later that same Term, in Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 568, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964), the Court upheld an equal protection challenge to Alabama's malapportioned state-legislative maps. "[T]he Equal Protection Clause," the Court concluded, "requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis." Ibid. Wesberry and Reynolds together instructed that jurisdictions must design both congressional and state-legislative districts with equal populations, and must regularly reapportion districts to prevent malapportionment.
Over the ensuing decades, the Court has several times elaborated on the scope of the one-person, one-vote rule. States must draw congressional districts with populations as close to perfect equality as possible. See Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526, 530-531, 89 S.Ct. 1225, 22 L.Ed.2d 519 (1969). But, when drawing state and local legislative districts, jurisdictions are permitted to deviate somewhat from perfect population equality to accommodate traditional districting objectives, among them, preserving the integrity of political subdivisions, maintaining communities of interest, and creating geographic compactness. See Brown v. Thomson, 462 U.S. 835, 842-843, 103 S.Ct. 2690, 77 L.Ed.2d 214 (1983). Where the maximum population deviation between the largest and smallest district is less than 10%, the Court has held, a state or local legislative map presumptively complies with the one-person, one-vote rule. Ibid. Maximum deviations above 10% are presumptively impermissible. Ibid. See also Mahan v. Howell, 410 U.S. 315, 329, 93 S.Ct. 979, 35 L.Ed.2d 320 (1973)(approving a state-legislative map with maximum population deviation of 16% to accommodate the State's interest in "maintaining the integrity of political subdivision lines," but cautioning that this deviation "may well approach tolerable limits").
In contrast to repeated disputes over the permissibility of deviating from perfect population equality, little controversy has centered on the population base jurisdictions must equalize. On rare occasions, jurisdictions have relied on the registered-voter or voter-eligible populations of districts. See Burns v. Richardson, 384 U.S. 73, 93-94, 86 S.Ct. 1286, 16 L.Ed.2d 376 (1966)(holding Hawaii could use a registered-voter population base because of "Hawaii's special population problems"-in particular, its substantial temporary military population). But, in the overwhelming majority of cases, jurisdictions have equalized total population, as measured by the decennial census. Today, all States use total-population numbers from the census when designing congressional and state-legislative districts, and only seven States adjust those census numbers in any meaningful way.
B
Appellants challenge that consensus. After the 2010 census, Texas redrew its State Senate districts using a total-population baseline. At the time, Texas was subject to the preclearance requirements of § 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 52 U.S.C. § 10304(requiring jurisdictions to receive approval from the U.S. Department of Justice or the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before implementing certain voting changes). Once it became clear that the new Senate map, S148, would not receive preclearance in advance of the 2012 elections, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas drew an interim Senate map, S164, which also equalized the total population of each district. See Davis v. Perry, No. SA-11-CV-788, 2011 WL 6207134 (Nov. 23, 2011). On direct appeal, this Court observed that the District Court had failed to "take guidance from the State's recently enacted plan in drafting an interim plan," and therefore vacated the District Court's map. Perry v. Perez, 565 U.S. ----, ----, ---- - ----, 132 S.Ct. 934, 940-942, 943-944, 181 L.Ed.2d 900 (2012)(per curiam ).
The District Court, on remand, again used census data to draw districts so that each included roughly the same size total population. Texas used this new interim map, S172, in the 2012 elections, and, in 2013, the Texas Legislature adopted S172 as the permanent Senate map. See App. to Brief for Texas Senate Hispanic Caucus et al. as Amici Curiae 5 (reproducing the current Senate map). The permanent map's maximum total-population deviation is 8.04%, safely within the presumptively permissible 10% range. But measured by a voter-population baseline-eligible voters or registered voters-the map's maximum population deviation exceeds 40%.
Appellants Sue Evenwel and Edward Pfenninger live in Texas Senate districts (one and four, respectively) with particularly large eligible- and registered-voter populations. Contending that basing apportionment on total population dilutes their votes in relation to voters in other Senate districts, in violation of the one-person, one-vote principle of the Equal Protection Clause, appellants filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. They named as defendants the Governor and Secretary of State of Texas, and sought a permanent injunction barring use of the existing Senate map in favor of a map that would equalize the voter population in each district.
The case was referred to a three-judge District Court for hearing and decision. See 28 U.S.C. § 2284(a); Shapiro v. McManus, 577 U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 136 S.Ct. 450, 454-456, 193 L.Ed.2d 279 (2015). That court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. Appellants, the District Court explained, "rel[y] upon a theory never before accepted by the Supreme Court or any circuit court: that the metric of apportionment employed by Texas (total population) results in an unconstitutional apportionment because it does not achieve equality as measured by Plaintiffs' chosen metric-voter population." App. to Juris. Statement 9a. Decisions of this Court, the District Court concluded, permit jurisdictions to use any neutral, nondiscriminatory population baseline, including total population, when drawing state and local legislative districts. Id., at 13a-14a.
We noted probable jurisdiction, 575 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 381, 193 L.Ed.2d 288 (2015), and now affirm.
II
The parties and the United States advance different positions in this case. As they did before the District Court, appellants insist that the Equal Protection Clause requires jurisdictions to draw state and local legislative districts with equal voter-eligible populations, thus protecting "voter equality," i.e., "the right of eligible voters to an equal vote." Brief for Appellants 14. To comply with their proposed rule, appellants suggest, jurisdictions should design districts based on citizen-voting-age-population (CVAP) data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS), an annual statistical sample of the U.S. population. Texas responds that jurisdictions may, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause, design districts using any population baseline-including total population and voter-eligible population-so long as the choice is rational and not invidiously discriminatory. Although its use of total-population data from the census was permissible, Texas therefore argues, it could have used ACS CVAP data instead. Sharing Texas' position that the Equal Protection Clause does not mandate use of voter-eligible population, the United States urges us not to address Texas' separate assertion that the Constitution allows States to use alternative population baselines, including voter-eligible population. Equalizing total population, the United States maintains, vindicates the principle of representational equality by "ensur[ing] that the voters in each district have the power to elect a representative who represents the same number of constituents as all other representatives." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 5.
In agreement with Texas and the United States, we reject appellants' attempt to locate a voter-equality mandate in the Equal Protection Clause. As history, precedent, and practice demonstrate, it is plainly permissible for jurisdictions to measure equalization by the total population of state and local legislative districts.
A
We begin with constitutional history. At the time of the founding, the Framers confronted a question analogous to the one at issue here: On what basis should congressional districts be allocated to States? The Framers' solution, now known as the Great Compromise, was to provide each State the same number of seats in the Senate, and to allocate House seats based on States' total populations. "Representatives and direct Taxes," they wrote, "shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers." U.S. Const., Art. I, § 2, cl. 3(emphasis added). "It is a fundamental principle of the proposed constitution," James Madison explained in the Federalist Papers, "that as the aggregate number of representatives allotted to the several states, is to be... founded on the aggregate number of inhabitants; so, the right of choosing this allotted number in each state, is to be exercised by such part of the inhabitants, as the state itself may designate." The Federalist No. 54, p. 284 (G. Carey & J. McClellan eds. 2001). In other words, the basis of representation in the House was to include all inhabitants-although slaves were counted as only three-fifths of a person-even though States remained free to deny many of those inhabitants the right to participate in the selection of their representatives. Endorsing apportionment based on total population, Alexander Hamilton declared: "There can be no truer principle than this-that every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government." 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 473 (M. Farrand ed. 1911).
When debating what is now the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress reconsidered the proper basis for apportioning House seats. Concerned that Southern States would not willingly enfranchise freed slaves, and aware that "a slave's freedom could swell his state's population for purposes of representation in the House by one person, rather than only three-fifths," the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment considered at length the possibility of allocating House seats to States on the basis of voter population. J.
Sneed, Footprints on the Rocks of the Mountain: An Account of the Enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment 28 (1997). See also id., at 35 ("[T]he apportionment issue consumed more time in the Fourteenth Amendment debates than did any other topic.").
In December 1865, Thaddeus Stevens, a leader of the Radical Republicans, introduced a constitutional amendment that would have allocated House seats to States "according to their respective legal voters"; in addition, the proposed amendment mandated that "[a] true census of the legal voters shall be taken at the same time with the regular census." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 10 (1866). Supporters of apportionment based on voter population employed the same voter-equality reasoning that appellants now echo. See, e.g., id., at 380 (remarks of Rep. Orth) ("[T]he true principle of representation in Congress is that voters alone should form the basis, and that each voter should have equal political weight in our Government...."); id., at 404 (remarks of Rep. Lawrence) (use of total population "disregards the fundamental idea of all just representation, that every voter should be equal in political power all over the Union").
Voter-based apportionment proponents encountered fierce resistance from proponents of total-population apportionment. Much of the opposition was grounded in the principle of representational equality. "As an abstract proposition," argued Representative James G. Blaine, a leading critic of allocating House seats based on voter population, "no one will deny that population is the true basis of representation; for women, children, and other non-voting classes may have as vital an interest in the legislation of the country as those who actually deposit the ballot." Id., at 141. See also id., at 358 (remarks of Rep. Conkling) (arguing that use of a voter-population basis "would shut out four fifths of the citizens of the country-women and children, who are citizens, who are taxed, and who are, and always have been, represented"); id., at 434 (remarks of Rep. Ward) ("[W]hat becomes of that large class of non-voting tax-payers that are found in every section? Are they in no matter to be represented? They certainly should be enumerated in making up the whole number of those entitled to a representative.").
The product of these debates was § 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which retained total population as the congressional apportionment base. See U.S. Const., Amdt. 14, § 2("Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed."). Introducing the final version of the Amendment on the Senate floor, Senator Jacob Howard explained:
"[The] basis of representation is numbers...; that is, the whole population except untaxed Indians and persons excluded by the State laws for rebellion or other crime.... The committee adopted numbers as the most just and satisfactory basis, and this is the principle upon which the Constitution itself was originally framed, that the basis of representation should depend upon numbers; and such, I think, after all, is the safest and most secure principle upon which the Government can rest. Numbers, not voters; numbers, not property; this is the theory of the Constitution." Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 2766-2767 (1866).
Appellants ask us to find in the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause a rule inconsistent with this "theory of the Constitution." But, as the Court recognized in Wesberry, this theory underlies not just the method of allocating House seats to States; it applies as well to the method of apportioning legislative seats within States. "The debates at the [Constitutional] Convention," the Court explained, "make at least one fact abundantly clear: that when the delegates agreed that the House should represent 'people,' they intended that in allocating Congressmen the number assigned to each state should be determined solely by the number of inhabitants." 376 U.S., at 13, 84 S.Ct. 526. "While it may not be possible to draw congressional districts with mathematical precision," the Court acknowledged, "that is no excuse for ignoring our Constitution's plain objective of making equal representation for equal numbers of people the fundamental goal for the House of Representatives." Id., at 18, 84 S.Ct. 526(emphasis added). It cannot be that the Fourteenth Amendment calls for the apportionment of congressional districts based on total population, but simultaneously prohibits States from apportioning their own legislative districts on the same basis.
Cordoning off the constitutional history of congressional districting, appellants stress two points. First, they draw a distinction between allocating seats to States, and apportioning seats within States. The Framers selected total population for the former, appellants and their amici argue, because of federalism concerns inapposite to intrastate districting. These concerns included the perceived risk that a voter-population base might encourage States to expand the franchise unwisely, and the hope that a total-population base might counter States' incentive to undercount their populations, thereby reducing their share of direct taxes. Wesberry, however, rejected the distinction appellants now press. See supra, at 1128 - 1129. Even without the weight of Wesberry, we would find appellants' distinction unconvincing. One can accept that federalism-or, as Justice ALITO emphasizes, partisan and regional political advantage, see post, at 1145 - 1149-figured in the Framers' selection of total population as the basis for allocating congressional seats. Even so, it remains beyond doubt that the principle of representational equality figured prominently in the decision to count people, whether or not they qualify as voters.
Second, appellants and Justice ALITO urge, see post, at 1144 - 1145, the Court has typically refused to analogize to features of the federal electoral system-here, the constitutional scheme governing congressional apportionment-when considering challenges to state and local election laws. True, in Reynolds, the Court rejected Alabama's argument that it had permissibly modeled its State Senate apportionment scheme-one Senator for each county-on the United States Senate. "[T]he federal analogy," the Court explained, "[is] inapposite and irrelevant to state legislative districting schemes" because "[t]he system of representation in the two Houses of the Federal Congress" arose "from unique historical circumstances." 377 U.S., at 573-574, 84 S.Ct. 1362. Likewise, in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 371-372, 378, 83 S.Ct. 801, 9 L.Ed.2d 821 (1963), Georgia unsuccessfully attempted to defend, by analogy to the electoral college, its scheme of assigning a certain number of "units" to the winner of each county in statewide elections.
Reynolds and Gray, however, involved features of the federal electoral system that contravene the principles of both voter and representational equality to favor interests that have no relevance outside the federal context. Senate seats were allocated to States on an equal basis to respect state sovereignty and increase the odds that the smaller States would ratify the Constitution. See Wesberry, 376 U.S., at 9-13, 84 S.Ct. 526(describing the history of the Great Compromise). See also Reynolds, 377 U.S., at 575, 84 S.Ct. 1362("Political subdivisions of States-counties, cities, or whatever-never were and never have been considered as sovereign entities.... The relationship of the States to the Federal Government could hardly be less analogous."). "The [Electoral] College was created to permit the most knowledgeable members of the community to choose the executive of a nation whose continental dimensions were thought to preclude an informed choice by the citizenry at large." Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23, 43-44, 89 S.Ct. 5, 21 L.Ed.2d 24 (1968)(Harlan, J., concurring in result). See also Gray, 372 U.S., at 378, 83 S.Ct. 801("The inclusion of the electoral college in the Constitution, as the result of specific historical concerns, validated the collegiate principle despite its inherent numerical inequality." (footnote omitted)). By contrast, as earlier developed, the constitutional scheme for congressional apportionment rests in part on the same representational concerns that exist regarding state and local legislative districting. The Framers' answer to the apportionment question in the congressional context therefore undermines appellants' contention that districts must be based on voter population.
B
Consistent with constitutional history, this Court's past decisions reinforce the conclusion that States and localities may comply with the one-person, one-vote principle by designing districts with equal total populations. Quoting language from those decisions that, in appellants' view, supports the principle of equal voting power-and emphasizing the phrase "one-person, one-vote"-appellants contend that the Court had in mind, and constantly meant, that States should equalize the voter-eligible population of districts. See Reynolds, 377 U.S., at 568, 84 S.Ct. 1362("[A]n individual's right to vote for State legislators is unconstitutionally impaired when its weight is in a substantial fashion diluted when compared with votes of citizens living on other parts of the State."); Gray, 372 U.S., at 379-380, 83 S.Ct. 801("The concept of 'we the people' under the Constitution visualizes no preferred class of voters but equality among those who meet the basic qualifications."). See also Hadley v. Junior College Dist. of Metropolitan Kansas City, 397 U.S. 50, 56, 90 S.Ct. 791, 25 L.Ed.2d 45 (1970)( "[W]hen members of an elected body are chosen from separate districts, each district must be established on a basis that will insure, as far as is practicable, that equal numbers of voters can vote for proportionally equal numbers of officials."). Appellants, however, extract far too much from selectively chosen language and the "one-person, one-vote" slogan.
For every sentence appellants quote from the Court's opinions, one could respond with a line casting the one-person, one-vote guarantee in terms of equality of representation, not voter equality. In Reynolds, for instance, the Court described "the fundamental principle of representative government in this country" as "one of equal representation for equal numbers of people." 377 U.S., at 560-561, 84 S.Ct. 1362. See also Davis v. Bandemer, 478 U.S. 109, 123, 106 S.Ct. 2797, 92 L.Ed.2d 85 (1986)("[I]n formulating the one person, one vote formula, the Court characterized the question posed by election districts of disparate size as an issue of fair representation."); Reynolds, 377 U.S., at 563, 84 S.Ct. 1362(rejecting state districting schemes that "give the same number of representatives to unequal numbers of constituents"). And the Court has suggested, repeatedly, that districting based on total population serves both the State's interest in preventing vote dilution and its interest in ensuring equality of representation. See Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, 489 U.S. 688, 693-694, 109 S.Ct. 1433, 103 L.Ed.2d 717 (1989)("If districts of widely unequal population elect an equal number of representatives, the voting power of each citizen in the larger constituencies is debased and the citizens in those districts have a smaller share of representation than do those in the smaller districts."). See also Kirkpatrick, 394 U.S., at 531, 89 S.Ct. 1225(recognizing in a congressional-districting case that "[e]qual representation for equal numbers of people is a principle designed to prevent debasement of voting power and diminution of access to elected representatives").
Moreover, from Reynolds on, the Court has consistently looked to total-population figures when evaluating whether districting maps violate the Equal Protection Clause by deviating impermissibly from perfect population equality. See Brief for Appellees 29-31 (collecting cases brought under the Equal Protection Clause). See also id., at 31, n. 9 (collecting congressional-districting cases). Appellants point to no instance in which the Court has determined the permissibility of deviation based on eligible- or registered-voter data. It would hardly make sense for the Court to have mandated voter equality sub silentio and then used a total-population baseline to evaluate compliance with that rule. More likely, we think, the Court has always assumed the permissibility of drawing districts to equalize total population.
"In the 1960s," appellants counter, "the distribution of the voting population generally did not deviate from the distribution of total population to the degree necessary to raise this issue." Brief for Appellants 27. To support this assertion, appellants cite only a District Court decision, which found no significant deviation in the distribution of voter and total population in "densely populated areas of New York State."
WMCA, Inc. v. Lomenzo, 238 F.Supp. 916, 925 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd, 382 U.S. 4, 86 S.Ct. 24, 15 L.Ed.2d 2 (1965)(per curiam ). Had this Court assumed such equivalence on a national scale, it likely would have said as much. Instead, in Gaffney v. Cummings, 412 U.S. 735, 746-747, 93 S.Ct. 2321, 37 L.Ed.2d 298 (1973), the Court acknowledged that voters may be distributed unevenly within jurisdictions. "[I]f it is the weight of a person's vote that matters," the Court observed, then "total population-even if stable and accurately taken-may not actually reflect that body of voters whose votes must be counted and weighed for the purposes of reapportionment, because 'census persons' are not voters." Id., at 746, 93 S.Ct. 2321. Nonetheless, the Court in Gaffney recognized that the one-person, one-vote rule is designed to facilitate "[f]air and effective representation," id., at 748, 93 S.Ct. 2321, and evaluated compliance with the rule based on total population alone, id., at 750, 93 S.Ct. 2321.
C
What constitutional history and our prior decisions strongly suggest, settled practice confirms. Adopting voter-eligible apportionment as constitutional command would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 States and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries. Appellants have shown no reason for the Court to disturb this longstanding use of total population. See Walz v. Tax Comm'n of City of New York, 397 U.S. 664, 678, 90 S.Ct. 1409, 25 L.Ed.2d 697 (1970)("unbroken practice" followed "openly and by affirmative state action, not covertly or by state inaction, is not something to be lightly cast aside"). See also Burson v. Freeman, 504 U.S. 191, 203-206, 112 S.Ct. 1846, 119 L.Ed.2d 5 (1992)(plurality opinion) (upholding a law limiting campaigning in areas around polling places in part because all 50 States maintain such laws, so there is a "widespread and time-tested consensus" that legislation of this order serves important state interests). As the Framers of the Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment comprehended, representatives serve all residents, not just those eligible or registered to vote. See supra, at 1126 - 1129. Nonvoters have an important stake in many policy debates-children, their parents, even their grandparents, for example, have a stake in a strong public-education system-and in receiving constituent services, such as help navigating public-benefits bureaucracies. By ensuring that each representative is subject to requests and suggestions from the same number of constituents, total-population apportionment promotes equitable and effective representation. See McCormick v. United States, 500 U.S. 257, 272, 111 S.Ct. 1807, 114 L.Ed.2d 307 (1991)("Serving constituents and supporting legislation that will benefit the district and individuals and groups therein is the everyday business of a legislator.").
In sum, the rule appellants urge has no mooring in the Equal Protection Clause. The Texas Senate map, we therefore conclude, complies with the requirements of the one-person, one-vote principle. Because history, precedent, and practice suffice to reveal the infirmity of appellants' claims, we need not and do not resolve whether, as Texas now argues, States may draw districts to equalize voter-eligible population rather than total population.
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas is
Affirmed.
Justice THOMAS, concurring in the judgment.
This case concerns whether Texas violated the Equal Protection Clause-as interpreted by the Court's one-person, one-vote cases-by creating legislative districts that contain approximately equal total population but vary widely in the number of eligible voters in each district. I agree with the majority that our precedents do not require a State to equalize the total number of voters in each district. States may opt to equalize total population. I therefore concur in the majority's judgment that appellants' challenge fails.
I write separately because this Court has never provided a sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle. For 50 years, the Court has struggled to define what right that principle protects. Many of our precedents suggest that it protects the right of eligible voters to cast votes that receive equal weight. Despite that frequent explanation, our precedents often conclude that the Equal Protection Clause is satisfied when all individuals within a district-voters or not-have an equal share of representation. The majority today concedes that our cases have not produced a clear answer on this point. See ante, at 1131.
In my view, the majority has failed to provide a sound basis for the one-person, one-vote principle because no such basis exists. The Constitution does not prescribe any one basis for apportionment within States. It instead leaves States significant leeway in apportioning their own districts to equalize total population, to equalize eligible voters, or to promote any other principle consistent with a republican form of government. The majority should recognize the futility of choosing only one of these options. The Constitution leaves the choice to the people alone-not to this Court.
I
In the 1960's, this Court decided that the Equal Protection Clause requires States to draw legislative districts based on a "one-person, one-vote" rule. But this Court's decisions have never coalesced around a single theory about what States must equalize.
The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a State from "deny[ing] to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Amdt. 14, § 1. For nearly a century after its ratification, this Court interpreted the Clause as having no application to the politically charged issue of how States should apportion their populations in political districts. See, e.g., Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S. 549, 556, 66 S.Ct. 1198, 90 L.Ed. 1432 (1946)(plurality opinion). Instead, the Court left the drawing of States' political boundaries to the States, so long as a State did not deprive people of the right to vote for reasons prohibited by the Constitution. See id., at 552, 556, 66 S.Ct. 1198; Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U.S. 339, 341, 347-348, 81 S.Ct. 125, 5 L.Ed.2d 110 (1960)(finding justiciable a claim that a city boundary was redrawn from a square shape to "a strangely irregular twenty-eight-sided figure" to remove nearly all black voters from the city). This meant that a State's refusal to allocate voters within districts based on population changes was a matter for States-not federal courts-to decide. And these cases were part of a larger jurisprudence holding that the question whether a state government had a "proper" republican form rested with Congress. Pacific States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Oregon, 223 U.S. 118, 149-150, 32 S.Ct. 224, 56 L.Ed. 377 (1912).
This Court changed course in Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 82 S.Ct. 691, 7 L.Ed.2d 663 (1962), by locating in the Equal Protection Clause a right of citizens not to have a " 'debasement of their votes.' " Id., at 194, and n. 15, 200, 82 S.Ct. 691. Expanding on that decision, this Court later held that "the Equal Protection Clause requires that the seats in both houses of a bicameral state legislature must be apportioned on a population basis." Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 568, 84 S.Ct. 1362, 12 L.Ed.2d 506 (1964). The Court created an analogous
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 federal bribery statute prohibits defrauding organizations which “receiv[e], in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program.” 18 U. S. C. § 666(b). We granted certiorari to determine whether the statute covers fraud perpetrated on organizations participating in the Medicare program. Upon consideration of the role and regulated status of hospitals as health care providers under the Medicare program, we hold they receive “benefits” within the meaning of the statute. We affirm petitioner’s convictions.
I
Petitioner Jeffrey Allan Fischer was president and partial owner of Quality Medical Consultants, Inc. (QMC), a eorpora- . tion which performed billing audits for health care organizations. In 1993 petitioner, on QMC’s behalf, negotiated a $1.2 million loan from West Volusia Hospital Authority (WVHA), a municipal agency responsible for operating two hospitals located in West Volusia County, Florida. Both hospitals participate in the Medicare program, and in 1993 WVHA received between $10 and $15 million in Medicare funds.
A February 1994 audit of WVHA’s financial affairs raised questions about the QMC loan. An investigation revealed QMC used the loan proceeds to repay creditors and to raise the salaries of its five owner-employees, including petitioner. It was determined that petitioner had arranged for QMC to advance at least $100,000 to a private company owned by an individual who had assisted QMC in securing a letter of credit in connection with the WVHA loan. QMC, at petitioner’s directive, also committed portions of the loan proceeds to speculative securities. These investments yielded losses of almost $400,000. The investigation further uncovered use of the loan proceeds to pay, through an intermediate transfer, a $10,000 kickback to WVHA’s chief financial officer, the individual with whom petitioner had negotiated the loan in the first instance. QMC defaulted on its obligation to WVHA and filed for bankruptcy.
In 1996 petitioner was indicted by a federal grand jury on 13 counts, including charges of defrauding an organization which receives benefits under a federal assistance program, 18 U. S. C. § 666(a)(1)(A), and of paying a kickback to one of its agents, § 666(a)(2). A jury convicted petitioner on all counts charged, and the District Court sentenced him to 65 months’ imprisonment and a 3-year term of supervised release. Petitioner, in addition, was ordered to pay $1.2 million in restitution.
On appeal petitioner argued that the Government failed to prove WVHA, as the organization affected by his wrongdoing, received “benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program,” as required by 18 U. S. C. § 666(b). Rejecting the argument, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the convictions. 168 F. 3d 1273 (1999). It held that funds received by an organization constitute "benefits” within the meaning of § 666(b) if the source of the funds is a federal program, like Medicare, which provides aid or assistance to participating organizations. Id., at 1276-1277. Entities receiving federal funding under ordinary commercial contracts, the court stated, fall outside the statute’s coverage. Ibid., (citing and discussing United States v. Copeland, 143 F. 3d 1439 (CA11 1998) (holding that federal funds received under a contract to construct military aircraft did not constitute “benefits” within the meaning of § 666(b))). The court added that its construction furthered “the statute’s purpose of protecting from fraud, theft, and undue influence by bribery the money distributed to health care providers, and WVHA in particular, through the federal Medicare program and other similar federal assistance programs.” 168 F. 3d, at 1277. It rejected the view that the Medicare program provides benefits only to its “targeted recipients,” the qualifying patients. Id., at 1278 (disagreeing with United States v. LaHue, 998 F. Supp. 1182 (Kan. 1998), aff’d, 170 F. 3d 1026 (CA10 1999)).
We granted certiorari, 528 U. S. 962 (1999), and we affirm.
II
A
The nature and purposes of the Medicare program give us essential instruction in resolving the present controversy. Established in 1965 as part of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. § 1395 et seq. (1994 ed. and Supp. Ill), Medicare is a federally funded medical insurance program for the elderly and disabled. In fiscal 1997 some 38.8 million individuals were enrolled in the program, and over 6,100 hospitals were authorized to provide services to them. U. S. Dept, of Health and Human Services, Health Care Financing Administration, 1998 Data Compendium 45, 75 (Aug. 1998). , Medicare expenditures for hospital services exceeded $123 billion in 1998, making the Federal Government the single largest source of funds for participating hospitals. See Cowen et ah, National Health Expenditures, 1998, 21 Health Care Financing Review 165, 208 (Winter 1999) (Table 11). This amount constituted 32% of the hospitals’ total receipts. Ibid.
Providers of health care services, such as the two hospitals operated by WVHA, qualify to participate in the program upon satisfying a comprehensive series of statutory and regulatory requirements, including particular accreditation standards. Hospitals, for instance, must satisfy licensing standards, 42 CFR § 482.11 (1999); possess a governing body to "ensure that there is an effective, hospital-wide quality assurance program to evaluate the provision of patient care,” § 482.21; and employ a “well organized” medical staff accountable on matters relating to “the quality of the medical care provided to patients,” § 482.22(b). Medicare’s implementing regulations also require hospitals, among many other standards, to maintain and provide 24-hour nursing services, § 482.23; complete medical record services, § 482.24; “pharmaceutical services that meet the needs of the patients,” § 482.25; and organized dietary services staffed with qualified personnel, §482.28. The regulations go further, requiring hospital facilities to “be constructed, arranged, and maintained to ensure the safety of the patient, and to provide facilities for diagnosis and treatment and for special hospital services appropriate to the needs of the community.” §482.41. Compliance with these standards provides the Government with assurance that participating providers possess the capacity to fulfill their statutory obligation of providing “medically necessary” services “of a quality which meets professionally recognized standards of health care.” 42 U. S. C. § 1320c-5(a). Peer review organizations monitor providers’ compliance with these and other obligations. §1320c-3(a); 42 CFR §466.71 (1999). Sanctions for noncompliance include dismissal from the program. 42 U. S. C. § 1320c-5(b)(l).
Medicare attains its objectives through an elaborate funding structure. Participating health care organizations, in exchange for rendering services, receive federal funds on a periodic basis. §§1395g, 13951. The amounts received reflect the “reasonable cost” of services rendered, defined as “the costs necessary in the efficient delivery of needed health services to individuals covered [by the program].” § 1395x(v)(l)(A). Necessary costs are not limited to the immediate costs of an individual treatment procedure. Instead they are defined in broader terms: “Necessary and proper costs are costs that are appropriate and helpful in developing and maintaining the operation of patient care facilities and activities.” 42 CFR § 413.9(b)(2) (1999). Allowable costs include amounts which enhance the organization's capacity to provide ongoing, quality services not only to eligible patients but also to the community at large. By way of example, amounts incurred for “certain educational programs for interns and residents, known as [graduate medical education] programs, are ‘allowable cost[s]’ for which a hospital (a provider) may receive reimbursement.” Regions Hospital v. Shalala, 522 U. S. 448, 452 (1998) (citing 42 CFR § 413.85(a) (1996)); see also § 413.85(b) (1999); Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U. S. 504, 507-508 (1994) (describing regulation of education programs). “These programs,” the Medicare regulations explain, “contribute to the quality of patient care within an institution and are necessary to meet the community’s needs for medical and paramedical personnel. . . . [M]any communities have not assumed responsibility for financing these programs and it is necessary that support be provided by those purchasing healthcare. Until communities undertake to bear these costs, the program will participate appropriately in the support of these activities.” 42 CFR § 413.85(e) (1999). Medicare also permits, indeed encourages, these providers to deposit the amounts of reimbursements received for depreciation costs and other cash into sinking funds called “funded depreciation accounts.” §413.134(e). Investment income earned on these funds does not operate to reduce a provider’s interest expense, §413.153(b)(2)(iii), creating incentives to maintain modern medical equipment and facilities.
The Medicare regulations, furthermore, afford certain provider organizations “special treatment,” intended to ensure the ongoing availability of medical services for qualifying patients. See 42 CFR pt. 412G (1999). Providers qualifying as “Medicare-dependent, small rural hospitals],” for instance, are entitled to additional, “lump sum” payments to compensate for significant declines in demand for patient care. § 412.108. The additional funds enable a provider to “maintain] [its] necessary core staff and services” and to satisfy its “fixed (and semi-fixed) costs.” §§ 412.108(d)(3)(A), (B). So too does the Medicare program authorize “special treatment” for, among other providers, “sole community hospitals,” “renal transplantation centers,” and “hospitals that serve a disproportionate share of low-income patients.” See §§ 412.92,412.100,412.106. The subsidies assist providers in satisfying those financial obligations necessary to continue as going concerns in accordance with the program’s requirements. See, e.g., § 412.92(d)(2).
In the normal course Medicare disbursements occur on a periodic basis, often in advance of a provider’s rendering services, 42 U.S.C. §1395g(a); 42 CFR §§413.60, 413.64 (1999). The payment system serves to “protect providers’ liquidity,” Good Samaritan Hospital v. Shalala, 508 U. S. 402, 406 (1993), thereby assisting in the ongoing provision of services. 42 CFR § 413.5(b)(1) (1999) (requiring reimbursement method to “result in current payment so that institutions will not be disadvantaged, as they sometimes are under other arrangements, by having to put up money for the purchase of goods and services well before they receive reimbursement”); § 413.5(b)(6) (reimbursement system must operate under “recognition of the need of hospitals and other providers to keep pace with growing needs and to make improvements”). The program, then, establishes correlating and reinforcing incentives: The Government has an interest in making available a high level of quality of care for the elderly and disabled; and providers, because of their financial dependence upon the program, have incentives to achieve program goals. . The nature of the program bears on the question of statutory coverage.
B
Section 666 of Title 18 of the United States Code prohibits acts of theft and fraud against organizations receiving funds under federal assistance programs. The statute in relevant part provides as follows:
“(a) Whoever, if the circumstance described in subsection (b) of this section exists—
“(1) being an agent of an organization, or of a State, local, or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof — '
“(A) embezzles, steals, obtains by fraud, or otherwise without authority knowingly converts to the use of any person other than the rightful owner or intentionally misapplies, property that—
“(i) is valued at $5,000 or more, and
“(ii) is owned by, or is under the care, custody, or control of such organization, government, or agency; or
“(B) corruptly solicits or demands for the benefit of any person, or accepts or agrees to accept, anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more; or
“(2) corruptly gives, offers, or agrees to give anything of value to any person, with intent to influence or reward an agent of an organization or of a State, local or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof, in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more; “shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
“(b) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that the organization, government, or agency receives, in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.
“(c) This section does not apply to bona fide salary, wages, fees, or other compensation paid, or expenses paid or reimbursed, in the usual course of business.”
Liability for the acts prohibited by subsection (a) is predicated upon a showing that the defrauded organization “receive[d], in any one period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program.” § 666(b). Those benefits can be in the form of “a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.” Ibid. All agree Medicare is a federal assistance program, see 42 CFR §400.200 (1999), and that WVHA, as the organization defrauded by petitioner’s actions, received in excess of $10,000 in payments under the program. The sole point in contention is whether those payments constituted “benefits” within the meaning of subsection (b).
Petitioner argues that the Medicare program provides benefits to the elderly and disabled but not to the health care organizations. Provider organizations, in petitioner’s view, do no more than render services in exchange for compensation. Under petitioner’s submission the Medicare program envisions a single beneficiary, the qualifying patient. The Government, in opposition, urges that a determination whether an organization receives “benefits” within the meaning of § 666(b) turns on whether the Federal Government was the source of the payment. Funds received under a federal assistance program, the Government asserts, can be traced from federal coffers, often through an intermediary or carrier, to the health care provider. Under its view, the “federal-program source of the funds” satisfies the benefits definition. Brief for United States 11.
We reject petitioner’s reading of the statute but without endorsing the Government’s broader position. We conclude Medicare payments are “benefits,” as the term is used in its ordinary sense and as it is intended in the statute. The noun “benefit” means “something that guards, aids, or promotes well-being: advantage, good”; “useful aid”; “payment, gift [such as] financial help in time of sickness, old age, or unemployment”; or “a cash payment or service provided for under an annuity, pension plan, or insurance policy.” Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 204 (1971). These definitions support petitioner’s assertion that qualifying patients receive benefits under the Medicare program. It is commonplace for individuals to refer to their retirement or health plans as “benefits.” So it ought not to be disputed that the elderly and disabled rank as the primary beneficiaries of the Medicare program. See 42 U. S. C. §§ 1395c, 1395j; 42 CFR § 400.202 (1999) (defining “beneficiary” as the “person who is entitled to Medicare benefits”); Shalala v. Guernsey Memorial Hospital, 514 U. S. 87, 91 (1995) (“Under the Medicare reimbursement scheme . . . participating hospitals furnish services to program beneficiaries and are reimbursed by the Secretary through fiscal intermediaries”); Good Samaritan Hospital, 508 U. S., at 404 (same).
That one beneficiary of an assistance program can be identified does not foreclose the existence of others, however. In this respect petitioner’s construction would give incomplete meaning to the term “benefits.” Medicare operates with a purpose and design above and beyond point-of-sale patient care, and it follows that the benefits of the program extend in a broader manner as well. The argument limiting the term “benefits” to the program’s targeted or primary beneficiaries would exclude, for example, a Medicare intermediary (such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield), a result both parties disavow. For present purposes it cannot be disputed the providers themselves derive significant advantage by satisfying the participation standards imposed by the Government. These advantages constitute benefits within the meaning of the federal bribery statute, a statute we have described as “expansive,” “both as to the [conduct] forbidden and the entities covered.” Salinas v. United States, 522 U. S. 52, 56 (1997).
Subsection (b) identifies several sources as providing benefits under a federal program — “a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.” 18 U. S. C. § 666(b). This language indicates that Congress viewed many federal assistance programs as providing benefits to participating organizations. Coupled with the broad substantive prohibitions of subsection (a), the language of subsection (b) reveals Congress’ expansive, unambiguous intent to ensure the integrity of organizations participating in federal assistance programs.
Subsection (c) of the statute bears on the analysis. The provision removes from the statute’s coverage any “bona fide salary, wages, fees, or other compensation paid, or expenses paid or reimbursed, in the usual course of business.” § 666(e). Petitioner argues that the subsection operates to exclude the payments in question because they are either “compensation” or “expenses paid or reimbursed,” or some combination of the two, and that the payments are made in the “usual course of business.” We disagree.
The subsection provides that the specified sorts of payments are not ones to which the section applies. One inference from this formulation is that the described payments would have been benefits but for the subsection (c) exemption. We need not go so far. Even assuming the examples of subsection (c) bear upon the definition of benefits, statutory examples of nonapplieability do not necessarily give rise to the inference that absent the enumeration the statute would otherwise apply. To define all subsection (c) payments as exempted benefits would go well beyond the ordinary meaning of thé word. On the other hand, the statute is not written to say: “The term ‘benefits’ does not include bona fide salary, wages, fees, or other compensation paid, or expenses paid or reimbursed, in the usual course of business.” We must construe the term “benefits,” then, in a manner consistent with Congress’ intent not to reach the enumerated class of transactions. See S. Rep. No. 98-225, p. 370 (1984) (“[N]ot every Federal contract or disbursement of funds would be covered [under § 666]. For example, if a government agency lawfully purchases more than $10,000 in equipment from a supplier, it is not the intent of this section to make a theft of $5,000 or more from thé supplier a Federal crime”).
We do not accept the view that the Medicare, payments here in question are for the limited purposes of compensating providers or reimbursing them for ordinary course expenditures. The payments are made for significant and substantial reasons in addition to compensation or reimbursement, so that neither these terms nor the usual course of business conditions set forth in subsection (c) are met here. The payments in question have attributes and purposes well beyond those described in subsection (c). These attributes and purposes are consistent with the definition of “benefit.” While the payments might have similarities to payments an insurer would remit to a hospital quite without regard to the Medicare program, the Government does not make the payment unless the hospital complies with its intricate regulatory scheme. The payments are made not simply to reimburse for treatment of qualifying patients but to assist the hospital in making available and maintaining a certain level and quality of medical care, all in the interest of both the hospital and the greater community.
Here, as we have explained, the provider itself is the object of substantial Government regulation. Medicare is designed to the end that the Government receives not only reciprocal value from isolated transactions but also long-term advantages from the existence of a sound and effective health care system for the elderly and disabled. The Government enacted specific statutes and regulations to secure its own interests in promoting the well being and advantage of the health care provider, in addition to the patient who receives care. The health care provider is receiving a benefit in the conventional sense of the term, unlike the case of a contractor whom the Government does not regulate or assist for long-term objectives or for significant purposes beyond performance of an immediate transaction. Adequate payment and assistance to the health care provider is itself one of the objectives of the program. These purposes and effects suffice to make the payment a benefit within the meaning of the statute.
The structure and operation of the Medicare program reveal a comprehensive federal assistance' enterprise aimed at ensuring the availability of quality health care for the broader community. Participating health care organizations, as our above discussion shows, must satisfy a series of qualification and accreditation requirements, standards aimed in part at ensuring the provision of a certain quality of care. See 42 CFR pt. 482 (1999). By reimbursing participating providers for a wide range of costs and expenses, including medical treatment costs, overhead costs, and education costs, Medicare’s reimbursement system furthers this objective. This scheme is structured to ensure that providers possess the capacity to render, on an ongoing basis, medical care to the program’s qualifying patients. The structure, moreover, proves untenable petitioner’s assertion that Congress has no interest in the financial stability of providers once services are rendered to patients. Payments are made in a manner calculated to maintain provider stability. § 413.5(b); Good Samaritan Hospital, 508 U. S., at 406. Incentives are given for long-term improvements, such as capital costs and education. §§413.85, 413.134(e), 413.153(b)(2)(iii). Subsidies, defined as “special treatment,” are awarded to certain providers. Id., pt. 412G. In short, provider organizations play a vital role and maintain a high level of responsibility in carrying out the program’s purposes. Medicare funds, in turn, provide benefits extending beyond isolated, point-of-sale treatment transactions. The funds health care organizations receive for participating in the Medicare program constitute “benefits” within the meaning of 18 U. S. C. § 666(b).
Our discussion should not be taken to suggest that'federal funds disbursed under an assistance program will result in coverage of all recipient fraud under § 666(b). Any receipt of federal funds can, at some level of generality, be characterized as a benefit. The statute does not employ this broad, almost limitless use of the term. Doing so would turn almost every act of fraud or bribery into a federal offense, upsetting the proper federal balance. To determine whether an organization participating in a federal assistance program receives “benefits,” an examination must be undertaken of the program’s structure, operation, and purpose. The inquiry should examine the conditions under which the organization receives the federal payments. The answer could depend, as it does here, on whether the recipient’s own operations are one of the reasons for maintaining the program. Health care organizations participating in the Medicare program satisfy this standard.
The Government has a legitimate and significant interest in prohibiting financial fraud or acts of bribery being perpetrated upon Medicare providers. Fraudulent acts threaten the program’s integrity. They raise the risk participating organizations will lack the resources requisite to provide the level and quality of care envisioned by the program. Cf. Salinas, 522 U. S., at 61 (stating that acceptance of bribes by an official of a jail housing federal prisoners pursuant to an agreement with the Government “was a threat to the integrity and proper operation of the federal program”).
Other cases may present questions requiring further examination and elaboration of the term “benefits.” Here it suffices to hold that health care providers such as the one defrauded by petitioner receive benefits within the meaning of the statute. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
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.
Me. Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari to review a challenge to a 60% vote requirement to incur public debt as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Constitution of West Virginia and certain West Virginia statutes provide that political subdivisions of the State may not incur bonded indebtedness or increase tax rates beyond those established by the Constitution without the approval of 60% of the voters in a referendum election.
On April 29, 1968, the Board of Education of Roane County, West Virginia, submitted to the voters of Roane County a proposal calling for the issuance of general obligation bonds in the amount of $1,830,000 for the purpose of constructing new school buildings and improving existing educational facilities. At the same election, by separate ballot, the voters were asked to authorize the Board of Education to levy additional taxes to support current expenditures and capital improvements. Of the total votes cast, 51.55% favored the bond issues and 51.51% favored the tax levy. Having failed to obtain the requisite 60% affirmative vote, the proposals were declared defeated.
. Following the election, respondents appeared before the Board of Education on behalf of themselves and other persons who had voted in favor of the proposals and demanded that the Board authorize the bonds and the additional taxes. -The Board- refused.'
Respondents then brought this action, seeking a declaratory judgment that the 60% requirements were unconstitutional as violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. In their complaint they alleged that the Roane County^ schools had been basically unimproved since 1946 and fell far below the state average, both in classroom size and facilities. They further alleged that four similar proposals had been previously defeated, although each had received majorities of affirmative votes ranging from 52.51% to 55.84%. The West Virginia trial court dismissed the complaint. On appeal, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the state constitutional and. statutory 60% requirements violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 153 W. Va. 559, 170 S. E. 2d 783 (1969). We granted certiorari, 397 U. S. 1020 (1970), and for the reasons set forth below, we reverse.
The eourt below relied heavily on two of our holdings dealing with limitations on the right to vote and dilution of voting power. The first was Gray v. Sanders, 372 U. S. 368 (1963), which held that Georgia’s county-unit system violated the Equal Protection Clause, because the votes of primary electors in one county were accorded less weight than the votes of electors in other counties.' The second was Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U. S. 701 (1969), in which we held impermissible the limitation to “property taxpayers”' of the right to vote in a revenue bond referendum. From these cases the state court' concluded that West Virginia’s requirement was constitutionally defective, because the votes of those who favored the issuance of the bonds had a proportionately smaller impact on the outcome of the election than the votes of those who opposed issuance of the bonds.
We conclude that the West Virginia court’s reliance on the Gray and Cipriano cases was misplaced. The defect this Court found in those cases lay in the denial or dilution of voting power because of group characteristics — geographic location and property ownership — that bore no valid relation to the interest of those groups in the subject matter of the election; moreover, the dilution or denial was imposed irrespective of how members of those groups actually voted.
. Thus in Gray, supra, at 381 n. 12, we held that the county-unit system would have been defective even if unit votes were allocated strictly in proportion to population. We noted that if a candidate received 60% of the votes cast in a particular county he would receive that county’s entire unit vote, the 40% east for the other candidates being discarded. The defect, however, continued to be geographic discrimination. Votes for the losing candidates were discarded solely because of the county where the votes were cast. Indeed, votes for the winning candidate in a county were likewise devalued, because all marginal votes for him would be discarded and would have no impact on the statewide total.
Cipriano was no more than a reassertion of the principle, consistently recognized, that an individual may not be denied access to the ballot because of some extraneous condition, such as race, e. g., Gomillion v. Lightfoot, 364 U. S. 339 (1960); wealth, e. g., Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U. S. 663 (1966); tax status, e. g., Kramer v. Union Free School Dist., 395 U. S. 621 (1969) ; or military status, e. g., Carrington v. Rash, 380 U. S. 89 (1965).
Unlike the restrictions in our previous cases, the West Virginia Constitution singles out no “discrete and insular minority” for special treatment. The three-fifths requirement applies equally to all bond issues for any purpose, whether for schools, sewers, or highways. We are not, therefore, presented with a case like Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U. S. 385 (1969), in which fair housing legislation alone was subject to an automatic referendum requirement.
The class singled out in Hunter was clear — “those-who would benefit from laws barring racial, religious, or ancestral discriminations,” supra, at 391. In contrast we can discern no independently identifiable group or category that favors bonded indebtedness over other forms of financing. Consequently no sector of the population may be said to be “fenced out” from the franchise because of the way they will vote. Cf. Carrington v. Rash, supra, at 94.
Although West Virginia has not denied any group access to the ballot, it has indeed made it more difficult for some kinds of governmental actions to be taken. Certainly any departure from strict majority rule gives disproportionate power to the minority. • But there is nothing in the language, of the Constitution, our history, or our cases that requires that a majority always prevail on every issue. • On the contrary, while we have recognized that state officials are normally chosen by a vote of the majority of the electorate, we have found no constitutional barrier to the selection of a Governor by a state legislature, after no candidate received a majority of the popular vote. Fortson v. Morris, 385 U. S. 231 (1966).
The Federal Constitution itself provides that a simple ■ majority vote is. insufficient on some issues; the provisions . on impeachment and ratification of treaties are but two examples. Moreover, the Bill of Rights removes entire areas of legislation from the. concept of majoritarian supremacy. The constitutions of. many States prohibit or severely limit the power of the legislature to levy new taxes or to create or increase bonded indebtedness, thereby insulating. entire areas from majority control. Whether these matters, of finance and taxation are to be considered as less “important” than matters of treaties, foreign policy, or impeachment of public officers is more properly left to the determination by the States and the people than to the courts operating under the broad mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment. It must be remembered that in voting to issue bonds voters are committing, in part, the credit of infants and of generations yet unborn; and some restriction on such commitment is not an unreasonable demand. That the bond issue may have the desirable objective of providing better education for future generations goes to the wisdom of an indebtedness limitation: it does not alter the basic fact that the balancing of interests is one for the State to resolve.
Wisely or not, the people of the State of West Virginia have long since resolved to remove from a simple majority vote the choice on certain decisions as to what indebtedness may be incurred and . what taxes their children will bear.
We conclude that so long as such provisions do not discriminate against or authorize discrimination against any identifiable class they do not violate the Equal Protection Clause. We see no meaningful distinction between such absolute provisions on debt,. changeable only by constitutional amendment, and provisions that legislative decisions on the same issues require more than a majority vote in the legislature. On the contrary, these latter provisions may, in practice, be less burdensome than the amendment process. Moreover, the same considerations apply whén the ultimate power, rather than being delegated to the legislature, remains with the people, by way of a referendum. Indeed, we see no constitutional distinction between the 60% requirement in the present- case and a state requirement that a given issue be approved by a majority of all registered voters.' Cf. Clay v. Thornton, 253 S. C. 209, 169 S. E. 2d 617 (1969), appeal dismissed sub nom. Turner v. Clay, 397 U. S. 39 (1970).
That West Virginia has adopted a rule of decision, applicable to all bond referenda, by which the strong consensus of three-fifths is required before indebtedness is authorized, does not violate the Equal Protection Clause or any other provision of the Constitution.
Reversed.
While Cipriano involved.a denial of the vote, a percentage reduction of an individual’s voting power in proportion to the amount of property he owned would be similarly defective. See Stewart v. Parish School Board, 310 F. Supp. 1172 (ED La.), aff’d, 400 U. S. 884 (1970).
E. g.,..Indiana Constitution, Art. 10, § 5; Ohio Constitution, Art. 8, § 3; Texas Constitution, Art. 3, § 49; Wisconsin Constitution, Art. 8, § 4.
Compare Reitman v. Mulkey, 387 U. S. 369 (1967).
Some 14 States require an amendment to be apbroved- by two sessions of the legislature, before submission to the people. West Virginia’s- Constitution, Art. 14, § 2, provides for approval by two-thirds of a single legislature and a majority of the voters.
In practice, the latter requirement would be far more burdensome than a 60% requirement. There were 8,913 registered voters in Roane County in 1968, of whom 5,600 voted in the referendum at issue. If a majority of all eligible voters had been required, approval would have required the affirmative votes of over 79% of those voting. See'State of West Virginia, Official Returns of 1970 Primary Election (including the 1968 registration figures).
We intimate no view on the constitutionality of a provision requiring unanimity or giving a veto power to a very small group. Nor do we decide whether a State may, consistently with the Constitution, require extraordinary majorities for the election of public officers. ;
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 presents two questions concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq. First, we address the appropriate standard of judicial review of benefit determinations by fiduciaries or plan administrators under ERISA. Second, we determine which persons are “participants” entitled to obtain information about benefit plans covered by ERISA.
I
Late in 1980, petitioner Firestone Tire and Rubber Company (Firestone) sold, as going concerns, the five plants composing its Plastics Division to Occidental Petroleum Company (Occidental). Most of the approximately 500 salaried employees at the five plants were rehired by Occidental and continued in their same positions without interruption and at the same rates of pay. At the time of the sale, Firestone maintained three pension and welfare benefit plans for its employ-, ees: a termination pay plan, a retirement plan, and a stock purchase plan. Firestone was the sole source of funding for the plans and had not established separate trust funds out of which to pay the benefits from the plans. All three of the plans were either “employee welfare benefit plans” or “employee pension benefit plans” governed (albeit in different ways) by ERISA. By operation of law, Firestone itself was the administrator, 29 U. S. C. § 1002(16)(A)(ii), and fiduciary, § 1002(21)(A), of each of these “unfunded” plans. At the time of the sale of its Plastics Division, Firestone was not aware that the termination pay plan was governed by ERISA, and therefore had not set up a claims procedure, § 1183, nor complied with ERISA’s reporting and disclosure obligations, §§ 1021-1031, with respect to that plan.
Respondents, six Firestone employees who were rehired by Occidental, sought severance benefits from Firestone under the termination pay plan. In relevant part, that plan provides as follows:
“If your service is discontinued prior to the time you are eligible for pension benefits, you will be given termination pay if released because of a reduction in work force or if you become physically or mentally unable to perform your job.
' “The amount of termination pay you will receive will depend on your period of credited company service.”
Several of the respondents also sought information from Firestone regarding their benefits under all three of the plans pursuant to certain ERISA disclosure provisions. See §§ 1024(b)(4), 1025(a). Firestone denied respondents severance benefits on the ground that the sale of the Plastics Division to Occidental did not constitute a “reduction in work force” within the meaning of the termination pay plan. In addition, Firestone denied the requests for information concerning benefits under the three plans. Firestone concluded that respondents were not entitled to the information because they were no longer “participants” in the plans.
Respondents then filed a class action on behalf of “former, salaried, non-union employees who worked in the five plants that comprised the Plastics Division of Firestone.” Complaint ¶ 9, App. 94. The action was based on § 1132(a)(1), which provides that a “civil action may be brought ... by a participant or beneficiary [of a covered plan] . . . (A) for the relief provided for in [§ 1132(c)], [and] (B) to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan.” In Count I of their complaint, respondents alleged that they were entitled to severance benefits because Firestone’s sale of the Plastics Division to Occidental constituted a “reduction in work force” within the meaning of the termination pay plan. Complaint ¶¶23-44, App. 98-104. In Count VII, respondents alleged that they were entitled to damages under § 1132 (c) because Firestone had breached its reporting obligations under § 1025(a). Complaint ¶¶ 87-94, App. 104-106.
The District Court granted Firestone’s motion for summary judgment. 640 F. Supp. 519 (ED Pa. 1986). With respect to Count I, the District Court held that Firestone had satisfied its fiduciary duty under ERISA because its decision not to pay severance benefits to respondents under the termination pay plan was not arbitrary or capricious. Id., at 521-526. With respect to Count VII, the District Court held that, although § 1024(b)(4) imposes a duty on a plan administrator to respond to written requests for information about the plan, that duty extends only to requests by plan participants and beneficiaries. Under ERISA a plan participant is “any employee or former employee . . . who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan.” § 1002(7). A beneficiary is “a person designated by a participant, or by the terms of an employee benefit plan, who is or may become entitled to a benefit thereunder.” § 1002(8). The District Court concluded that respondents were not entitled to damages under § 1132(c) because they were not plan “participants” or “beneficiaries” at the time they requested information from Firestone. 640 F. Supp., at 534.
The Court of Appeals reversed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment on Counts I and VII. 828 F. 2d 134 (CA3 1987). With respect to Count I, the Court of Appeals acknowledged that most federal courts have reviewed the denial of benefits by ERISA fiduciaries and administrators under the arbitrary and capricious standard.. Id., at 138 (citing cases). It noted, however, that the arbitrary and capricious standard had been softened in cases where fiduciaries and administrators had some bias or adverse interest. Id., at 138-140. See, e. g., Jung v. FMC Corp., 755 F. 2d 708, 711-712 (CA9 1985) (where “the employer’s denial of benefits to a class avoids a very considerable outlay [by the employer], the reviewing court should consider that fact in applying the arbitrary and capricious standard of review,” and “[l]ess deference should be given to the trustee’s decision”). The Court of Appeals held that where an employer is itself the fiduciary and administrator of an unfunded benefit plan, its decision to deny benefits should be subject to de novo judicial review. It reasoned that in such situations deference is unwarranted given the lack of assurance of impartiality on the part of the employer. 828 F. 2d, at 137-145. With respect to Count VII, the Court of Appeals held that the right to request and receive information about an employee benefit plan “most sensibly extend[s] both to people who are in fact entitled to a benefit under the plan and to those who claim to be but in fact are not.” Id., at 153. Because the District Court had applied different legal standards in granting summary judgment in favor of Firestone on Counts I and VII, the Court of Appeals remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
We granted certiorari, 485 U. S. 986 (1988), to resolve the conflicts among the Courts of Appeals as to the appropriate standard of review in actions under § 1132(a)(1)(B) and the interpretation of the term “participant” in § 1002(7). We now affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand the case for further proceedings.
II
ERISA provides “a panoply of remedial devices” for participants and beneficiaries of benefit plans. Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S. 134, 146 (1985). Respondents’ action asserting that they were entitled to benefits because the sale of Firestone’s Plastics Division constituted a “reduction in work force” within the meaning of the termination pay plan was based on the authority of § 1132(a) (1)(B). That provision allows a suit to recover benefits due under the plan, to enforce rights under the terms of the plan, and to obtain a declaratory judgment of future entitlement to benefits under the provisions of the plan contract. The discussion which follows is limited to the appropriate standard of review in § 1132(a)(1)(B) actions challenging denials of benefits based on plan interpretations. We express no view as to the appropriate standard of review for actions under other remedial provisions of ERISA.
A
Although it is a “comprehensive and reticulated statute,” Nachman Corp. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 446 U. S. 359, 361 (1980), ERISA does not set out the appropriate standard of review for actions under § 1132(a)(1)(B) challenging benefit eligibility determinations. To fill this gap, federal courts have adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard developed under 61 Stat. 157, 29 U. S. C. § 186(c), a provision of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA). See, e. g., Struble v. New Jersey Brewery Employees’ Welfare Trust Fund, 732 F. 2d 325, 333 (CA3 1984); Bayles v. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund, 602 F. 2d 97, 99-100, and n. 3 (CA5 1979). In light of Congress’ general intent to incorporate much of LMRA fiduciary law into ERISA, see NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U. S. 322, 332 (1981), and because ERISA, like the LMRA, imposes a duty of loyalty on fiduciaries and plan administrators, Firestone argues that the LMRA arbitrary and. capricious standard should apply to ERISA actions. See Brief for Petitioners 13-14. A comparison of the LMRA and ERISA, however, shows that the wholesale importation of the arbitrary and capricious standard into ERISA is unwarranted.
In relevant part, 29 U. S. C. § 186(c) authorizes unions and employers to set up pension plans jointly and provides that contributions to such plans be made “for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees . . . and their families and dependents.” The LMRA does not provide for judicial review of the decisions of LMRA trustees. Federal courts adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard both as a standard of review and, more importantly, as a means of asserting jurisdiction over suits under § 186(c) by beneficiaries of LMRA plans who were denied benefits by trustees. See Van Boxel v. Journal Co. Employees’ Pension Trust, 836 F. 2d 1048, 1052 (CA7 1987) (“[W]hen a plan provision as interpreted had the effect of denying an application for benefits unreasonably, or as it came to be said, arbitrarily and capriciously, courts would hold that the plan as ‘structured’ was not for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees, so that the denial of benefits violated [§ 186(c)]).” See also Comment, The Arbitrary and Capricious Standard Under ERISA: Its Origins and Application, 23 Duquesne L. Rev. 1033, 1037-1039 (1985). Unlike the LMRA, ERISA explicitly authorizes suits against fiduciaries and plan administrators to remedy statutory violations, including breaches of fiduciary duty and lack of compliance with benefit plans. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 1132(a), 1132(f). See generally Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 52-57 (1987) (describing scope of § 1132(a)). Thus, the raison d’etre for the LMRA arbitrary and capricious standard — the need for a jurisdictional basis in suits against trustees — is not present in ERISA. See Note, Judicial Review of Fiduciary Claim Denials Under ERISA: An Alternative to the Arbitrary and Capricious Test, 71 Cornell L. Rev. 986, 994, n. 40 (1986). Without this jurisdictional analogy, LMRA principles offer no support for the adoption of the arbitrary and capricious standard insofar as § 1132(a)(1)(B) is concerned.
B
ERISA abounds with the language and terminology of trust law. See, e. g., 29 U. S. C. §§ 1002(7) (“participant”), 1002(8) (“beneficiary”), 1002(21)(A) (“fiduciary”), 1103(a) (“trustee”), 1104 (“fiduciary duties”). ERISA’s legislative history confirms that the Act’s fiduciary responsibility provisions, 29 U. S. C. §§ 1101-1114, “codif[y] and mak[e] applicable to [ERISA] fiduciaries certain principles developed in the evolution of the law of trusts.” H. R. Rep. No. 93-533, p. 11 (1973). Given this language and history, we have held that courts are to develop a “federal common law of rights and obligations under ERISA-regulated plans.” Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, supra, at 56. See also Franchise Tax Board v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U. S. 1, 24, n. 26 (1983) (“ ‘[A] body of Federal substantive law will be developed by the courts to deal with issues involving rights and obligations under private welfare and pension plans’”) (quoting 129 Cong. Rec. 29942 (1974) (remarks of Sen. Ja-vits)). In determining the appropriate standard of review for actions under § 1132(a)(1)(B), we are guided by principles of trust law. Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc., 472 U. S. 559, 570 (1985).
Trust principles make a deferential standard of review appropriate when a trustee exercises discretionary powers. See Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 187 (1959) (“Where discretion is conferred upon the trustee with respect to the exercise of a power, its exercise is not subject to control by the court except to prevent an abuse by the trustee of his discretion”). See also G. Bogert & G. Bogert, Law of Trusts and Trustees §560, pp. 193-208 (2d rev. ed. 1980). A trustee may be given power to construe disputed or doubtful terms, and in such circumstances the trustee’s interpretation will not be disturbed if reasonable. Id., §559, at 169-171.’ Whether “the exercise of a power is permissive or mandatory depends upon the terms of the trust.” 3 W. Fratcher, Scott on Trusts § 187, p. 14 (4th ed. 1988). Hence, over a century ago we remarked that “[w]hen trustees are in existence, and capable of acting, a court of equity will not interfere to control them in the exercise of a discretion vested in them by the instrument under which they act.” Nichols v. Eaton, 91 U. S. 716, 724-725 (1875) (emphasis added). See also Central States, Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund v. Central Transport, Inc., supra, at 568 (“The trustees’ determination that the trust documents authorize their access to records here in dispute has significant weight, for the trust agreement explicitly provides that ‘any construction [of the agreement’s provisions] adopted by the Trustees in good faith shall be binding upon the Union, Employees, and Employers’ ”). Firestone can seek no shelter in these principles of trust law, however, for there is no evidence that under Firestone’s termination pay plan the administrator has the power to construe uncertain terms or that eligibility determinations are to be given deference. See Brief for Respondents 24-25; Reply Brief for Petitioners 7, n. 2; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 14-15, n. 11.
Finding no support in the language of its termination pay plan for the arbitrary and capricious standard, Firestone argues that as a matter of trust law the interpretation of the terms of a plan is an inherently discretionary function. But other settled principles of trust law, which point to de novo review of benefit eligibility determinations. based on plan interpretations, belie this contention.' As' they do with contractual provisions, courts construe terms in trust agreements without deferring to either party’s interpretation. “The extent of the duties and powers of a trustee is determined by the rules of law that are applicable to the situation, and not the rules that the trustee or his attorney believes to be applicable, and by the terms of the trust as the court may interpret them, and not as they may be interpreted by the trustee himself or by his attorney.” 3 W. Fratcher, Scott on Trusts §201, at 221 (emphasis added). A trustee who is in doubt as to the interpretation of the instrument can protect himself by obtaining instructions from the court. Bogert & Bogert, supra, §559, at 162-168; Restatement (Second) of Trusts §201, Comment b (1959). See also United States v. Mason, 412 U. S. 391, 399 (1973). The terms of trusts created by written instruments are “determined by the provisions of the instrument as interpreted in light of all the circumstances and such other evidence of the intention of the settlor with respect to the trust as is not inadmissible.” Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 4, Comment d (1959).
The trust law de novo standard of review is consistent with the judicial interpretation of employee benefit plans prior to the enactment of ERISA. Actions challenging an employer’s denial of benefits before the enactment of ERISA were governed by principles of contract law. If the plan did not give the employer or administrator discretionary or final authority to construe uncertain terms, the court reviewed the employee’s claim as it would have any other contract claim— by looking to the terms of the plan and other manifestations of the parties’ intent. See, e. g., Conner v. Phoenix Steel Corp., 249 A. 2d 866 (Del. 1969); Atlantic Steel Co. v. Kitchens, 228 Ga. 708, 187 S. E. 2d 824 (1972); Sigman v. Rudolph Wurlitzer Co., 57 Ohio App. 4, 11 N. E. 2d 878 (1937).
Despite these principles of trust law pointing to a de novo standard of review for claims like respondents’, Firestone would have us read ERISA to require the application of the arbitrary and capricious standard to such claims. ERISA defines a fiduciary as one who “exercises any discretionary authority or discretionary control respecting management of [a] plan or exercises any authority or control respecting management or disposition of its assets.” 29 U. S. C. § 1002(21) (A)(i). A fiduciary has “authority to control and manage the operation and administration of the plan,” § 1102(a)(1), and must provide a “full and fair review” of claim denials, § 1133(2). From these provisions, Firestone concludes that an ERISA plan administrator, fiduciary, or trustee is empowered to exercise all his authority in a discretionary manner subject only to review for arbitrariness and capriciousness. But the provisions relied upon so heavily by Firestone do not characterize a fiduciary as one who exercises entirely discretionary authority or control. Rather, one is a fiduciary to the extent he exercises any discretionary authority or control. Cf. United Mine Workers of America Health and Retirement Funds v. Robinson, 455 U. S. 562, 573-574 (1982) (common law of trusts did not alter nondiseretionary obligation of trustees to enforce eligibility requirements as required by LMRA trust agreement).
ERISA was enacted “to promote the interests of employees and their beneficiaries in employee benefit plans,” Shaw v. Delta Airlines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 90 (1983), and “to protect contractually defined benefits,” Massachusetts Mutual Life Ins. Co. v. Russell, 473 U. S., at 148. See generally 29 U. S. C. § 1001 (setting forth congressional findings and declarations of policy regarding ERISA). Adopting Firestone’s reading of ERISA would require us to impose a standard of review that would afford less protection to employees and their beneficiaries than they enjoyed before ERISA was enacted. Nevertheless, Firestone maintains that congressional action after the passage of ERISA indicates that Congress intended ERISA claims to be reviewed under the arbitrary and capricious standard. At a time when most federal courts had adopted the arbitrary and capricious standard of review, a bill was introduced in Congress to amend § 1132 by providing de novo review of decisions denying benefits. See H. R. 6226, 97th Cong., 2d Sess. (1982), reprinted in Pension Legislation: Hearings on H. R. 1614 et al. before the Subcommittee on Labor-Management Relations of the House Committee on Education and Labor, 97th Cong., 2d Sess., 60 (1983). Because the bill was never enacted, Firestone asserts that we should conclude that Congress was satisfied with the arbitrary and capricious standard. See Brief for Petitioners 19-20. We do not think that this bit of legislative inaction carries the day for Firestone. Though “instructive,” failure to act on the proposed bill is not conclusive of Congress’ views on the appropriate standard of review. Bowsher v. Merck & Co., 460 U. S. 824, 837, n. 12 (1983). The bill’s demise may have been the result of events that had nothing to do with Congress’ view on the propriety of de novo review. Without more, we cannot ascribe to Congress any acquiescence in the arbitrary and capricious standard. “[T]he views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one.” United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313 (1960).
Firestone and its amici also assert that a de novo standard would contravene the spirit of ERISA because it would impose much higher administrative and litigation costs and therefore discourage employers from creating benefit plans. See, e. g., Brief for American Council of Life Insurance et al. as Amici Curiae 10-11. Because even under the arbitrary and capricious standard an employer’s denial of benefits could be subject to judicial review, the assumption seems to be that a de novo standard would encourage more litigation by employees, participants, and beneficiaries who wish to assert their right to benefits. Neither general principles of trust law nor a concern for impartial decisionmaking, however, forecloses parties from agreeing upon a narrower standard of review. Moreover, as to both funded and unfunded plans, the threat of increased litigation is not sufficient to outweigh the reasons for a de novo standard that we have already explained.
As this case aptly demonstrates, the validity of a claim to benefits under an ERISA plan is likely to turn on the interpretation of terms in the plan at issue. Consistent with established principles of trust law, we hold that a denial of benefits challenged under § 1132(a)(1)(B) is to be reviewed under a de novo standard unless the benefit plan gives the administrator or fiduciary discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits or to construe the terms of the plan. Because we do not rest our decision on the concern for impartiality that guided the Court of Appeals, see 828 F. 2d, at 143-146, we need not distinguish between types of plans or focus on the motivations of plan administrators and fiduciaries. Thus, for purposes of actions under § 1132(a)(1)(B), the de novo standard of review applies regardless of whether the plan at issue is funded or unfunded and regardless of whether the administrator or fiduciary is operating under a possible or actual conflict of interest. Of course, if a benefit plan gives discretion to an administrator or fiduciary who is operating under a conflict of interest, that conflict must be weighed as a “facto[r] in determining whether there is an abuse of discretion.” Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 187, Comment d (1959).
Ill
Respondents unsuccessfully sought plan information from Firestone pursuant to 29 U. S. C. § 1024(b)(4), one of ERISA’s disclosure provisions. That provision reads as follows:
“The administrator shall, upon written request of any participant or beneficiary, furnish a copy of the latest updated summary plan description, plan description, and the latest annual report, any terminal report, the bargaining agreement, trust agreement, contract, or other instruments under which the plan is established or operated. The administrator may make a reasonable charge to cover the cost of furnishing such complete copies. The Secretary [of Labor] may by regulation prescribe the maximum amount which will constitute a reasonable charge under the preceding sentence.”
When Firestone did not comply with their request for information, respondents sought damages under 29 U. S. C. § 1132 (c)(1)(B) (1982 ed., Supp. IV), which provides that “[a]ny administrator . . . who fails or refuses to comply with a request for any information which such administrator is required by this subchapter to furnish to a participant or beneficiary . . . may in the court’s discretion be personally liable to such participant or beneficiary in the amount of up to $100 a day.”
Respondents have not alleged that they are “beneficiaries” as defined in §1002(8). See Complaint ¶¶ 87-95, App. 104-106. The dispute in this case therefore centers on the definition of the term “participant,” which is found in § 1002(7):
“The term ‘participant’ means any employee or former employee of an employer, or any member or former member of an employee organization, who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan which covers employees of such employer or members of such organization, or whose beneficiaries may be eligible to receive any such benefit.”
The Court of Appeals noted that § 1132(a)(1) allows suits for benefits “by a participant or beneficiary.” Finding that it would be illogical to say that a person could only bring a claim for benefits if he or she was entitled to benefits, the Court of Appeals reasoned that § 1132(a)(1) should be read to mean that “ ‘a civil action may be brought by someone who claims to be a participant or beneficiary.’” 828 F. 2d, at 152. It went on to conclude that the same interpretation should apply with respect to § 1024(b)(4): “A provision such as that one, entitling people to information on the extent of their benefits, would most sensibly extend both to people who are in fact entitled to a benefit under the plan and to those who claim to be but in fact are not.” Id., at 153.
The Court of Appeals “concede[d] that it is expensive and inefficient to provide people with information about benefits — and to permit them to obtain damages if information is withheld — if they are clearly not entitled to the benefits about which they are informed. ” Ibid. It tried to solve this dilemma by suggesting that courts use discretion and not award damages if the employee’s claim for benefits was not colorable or if the employer did not act in bad faith. There is, however, a more fundamental problem with the Court of Appeals’ interpretation of the term “participant”: it strays far from the statutory language. Congress did not say that all “claimants” could receive information about benefit plans. To say that a “participant” is any person who claims to be one begs the question of who is a “participant” and renders the definition set forth in § 1002(7) superfluous. Indeed, respondents admitted at oral argument that “the words point against [them].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 40.
In our view, the term “participant” is naturally read to mean either “employees in, or reasonably expected to be in, currently covered employment,” Saladino v. I. L. G. W. U. National Retirement Fund, 754 F. 2d 473, 476 (CA2 1985), or former employees who “have ... a reasonable expectation of returning to covered employment” or who have “a colorable claim” to vested benefits, Kuntz v. Reese, 785 F. 2d 1410, 1411 (CA9) (per curiam), cert. denied, 479 U. S. 916 (1986). In order to establish that he or she “may become eligible” for benefits, a claimant must have a colorable claim that (1) he or she will prevail in a suit for benefits, or that (2) eligibility requirements will be fulfilled in the future. “This view attributes conventional meanings to the statutory language since all employees in covered employment and former employees with a colorable claim to vested benefits ‘may become eligible.’ A former employee who has neither a reasonable expectation of returning to covered employment nor a color-able claim to vested benefits, however, simply does not fit within the [phrase] ‘may become eligible.’” Saladino v. I. L. G. W. U. National Retirement Fund, supra, at 476.
We do not think Congress’ purpose in enacting the ERISA disclosure provisions — ensuring that “the individual participant knows exactly where he stands with respect to the plan,” H. R. Rep. No. 93-533, p. 11 (1973)-will be thwarted by a natural reading of the term “participant.” Faced with the possibility of $100 a day in penalties under § 1132(c)(1)(B), a rational plan administrator or fiduciary would likely opt to provide a claimant with the information requested if there is any doubt as to whether the claimant is a “participant,” especially when the reasonable costs of producing the information can be recovered. See 29 CFR § 2520.104b-30(b) (1987) (the “charge assessed by the plan administrator to cover the costs of furnishing documents is reasonable if it is equal to the actual cost per page to the plan for the least expensive means of acceptable reproduction, but in no event may such charge exceed 25 cents per page”).
The Court of Appeals did not attempt to determine whether respondents were “participants” under § 1002(7). See 828 F. 2d, at 152-153. We likewise express no views as to whether respondents were “participants” with respect to the benefit plans about which they sought information. Those questions are best left to the Court of Appeals on remand.
For the reasons set forth above, the decision of the Court of Appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
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.
Opinion of the Court by
Mr. Justice Douglas,
announced by Mr. Justice Brennan.
This is a suit in admiralty brought by a seaman to recover (a) maintenance and cure and (b) damages for failure to pay maintenance and cure. The District Court, while disallowing the claim for damages, granted maintenance, less any sums earned by the libellant during the period in question. 200 F. Supp. 802. The Court of Appeals affirmed, Chief Judge Sobeloff dissenting. 291 F. 2d 813. The case is here on a writ of certiorari. 368 U. S. 888.
Libellant served on respondents’ vessel from November 26, 1956, to March 2, 1957, when he was discharged on termination of a voyage. On March 7, 1957, he reported to a United States Public Health Service Hospital for examination and was admitted on March 18, 1957, as an inpatient, and treated for suspected tuberculosis. On June 6, 1957, he was discharged to an outpatient status and he remained in that status for over two years. On August 25, 1959, he was notified that he was fit for duty as of August 19, 1959.
The hospital records show a strong probability of active tuberculosis. The Master furnished libellant a certificate to enter the hospital on his discharge, March 2, 1957. Though libellant forwarded to the owner’s agent an abstract of his clinical record at the hospital in 1957, the only investigation conducted by them was an interrogation of the Master and Chief Engineer, who stated that the libellant had never complained of any illness during his four months’ service. The owner made no effort to make any further investigation of libellant’s claim for maintenance and cure, and according to the findings did not bother even to admit or deny the validity of that claim. Nearly two years passed during which libellant was on his own. Ultimately he was required to hire an attorney and sue in the courts to recover maintenance and cure, agreeing to pay the lawyer a 50% contingent fee. Even so, the District Court held that no damages for failure to furnish maintenance and cure had been shown. In its view such damages are payable not for attorney’s fees incurred but only when the failure to furnish maintenance and cure caused or aggravated the illness or other physical or mental suffering.
The District Court first allowed maintenance at the rate of $8 a day from June 6, 1957, to February 18, 1959. Since libellant during that period had worked as a taxi driver, the District Court ordered that his earnings be deducted from the amount owed by respondents. Subject to that credit, the order also provided that maintenance at $8 per day be continued until such time as the libellant reached the maximum state of recovery. The District Court allowed in addition 6% interest for each week’s maintenance unpaid. Subsequently the District Court extended the maintenance to cover the period from March 7, 1957, to March 17, 1957, and from February 18, 1959, through August 25, 1959, these later awards being without interest.
The Court of Appeals denied counsel fees as damages, relying on the conventional rule that in suits for breach of contract the promisee is not allowed that item in computing the damages payable by the promisor. And the Court of Appeals, following Wilson v. United States, 229 F. 2d 277, and Perez v. Suwanee S. S. Co., 239 F. 2d 180, from the Second Circuit, held that a seaman has the duty to mitigate damages and that since “the purpose of maintenance and cure is to make the seaman whole,” “he will get something more than he is entitled to” unless his earnings during the period are deducted. 291 F. 2d, at 814, 815.
We disagree with the lower courts on both points.
I.
Equity is no stranger in admiralty; admiralty courts are, indeed, authorized to grant equitable relief. See Swift & Co. v. Compania Caribe, 339 U. S. 684, 691-692, where we said, “We find no restriction upon admiralty by chancery so unrelenting as to bar the grant of any equitable relief even when that relief is subsidiary to issues wholly within admiralty jurisdiction.”
Counsel fees have been awarded in equity actions, as where Negroes were required to bring suit against a labor union to prevent discrimination. Rolax v. Atlantic Coast Line R. Co., 186 F. 2d 473, 481. As we stated in Sprague v. Ticonic Bank, 307 U. S. 161, 164, allowance of counsel fees and other expenses entailed by litigation, but not included in the ordinary taxable costs regulated by statute, is “part of the historic equity jurisdiction of the federal courts.” We do not have here that case. Nor do we have the usual problem of what constitutes “costs” in the conventional sense. Cf. The Baltimore, 8 Wall. 377. Our question concerns damages. Counsel fees were allowed in The Apollon, 9 Wheat. 362, 379, an admiralty suit where one party was put to expense in recovering demurrage of a vessel wrongfully seized. While failure to give maintenance and cure may give rise to a claim for damages for the suffering and for the physical handicap which follows (The Iroquois, 194 U. S. 240), the recovery may also include “necessary expenses.” Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, 287 U. S. 367, 371.
In the instant case respondents were callous in their attitude, making no investigation of libellant’s claim and by their silence neither admitting nor denying it. As a result of that recalcitrance, libellant was forced to hire a lawyer and go to court to get what was plainly owed him under laws that are centuries old. The default was willful and persistent. It is difficult to imagine a clearer case of damages suffered for failure to pay maintenance than this one.
II.
Maintenance and cure is designed to provide a seaman with food and lodging when he becomes sick or injured in the ship’s service; and it extends during the period when he is incapacitated to do a seaman’s work and continues until he reaches maximum medical recovery. The policy underlying the duty was summarized in Calmar S. S. Corp. v. Taylor, 303 U. S. 525, 528:
“The reasons underlying the rule, to which reference must be made in defining it, are those enumerated in the classic passage by Mr. Justice Story in Harden v. Gordon, Fed. Cas. No. 6047 (C. C.): the protection of seamen, who, as a class, are poor, friendless and improvident, from the hazards of illness and abandonment while ill in foreign ports; the inducement to masters and owners to protect the safety and health of seamen while in service; the maintenance of a merchant marine for the commercial service and maritime defense of the nation by inducing men to accept employment in an arduous and perilous service.”
Admiralty courts have been liberal in interpreting this duty “for the benefit and protection of seamen who are its wards.” Id., at 529. We noted in Aguilar v. Standard Oil Co., 318 U. S. 724, 730, that the shipowner’s liability for maintenance and cure was among “the most pervasive” of all and that it was not to be defeated by restrictive distinctions nor “narrowly confined.” Id., at 735. When there are ambiguities or doubts, they are resolved in favor of the seaman. Warren v. United States, 340 U. S. 523.
Maintenance and cure differs from rights normally classified as contractual. As Mr. Justice Cardozo said in Cortes v. Baltimore Insular Line, supra, 371, the duty to provide maintenance and cure “is imposed by the law itself as one annexed to the employment. . . . Contractual it is in the sense that it has its source in a relation which is contractual in origin, but given the relation, no agreement is competent to abrogate the incident.”
In Johnson v. United States, 333 U. S. 46, we held that a seaman who while an outpatient was living on his parents’ ranch without cost to himself was not entitled to maintenance payments. There maintenance and cure was wholly provided by others. Here the libellant was on his own for nearly two years and required to work in order to survive. It would be a sorry day for seamen if shipowners, knowing of the claim for maintenance and cure, could disregard it, force the disabled seaman to work, and then evade part or all of their legal obligation by having it reduced by the amount of the sick man’s earnings. This would be a dreadful weapon in the hands of unconscionable employers and a plain inducement, as Chief Judge Sobeloff said below (291 F. 2d, at 820), to use the withholding of maintenance and cure as a means of forcing sick seamen to go to work when they should be resting, and to make the seamen themselves pay in whole or in part the amounts owing as maintenance and cure. This result is at war with the liberal attitude that heretofore has obtained and with admiralty’s tender regard for seamen. We think the view of the Third Circuit (see Yates v. Dann, 223 F. 2d 64, 67) is preferable to that of the Second Circuit as expressed in Wilson v. United States and Perez v. Suwanee S. S. Co., supra, and to that of the Fourth Circuit in this case.
Reversed.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter took no part in the decision of this case.
Mr. Justice White took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Claims for damages for the illness and for wages, disallowed below, are not presented here.
The owner was American Waterways Corp., and National Shipping & Trading Corp. was its agent, both being respondents. Respondent Atkinson was the Master.
Whether counsel fees in the amount of 50% of the award are reasonable is a matter on which we express no opinion, as it was not considered by either the District Court or the Court of Appeals.
It derives from Article VI of the Laws of Oleron, 30 Fed. Cas. 1171, 1174:
“If any of the mariners hired by the master of any vessel, go out of the ship without his leave, and get themselves drunk, and thereby there happens contempt to their master, debates, or fighting and quar-relling among themselves, whereby some happen to be wounded: in this case the master shall not be obliged to get them cured, or in any thing to provide for them, but may turn them and their accomplices out of the ship; and if they make words of it, they are bound to pay the master besides: but if by the master’s orders-and commands any of the ship’s company be in the service of the ship, and'thereby happen to be wounded or otherwise hurt, in that case they shall be cured and provided for at the costs and charges of the said ship.”
Justice Story, in holding that maintenance and cure was a charge upon the ship, said concerning its history:
“The same principle is recognised in the ancient laws of Wisbuy (Laws of Wisbuy, art. 19), and in those of Oleron, which have been held in peculiar respect by England, and have been in some measure incorporated into her maritime jurisprudence. The Consolato del Mare does not speak particularly on this point; but from the provisions of this venerable collection of maritime usages in cases"nearly allied, there is every reason to infer, that a similar rule then prevailed in the Mediterranean. Consolato del Mare, cc. 124, 125; Boucher, Consulat de la Mer, cc. 127, 128. Molloy evidently adopts it as a general doctrine of maritime law (Molloy, b. 2, c. 3, § 5, p. 243); and two elementary writers of most distinguished reputation have quoted it from the old ordinances without the slightest intimation, that it was not perfectly consonant with the received law and usage of England. Abb. Shipp, p. 2, c. 4, § 14; 2 Brown, Adm. 182-184. There is perhaps upon this subject a greater extent and uniformity of maritime authority, than can probably be found in support of most of those principles of commercial law, which have been so successfully engrafted into our jurisprudence within the last century.” Harden v. Gordon, 11 Fed. Cas. 480, 483.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The writ 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: | 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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This ease calls for identification of the circumstances under which an employer may he held liable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,78 Stat. 253, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §2000e et seq., for the acts of a supervisory employee whose sexual harassment of subordinates has created a hostile work environment amounting to employment discrimination. We hold that an employer is vicariously liable for actionable discrimination caused by a supervisor, but subject to an affirmative defense looking to the reasonableness of the employer’s conduct as well as that of a plaintiff victim.
I
Between 1985 and 1990, while attending college, petitioner Beth Ann Faragher worked part time and during the summers as an ocean lifeguard for the Marine Safety Section of the Parks and Recreation Department of respondent, the City of Boca Raton, Florida (City). During this period, Faragher’s immediate supervisors were Bill Terry, David Silverman, and Robert Gordon. In June 1990, Faragher resigned.
In 1992, Faragher brought an action against Terry, Silver-man, and the City, asserting claims under Title VII, Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1988, and Florida law. So far as it concerns the Title VII claim, the complaint alleged that Terry and Silverman created a “sexually hostile atmosphere” at the beach by repeatedly subjecting Faragher and other female lifeguards to “uninvited and offensive touching,” by making lewd remarks, and by speaking of women in offensive terms. The complaint contained specific allegations that Terry once said that he would never promote a woman to the rank of lieutenant, and that Silverman had said to Faragher, “Date me or clean the toilets for a year.” Asserting that Terry and Silverman were agents of the City, and that their conduct amounted to discrimination in the “terms, conditions, and privileges” of her employment, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), Faragher sought a judgment against the City for nominal damages, costs, and attorney’s fees.
Following a bench trial, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida found that throughout Faragher’s employment with the City, Terry served as Chief of the Marine Safety Division, with authority to hire new lifeguards (subject to the approval of higher management), to supervise all aspects of the lifeguards’ work assignments, to engage in counseling, to deliver oral reprimands, and to make a record of any such discipline. 864 F. Supp. 1552, 1563-1564 (1994). Silverman was a Marine Safety lieutenant from 1985 until June 1989, when he became a captain. Id., at 1555. Gordon began the employment period as a lieutenant and at some point was promoted to the position of training captain. In these positions, Silverman and Gordon were responsible for making the lifeguards’ daily assignments, and for supervising their work and fitness training. Id., at 1564.
The lifeguards and supervisors were stationed at the city beach and worked out of the Marine Safety Headquarters, a small one-story building containing an office, a meeting room, and a single, unisex locker room with a shower. Id., at 1556. Their work routine was structured in a “paramilitary configuration,” id., at 1564, with a clear chain of command. Lifeguards reported to lieutenants and captains, who reported to Terry. He was supervised by the Eecreation Superintendent, who in turn reported to a Director of Parks and Recreation, answerable to the City Manager. Id., at 1555. The lifeguards had no significant contact with higher city officials like the Recreation Superintendent. Id., at 1564.
In February 1986, the City adopted a sexual harassment policy, which it stated in a memorandum from the City Manager addressed to all employees. Id., at 1560. In May.1990, the City revised the policy and reissued a statement of it. Ibid. Although the City may actually have circulated the memos and statements to some employees, it completely failed to disseminate its policy among employees of the Marine Safety Section, with the result that Terry, Silverman, Gordon, and many lifeguards were unaware of it. Ibid.
From time to time over the course of Faragher’s tenure at the Marine Safety Section, between 4 and 6 of the 40 to 50 lifeguards were women. Id., at 1556. During that 5-year period, Terry repeatedly touched the bodies of female employees without invitation, ibid., would put his arm around Faragher, with his hand on her buttocks, id., at 1557, and once made contact with another female lifeguard in a motion of sexual simulation, id., at 1556. He made crudely demeaning references to women generally, id., at 1557, and once commented disparagingly on Faragher’s shape, ibid. During a job interview with a woman he hired as a lifeguard, Terry said that the female lifeguards had sex with their male counterparts and asked whether she would do the same. Ibid.
Silverman behaved in similar ways. He once tackled Far-agher and remarked that, but for a physical characteristic he found unattractive, he would readily have had sexual relations with her. Ibid. Another time, he pantomimed an act of oral sex. Ibid. Within earshot of the female lifeguards, Silverman made frequent, vulgar references to women and sexual matters, commented on the bodies of female lifeguards and beachgoers, and at least twice told female lifeguards that he would like to engage in sex with them. Id., at 1557-1558.
Faragher did not complain to higher management about Terry or Silverman. Although she spoke of their behavior to Gordon, she did not regard these discussions as formal complaints to a supervisor but as conversations with a person she held in high esteem. Id., at 1559. Other female lifeguards had similarly informal talks with Gordon, but because Gordon did not feel that it was his place to do so, he did not report these complaints to Terry, his own supervisor, or to any other city official. Id., at 1559-1560. Gordon responded to the complaints of one lifeguard by saying that “the City just [doesn’t] care.” Id., at 1561.
In April 1990, however, two months before Faragher’s resignation, Nancy Ewanehew, a former lifeguard, wrote to Richard Bender, the City’s Personnel Director, complaining that Terry and Silverman had harassed her and other female lifeguards. Id., at 1559. Following investigation of this complaint, the City found that Terry and Silverman had behaved improperly, reprimanded them, and required them to choose between a suspension without pay or the forfeiture of annual leave. Ibid.
On the basis of these findings, the District Court concluded that the conduct of Terry and Silverman was discriminatory harassment sufficiently serious to alter the conditions of Faragher’s employment and constitute an abusive working environment. Id., at 1562-1563. The District Court then ruled that there were three justifications for holding the City liable for the harassment of its supervisory employees. First, the court noted that the harassment was pervasive enough to support an inference that the City had “knowledge, or constructive knowledge,” of it. Id., at 1563. Next, it ruled that the City was liable under traditional agency principles because Terry and Silverman were acting as its agents when they committed the harassing aets. Id., at 1563-1564. Finally, the court observed that Gordon’s knowledge of the harassment, combined with his inaction, “provides a further basis for imputing liability on [sic] the City.” Id., at 1564. The District Court then awarded Far-agher $1 in nominal damages on her Title YII claim. Id., at 1564-1565.
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed the judgment against the City. 76 F. 3d 1155 (1996). Although the panel had “no trouble concluding that Terry’s and Silverman’s conduct... was severe and pervasive enough to create an objectively abusive work environment,” id., at 1162, it overturned the District Court’s conclusion that the City was liable. The panel ruled that Terry and Silverman were not acting within the scope of their employment when they engaged in the harassment, id., at 1166, that they were not aided in their actions by the agency relationship, id., at 1166, n. 14, and that the City had no constructive knowledge of the harassment by virtue of its pervasiveness or Gordon’s actual knowledge, id., at 1167, and n. 16.
In a 7-to-5 decision, the full Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, adopted the panel’s conclusion. 111 F. 3d 1530 (1997). Relying on our decision in Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U. S. 57 (1986), and on the Restatement (Second) of Agency §219 (1957) (hereinafter Restatement), the court held that “an employer may be indirectly liable for hostile environment sexual harassment by a superior: (1) if the harassment occurs within the scope of the superior’s employment; (2) if the employer assigns performance of a nondele-gable duty to a supervisor and an employee is injured because of the supervisor’s failure to carry out that duty; or (3) if there is an agency relationship which aids the supervisor’s ability or opportunity to harass his subordinate.” 111 F. 3d, at 1534-1535.
Applying these principles, the court rejected Faragher’s Title YII claim against the City. First, invoking standard agency language to classify the harassment by each supervisor as a “frolic” unrelated to his authorized tasks, the court found that in harassing Faragher, Terry and Silverman were acting outside of the scope of their employment and solely to further their own personal ends. Id., at 1536-1537. Next, the court determined that the supervisors’ agency relationship with the City did not assist them in perpetrating their harassment. Id., at 1537. Though noting that “a supervisor is always aided in accomplishing hostile environment sexual harassment by the existence of the agency relationship with his employer because his responsibilities include close proximity to and regular contact with the victim,” the court held that traditional agency law does not employ so broad a concept of aid as a predicate of employer liability, but requires something more than a mere combination of agency •relationship and improper conduct by the agent. Ibid. Because neither Terry nor Silverman threatened to fire or demote Faragher, the court concluded that their agency relationship did not facilitate their harassment. Ibid.
The en bane court also affirmed the panel’s ruling that the City lacked constructive knowledge of the supervisors’ harassment. The court read the District Court’s opinion to rest on an erroneous legal conclusion that any harassment pervasive enough to create a hostile environment must a fortiori also suffice to charge the employer with constructive knowledge. Id., at 1588. Rejecting this approach, the court reviewed the record and found no adequate factual basis to conclude that the harassment was so pervasive that the City should have known of it, relying on the facts that the harassment occurred intermittently, over a long period of time, and at a remote location. Ibid. In footnotes, the court also rejected the arguments that the City should be deemed to have known of the harassment through Gordon, id., at 1538, n. 9, or charged with constructive knowledge because of its failure to disseminate its sexual harassment policy among the lifeguards, id., at 1539, n. 11.
Since our decision in Meritor, Courts of Appeals have struggled to derive manageable standards to govern employer liability for hostile environment harassment perpetrated by supervisory employees. While following our admonition to find guidance in the common law of agency, as embodied in the Restatement, the Courts of Appeals have adopted different approaches. Compare, e. g., Harrison v. Eddy Potash, Inc., 112 F. 3d 1437 (CA10 1997), vacated, post, p. 947; 111 F. 3d 1530 (CA11 1997) (case below); Gary v. Long, 59 F. 3d 1391 (CADC), cert. denied, 516 U. S. 1011 (1995); and Karibian v. Columbia University, 14 F. 3d 773 (CA2), cert. denied, 512 U. S. 1213 (1994). We granted cer-tiorari to address the divergence, 522 U. S. 978 (1997), and now reverse the judgment of the Eleventh Circuit and remand for entry of judgment in Faragher’s favor.
II
A
Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, “[i]t shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer... to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a)(l). We have repeatedly made clear that although the statute mentions specific employment decisions with immediate consequences, the scope of the prohibition “ ‘is not limited to “economic” or “tangible” discrimination,’ ” Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U. S. 17, 21 (1993) (quoting Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, supra, at 64), and that it covers more than “‘terms’ and ‘conditions’ in the narrow contractual sense.” Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75, 78 (1998). Thus, in Meritor we held that sexual harassment so “severe or pervasive” as to “ ‘alter the conditions of [the victim’s] employment and create an abusive working environment’ ” violates Title VII. 477 U. S., at 67 (quoting Henson v. Dundee, 682 F. 2d 897, 904 (CA11 1982)).
In thus holding that environmental claims are covered by the statute, we drew upon earlier eases recognizing liability for discriminatory harassment based on race and national origin, see, e. g., Rogers v. EEOC, 454 F. 2d 234 (CA5 1971), cert. denied, 406 U. S. 957 (1972); Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality v. St. Louis, 549 F. 2d 506 (CA8), cert. denied sub nom. Banta v. United States, 434 U. S. 819 (1977), just as we have also followed the lead of such eases in attempting to define the severity of the offensive conditions necessary to constitute actionable sex discrimination under the statute. See, e. g., Rogers, supra, at 238 (“[M]ere utterance of an ethnic or racial epithet which engenders offensive feelings in an employee” would not sufficiently alter terms and conditions of employment to violate Title VII). See also Daniels v. Essex Group, Inc., 937 F. 2d 1264, 1271-1272 (CA7 1991); Davis v. Monsanto Chemical Co., 858 F. 2d 345, 349 (CA6 1988), cert. denied, 490 U. S. 1110 (1989); Snell v. Suffolk County, 782 F. 2d 1094, 1103 (CA2 1986); 1 B. Linde-mann & P. Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law 349, and nn. 36-37 (3d ed. 1996) (hereinafter Lindemann & Gross-man) (citing cases instructing that “[discourtesy or rudeness should not be confused with racial harassment” and that “a lack of racial sensitivity does not, alone, amount to actionable harassment”).
So, in Harris, we explained that in order to be actionable under the statute, a sexually objectionable environment must be both objectively and subjectively offensive, one that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive, and one that the victim in fact did perceive to be so. 510 U. S., at 21-22. We directed courts to determine whether an environment is sufficiently hostile or abusive by “looking at all the circumstances,” including the “frequency of the discriminatory conduct; its severity; whether it is physically threatening or humiliating, or a mere offensive utterance; and whether it unreasonably interferes with an employee’s work performance.” Id., at 23. Most recently, we explained that Title VII does not prohibit “genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same sex and of the opposite sex.” Oncale, 523 U. S., at 81. A recurring point in these opinions is that “simple teasing,” id., at 82, offhand comments, and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount to discriminatory changes in the “terms and conditions of employment.”
These standards for judging hostility are sufficiently demanding to ensure that Title VII does not become a “general civility code.” Id., at 80. Properly applied, they will filter out complaints attacking “the ordinary tribulations of the workplace, such as the sporadic use of abusive language, gender-related jokes, and occasional teasing.” B. Linde-mann & D. Kadue, Sexual Harassment in Employment Law 175 (1992) (hereinafter Lindemann & Kadue) (footnotes omitted). We have made it clear that conduct must be extreme to amount to a change in the terms and conditions of employment, and the Courts of Appeals have heeded this view. See, e. g., Carrero v. New York City Housing Auth., 890 F. 2d 569, 577-578 (CA2 1989); Moylan v. Maries County, 792 F. 2d 746, 749-750 (CA8 1986); See also 1 Lindemann & Grossman 805-807, n. 290 (collecting cases granting summary judgment for employers because the alleged harassment was not actionably severe or pervasive).
While indicating the substantive contours of the hostile environments forbidden by Title VII, our cases have established few definite rules for determining when an employer will be liable for a discriminatory environment that is otherwise actionably abusive. Given the circumstances of many of the litigated eases, including some that have come to us, it is not surprising that in many of them, the issue has been joined over the sufficiency of the abusive conditions, not the standards for determining an employer’s liability for them. There have, for example, been myriad cases in which District Courts and Courts of Appeals have held employers liable on account of actual knowledge by the employer, or high-echelon officials of an employer organization, of sufficiently harassing action by subordinates, which the employer or its informed officers have done nothing to stop. See, e. g., Katz v. Dole, 709 F. 2d 251, 256 (CA4 1983) (upholding employer liability because the “employer’s supervisory personnel manifested unmistakable acquiescence in or approval of the harassment”); EEOC v. Hacienda Hotel, 881 F. 2d 1504, 1516 (CA9 1989) (employer liable where hotel manager did not respond to complaints about supervisors’ harassment); Hall v. Gus Constr. Co., 842 F. 2d 1010, 1016 (CA8 1988) (holding employer liable for harassment by co-workers because supervisor knew of the harassment but did nothing). In such instances, the combined knowledge and inaction may be seen as demonstrable negligence, or as the employer’s adoption of the offending conduct and its results, quite as if they had been authorized affirmatively as the employer’s policy. Cf. Oncale, supra, at 77 (victim reported his grounds for fearing rape to company’s safety supervisor, who turned him away with no action on complaint).
Nor was it exceptional that standards for binding the employer were not in issue in Harris, supra. In that case of discrimination by hostile environment, the individual charged with creating the abusive atmosphere was the president of the corporate employer, 510 U. S., at 19, who was indisputably within that class of an employer organization’s officials who may be treated as the organization’s proxy. Burns v. McGregor Electronic Industries, Inc., 955 F. 2d 559, 564 (CA8 1992) (employer-company liable where harassment was perpetrated by its owner); see Torres v. Pisano, 116 F. 3d 625, 634-635, and n. 11 (CA2) (noting that a supervisor may hold a sufficiently high position “in the management hierarchy of the company for his actions to be imputed automatically to the employer”), cert. denied, 522 U. S. 997 (1997); cf. Katz, supra, at 255 (“Except in situations where a proprietor, partner or corporate officer participates personally in the harassing behavior,” an employee must “demon-strat[ej the propriety of holding the employer liable”).
Finally, there is nothing remarkable in the fact that claims against employers for discriminatory employment actions with tangible results, like hiring, firing, promotion, compensation, and work assignment, have resulted in employer liability once the discrimination was shown. See Meritor, 477 U. S., at 70-71 (noting that “courts have consistently held employers liable for the discriminatory discharges of employees by supervisory personnel, whether or not the employer knew, should have known, or approved of the supervisor’s actions”); id., at 75 (Marshall, J., concurring in judgment) (“[W]hen a supervisor diseriminatorily fires or refuses to promote a black employee, that act is, without more, considered the act of the employer”); see also Anderson v. Methodist Evangelical Hospital, Inc., 464 F. 2d 723, 725 (CA6 1972) (imposing liability on employer for racially motivated discharge by low-level supervisor, although the “record clearly shows that [its] record in race relations... is exemplary”).
A variety of reasons have been invoked for this apparently unanimous rule. Some courts explain, in a variation of the “proxy” theory discussed above, that when a supervisor makes such decisions, he “merges” with the employer, and his act becomes that of the employer. See, e. g., Kotcher v. Rosa and Sullivan Appliance Ctr., Inc., 957 F. 2d 59, 62 (CA2 1992) (“The supervisor is deemed to act on behalf of the employer when making decisions that affect the economic status of the employee. From the perspective of the employee, the supervisor and the employer merge into a single entity”); Steele v. Offshore Shipbuilding, Inc., 867 F. 2d 1311, 1316 (CA11 1989) (“When a supervisor requires sexual favors as a quid pro quo for job benefits, the supervisor, by definition, acts as the company”); see also Lindemann & Grossman 776 (noting that courts hold employers “automatically liable” in quid pro quo cases because the “supervisor’s actions, in conferring or withholding employment benefits, are deemed as a matter of law to be those of the employer”). Other courts have suggested that vicarious liability is proper because the supervisor acts within the scope of his authority when he makes discriminatory decisions in hiring, firing, promotion, and the like. See, e. g., Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F. 2d 398, 405 (CA7 1990) (“[A] supervisory employee who fires a subordinate is doing the kind of thing that he is authorized to do, and the wrongful intent with which he does it does not carry his behavior so far beyond the orbit of his responsibilities as to excuse the employer” (citing Restatement §228)). Others have suggested that vicarious liability is appropriate because the supervisor who discriminates in this manner is aided by the agency relation. See, e. g., Nichols v. Frank, 42 F. 3d 503, 514 (CA9 1994). Finally, still other courts have endorsed both of the latter two theories. See, e. g., Harrison, 112 F. 3d, at 1443; Henson, 682 P. 2d, at 910.
The soundness of the results in these eases (and their continuing vitality), in light of basic agency principles, was confirmed by this Court’s only discussion to date of standards of employer liability, in Meritor, supra, which involved a claim of discrimination by a supervisor’s sexual harassment of a subordinate over an extended period. In affirming the Court of Appeals’s holding that a hostile atmosphere resulting from sex discrimination is actionable under Title VII, we also anticipated proceedings on remand by holding agency principles relevant in assigning employer liability and by rejecting three per se rules of liability or immunity. 477 U. S., at 70-72. We observed that the very definition of employer in Title VII, as including an “agent,” id., at 72, expressed Congress’s intent that courts look to traditional principles of the law of agency in devising standards of employer liability in those instances where liability for the actions of a supervisory employee was not otherwise obvious, ibid,, and although we cautioned that “common-law principles may not be transferable in all their particulars to Title VII,” we cited the Restatement §§ 219-237 with general approval. Ibid.
We then proceeded to reject two limitations on employer liability, while establishing the rule that some limitation was intended. We held that neither the existence of a company grievance procedure nor the absence of actual notice of the harassment on the part of upper management would be dis-positive of such a claim; while either might be relevant to the liability, neither would result automatically in employer immunity. Ibid. Conversely, we held that Title VII placed some limit on employer responsibility for the creation of a discriminatory environment by a supervisor, and we held that Title VII does not make employers “always automatically liable for sexual harassment by their supervisors,” ibid., contrary to the view of the Court of Appeals, which had held that “an employer is strictly liable for a hostile environment created by a supervisor’s sexual advances, even though the employer neither knew nor reasonably could have known of the alleged misconduct,” id., at 69-70.
Heritor's statement of the law is the foundation on which we build today. Neither party before us has urged us to depart from our customary adherence to stare decisis in statutory interpretation, Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172-173 (1989) {stare decisis has “special force” in statutory interpretation). And the force of precedent here is enhanced by Congress’s amendment to the liability provisions of Title VII since the Meritor decision, without providing any modification of our holding. Civil Rights Act of 1991, §102, 105 Stat. 1072, 42 U.S.C. § 1981a; see Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 212 (1993) (applying the “presumption that Congress was aware of [prior] judicial interpretations and, in effect, adopted them”). See also infra, at 804, n. 4.
B
The' Court of Appeals identified, and rejected, three possible grounds drawn from agency law for holding the City vicariously liable for the hostile environment created by the supervisors. It considered whether the two supervisors were acting within the scope of them employment when they •engaged in the harassing conduct. The court then enquired whether they were significantly aided by the agency relationship in committing the harassment, and also considered the possibility of imputing Gordon’s knowledge of the harassment to the City. Finally, the Court of Appeals ruled out liability for negligence in failing to prevent the harassment. Faragher relies principally on the latter three theories of liability.
1
A “master is subject to liability for the torts of his servants committed while acting in the scope of their employment.” Restatement §219(1). This doctrine has toaditionally defined the “scope of employment” as including conduct “of the kind [a servant] is employed to perform,” occurring “substantially within the authorized time and space limits,” and “actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to serve the master,” but as excluding an intentional use of force “un-expeetable by the master.” Id., §228(1).
Courts of Appeals have typically held, or assumed, that conduct similar to the subject of this complaint falls outside the scope of employment. See, e. g., Harrison, 112 F. 3d, at 1444 (sexual harassment “‘simply is not within the job description of any supervisor or any other worker in any reputable business’”); 111 F. 3d, at 1535-1536 (case below); Andrade v. Mayfair Management, Inc., 88 F. 3d 258, 261 (CA4 1996) (“[I]llegal sexual harassment is... beyond the scope of supervisors’ employment”); Gary, 59 F. 3d, at 1397 (harassing supervisor acts outside the scope of his employment in creating hostile environment); Nichols v. Frank, 42 F. 3d 503, 508 (CA9 1994) (“The proper analysis for employer liability in hostile environment cases is... not whether an employee was acting within his ‘scope of employment’”); Bouton v. BMW of North Am., Inc., 29 F. 3d 103, 107 (CA3 1994) (sexual harassment is outside scope of employment); see also Ellerth v. Burlington Industries, Inc., decided with Jansen v. Packaging Corp. of America, 123 F. 3d 490, 561 (CA7 1997) (en banc) (Manion, J., concurring and dissenting) (supervisor’s harassment would fall within scope of employment only in “the rare case indeed”), aff’d, ante, p. 742; Lindemann & Grossman 812 (“Hostile environment sexual harassment normally does not trigger respondeat superior liability because sexual harassment rarely, if ever, is among the official duties of a supervisor”). But cf. Martin v. Cavalier Hotel Corp., 48 F. 3d 1343, 1351-1352 (CA4 1995) (holding employer vicariously liable in part based on finding that the supervisor’s rape of employee was within the scope of employment); Kauffman v. Allied Signal, Inc., 970 F. 2d 178, 184 (CA6) (holding that a supervisor’s harassment was within the scope of his employment, but nevertheless requiring the victim to show that the employer failed to respond adequately when it learned of the harassment), cert. denied, 506 U. S. 1041 (1992). In so doing, the courts have emphasized that harassment consisting of unwelcome remarks and touching is motivated solely by individual desires and serves no purpose of the employer. For this reason, courts have likened hostile environment sexual harassment to the classic “frolic and detour” for which an employer has no vicarious liability.
These cases ostensibly stand in some tension with others arising outside Title VII, where the scope of employment has been defined broadly enough to hold employers vicariously liable for intentional torts that were in no sense inspired by any purpose to serve the employer. In Ira S. Bushey & Sons, Inc. v. United States, 398 F. 2d 167 (1968), for example, the Second Circuit charged the Government with vicarious liability for the depredation of a drunken sailor returning to his ship after a night’s carouse, who inexplicably opened valves that flooded a drydock, damaging both the drydoek and the ship. Judge Friendly acknowledged that the sailor’s conduct was not remotely motivated by a purpose to serve his employer, but relied on the “deeply rooted sentiment that a business enterprise cannot justly disclaim responsibility for accidents which may fairly be said to be characteristic of its activities,” and imposed vicarious liability on the ground that the sailor’s conduct “was not so ‘unforeseeable’ as to make it unfair to charge the Government with responsibility.” Id., at 171. Other examples of an expansive sense of scope of employment are readily found, see, e. g., Leonbruno v. Champlain Silk Mills, 229 N. Y. 470, 128 N. E. 711 (1920) (opinion of Cardozo, J.) (employer was liable under worker’s compensation statute for eye injury sustained when employee threw an apple at another; the accident arose “in the course of employment” because such horseplay should be expected); Carr v. Wm. C. Crowell Co., 28 Cal. 2d 652, 171 P. 2d 5 (1946) (employer liable for actions of carpenter who attacked a co-employee with a hammer). Courts, in fact, have treated scope of employment generously enough to include sexual assaults. See, e. g., Primeaux v. United States, 102 F. 3d 1458, 1462-1463 (CA8 1996) (federal police officer on limited duty sexually assaulted stranded motorist); Mary M. v. Los Angeles, 54 Cal. 3d 202, 216-221, 814 P. 2d 1341, 1349-1352 (1991) (en banc) (police officer raped motorist after placing her under arrest); Doe v. Samaritan Counseling Ctr., 791 P. 2d 344, 348-349 (Alaska 1990) (therapist had sexual relations with patient); Turner v. State, 494 So. 2d 1291, 1296 (La. App. 1986) (National Guard recruiting officer committed sexual battery during sham physical examinations); Lyon v. Carey, 533 F. 2d 649, 655 (CADC 1976) (furniture deliveryman raped recipient of furniture); Samuels v. Southern Baptist Hospital, 594 So. 2d 571, 574 (La. App. 1992) (nursing assistant raped patient). The rationales for these decisions have varied, with some courts echoing Bushey in explaining that the employee’s acts were foreseeable and that the employer should in fairness bear the resulting costs of doing business, see, e. g., Mary M., supra, at 218, 814 P. 2d, at 1350, and others finding that the employee’s sexual misconduct arose from or was in some way related to the employee’s essential duties. See, e. g., Samuels, supra, at 574 (tortious conduct was “reasonably incidental” to the performance of the nursing assistant’s duties in caring for a “helpless” patient in a “locked environment”).
An assignment to reconcile the run of the Title VII cases with those just cited would be a taxing one. Here it is enough to recognize that their disparate results do not necessarily reflect wildly varying terms of the particular employment contracts involved, but represent differing judgments about the desirability of holding an employer liable for his subordinates’ wayward behavior. In the instances in which there
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case began when the Secretary of Labor sued the respondent real estate management company for alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, as amended, 52 Stat. 1060, 29 U. S. C. § 201 et seq. The Secretary sought an injunction against future violations of the minimum wage, overtime, and recordkeeping provisions of the Act, as well as back wages for the affected employees. An employee is entitled to the benefits of the minimum wage and maximum hours provisions of the Act if he is, inter alia, “employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce ...” 29 U. S. C. §§ 206 (a), 207 (a).
As stipulated in the District Court, the respondent company manages eight commercial office buildings and one apartment complex in the Pittsburgh area. With the exception of a minor ownership interest in one of the buildings, the respondent does not own these properties. Its services are provided according to management contracts entered into with the owners. Under these contracts, the respondent obtains tenants for the buildings, negotiates and signs leases, institutes whatever legal actions are necessary with respect to these leases, and generally manages and maintains the properties. The respondent collects rental payments on behalf of the owners, and deposits them in separate bank accounts for each building. These accounts, net of management expenses and the respondent’s fees, belong to the owners of the properties. Payments are periodically made from the accounts to these owners.
The respondent’s services with respect to the supervisory, maintenance, and janitorial staffs of the buildings are similarly extensive. The respondent conducts the hiring, firing, payroll operations, and job supervision of those employed in the buildings.’ It also fixes hours of work, and negotiates rates of pay and fringe benefits— subject to the approval of the owners. The respondent engages in collective bargaining on behalf of the owners where the building employees are unionized. 324 F. Supp. 987, 990-991.
The District Court held that the maintenance, custodial, and operational workers at the buildings managed by the respondent were “employees,” and that the respondent was an “employer,” within the meaning of §§ 3 (d) and 3 (e) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. §§ 203 (d), (e). 324 F. Supp., at 990-993. The District Court also held that gross rentals, rather than commissions obtained, were the proper measure of “annual gross volume of sales made or business done” for purposes of the dollar volume portion of the statutory definition of an “enterprise engaged in commerce.” Id., at 993-994. Though it rejected the claim that the respondent was sufficiently engaged in commerce for its employees to be covered for the time before the 1966 amendments to the Act went into effect, the District Court determined that the aggregate activities of the respondent at all nine locations were “related,” performed under “common control,” and for “a common business purpose,” thereby constituting an “enterprise” within the meaning of § 3 (r), 29 U. S. C. § 203 (r). 324 F. Supp., at 99A-995.
On cross appeals, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the District Court’s determination that the respondent is an “employer” of the building “employees,” and also affirmed the use of gross rentals of the buildings as the proper measure of “gross sales.” 444 F. 2d 609, 611-612. The Court of Appeals held that the District Court erred, however, in aggregating the gross rentals of the nine properties to determine the “gross sales” of the respondent’s “enterprise.” Recognizing that its decision conflicted with a substantially identical case in the Fourth Circuit, Shultz v. Falk, 439 F. 2d 340, the Court of Appeals held that before separate establishments could be deemed part of a single enterprise, a showing of common business purpose was required. 444 F. 2d, at 613.
“If the record in this case revealed that the retention of the Company, as agent, were accompanied by a change in the independent business purposes of the owners — for example facts such as the pooling of profits from the various buildings demonstrating a common business purpose — the result might be different. Here, however, the record reveals that the owners share no common purpose except the decision to hire the Company as their rental or management agent. . . . Without more than here presented, we think the ‘enterprise’ requirement of the Act has not been satisfied.” Id., at 614.
Without reaching the issues regarding the respondent’s engagement in commerce prior to 1967, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for proof of the individual gross rentals of the buildings. Ibid. In order to resolve the intercircuit conflict, we granted the Secretary’s petition for certiorari, 409 U. S. 840, which raises the question whether the management activities of the respondent at all of the buildings served should be aggregated as part of a single “enterprise” within the meaning of § 3 (r) of the Act. Since no cross-petition for certiorari was filed by the respondent, the important issues of whether the respondent is in fact an “employer” of the building workers within the meaning of the Act, and whether gross rentals rather than gross commissions should serve as the measure of “gross sales,” are not before us.
The concept of “enterprise” under the Fair Labor Standards Act came into being with the 1961 amendments, which substantially broadened the coverage of the Act. Rather than confining the protections of the Act to employees who were themselves “engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” 29 U. S. C. §§ 206 (a), 207 (a), the new amendments brought those “employed in an enterprise engaged in commerce” within the ambit of the minimum wage and maximum hours provisions. The Congress defined “enterprise engaged in commerce” to include a dollar volume limitation. The standard in the original amendments included “any such enterprise which has one or more retail or service establishments if the annual gross volume of sales of such enterprise is not less than $1,000,000 . . . ,” 75 Stat. 66, and has since been changed to include enterprises “whose annual gross volume of sales made or business done is not less than $500,000” for the period from February 1, 1967, to January 31, 1969, and those with annual gross sales of not less than $250,000 thereafter. 29 U. S. C. § 203 (s)(l). The presence of this dollar-volume cutoff for coverage under the Act, in turn, places importance on the Act’s definition of “enterprise.”
The term “enterprise” is defined by the statute as follows:
“ ‘Enterprise’ means the related activities performed (either through unified operation or common control) by any person or persons for a common business purpose, and includes all such activities whether performed in one or more establishments or by one or more corporate or other organizational units . . . .” 29 U. S. C. §203 (r) (emphasis added).
Specific exemptions are noted, making clear that exclusive-dealership arrangements, collective-purchasing pools, franchises, and leases of business premises from large commercial landlords do not create “enterprises” within the meaning of the Act. Ibid.
The District Court correctly identified the three main elements of the statutory definition of “enterprise”: related activities, unified operation or common control, and common business purpose. We believe the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the aggregate management activities of the respondent failed to meet these statutory criteria. Once the respondent is recognized to be the employer of all of the building employees, it follows quite simply that it is a single enterprise under the Act. The respondent is, after all, but one company. Its activities in all of the buildings are virtually identical, and are plainly “related” in the sense that Congress intended. As the Senate report accompanying the 1961 amendments indicated: “Within the meaning of this term, activities are 'related’ when they are the same or similar . . . .” S. Rep. No. 145, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 41. The respondent’s activities, similarly, are performed “either through unified operation or common control.” The respondent is a fully integrated management company directing operations at all nine buildings from its central office. For purposes of determining whether it is an “enterprise” under the Act, it is irrelevant that the relationship between the respondent and the owners is one of agency; that separate bank accounts are maintained for each building; and that the risk of loss and the chance of gain on capital investment belong to the owners, not the respondent. All that is required under the statutory definition is that the respondent’s own activities be related and under common control or unified operation, as they plainly are.
In its analysis of this problem, the Court of Appeals placed great weight on the fact that the building owners have no relationship with one another, and have no common business purpose. This is true, but beside the point, for the owners are not defendants in this action and it is not their activities that are under examination. As Judge Winter wrote in the conflicting case from the Fourth Circuit, “It is defendants’ activities at each building which must be held together by a common business purpose, not all the activities of all owners of apartment projects.” Shultz v. Falk, 439 F. 2d, at 346. In the present case, the respondent's activities at the several locations are tied together by the common business purpose of managing commercial properties for profit. The fact that the buildings are separate establishments is specifically made irrelevant by § 3 (r).
The Court of Appeals also cited the portion of the Senate report explaining the exemptions to § 3 (r), noted above, for exclusive-dealing contracts, franchises, leasing space in shopping centers, and the like:
“The bill also contains provisions which should insure that a small local independent business, not in itself large enough to come within the new coverage, will not become subject to the act by being considered a part of a large enterprise with which it has business dealings.
“The definition of 'enterprise' expressly makes it clear that a local retail or service establishment which is under independent ownership shall not be considered to be so operated and controlled as to be other than a separate enterprise because of a franchise, or group purchasing, or group advertising arrangement with other establishments or because the establishment leases premises from a person who also happens to lease premises to other retail or service establishments.” S. Rep. No. 145, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 41.
The Court of Appeals went on to stress that the building owners should not be brought under the Act simply because they dealt with a large real estate management company. This is true, but also beside the point, since we deal here with that large management company as a party and, for purposes of this case, as an employer of the employees in question. We do not hold, nor could we in this case, that the individual building owners in their capacity as employers are to be aggregated to create some abstract “enterprise” for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
It is argued that such a straightforward application of the statutory criteria to the respondent’s business ignores the significance of the dollar volume limitation included in the § 3 (s) definition of “[enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce.” The Court of Appeals cited evidence in the legislative history of the 1961 amendments that indicates a purpose to exempt small businesses from the obligations of the Act. 444 F. 2d, at 613; S. Rep. No. 145, 87th Cong., 1st Sess., 5. If the individual building owners are engaged in enterprises too small to come within the reach of the Fair Labor Standards Act, reasoned the Court of Appeals, it would be “anomalous” to treat them as a single enterprise subject to the Act “merely because they hire a rental agent who manages other buildings.” 444
F. 2d, at 614. Once again, however, the response to this argument is that it is the respondent management, company, not the individual building owners, that has been held in this case to be an “employer” of all the affected “employees.” Furthermore, the proper measure of the respondent’s size has been held to be the gross rentals produced by properties under its management. It is true that one purpose of the dollar-volume limitation in the statutory definition of “enterprise” is the exemption of small businesses, but this respondent is not such a business under these holdings of the Court of Appeals. The argument to the contrary amounts to a collateral attack on the “employer” and “gross sales” determinations made below, and the respondent cannot make such an attack in the absence of a cross-petition for certiorari.
We hold that the District Court was correct in aggregating all of the respondent’s management activities as a single “enterprise.” Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed and the case is remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
In pertinent part, the statute provides that:
“(s) ‘Enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce’ means an enterprise which has employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce, including employees handling, selling, or otherwise working on goods that have been moved in or produced for commerce by any person, and which—
“(1) during the period February 1, 1967, through January 31, 1969, is an enterprise whose annual gross volume of sales made or business done is not less than $500,000 (exclusive of excise taxes at the retail level which are separately stated) or is a gasoline service establishment whose annual gross volume of sales is not less than $250,000 (exclusive of excise taxes at the retail level which are separately stated), and beginning February 1, 1969, is an enterprise whose annual gross volume of sales made or business done is not less than $250,000 (exclusive of excise taxes at the retail level which are separately stated) . . . 29 U. S. C. §203 (s).
Section 3 (s) (3) of the Act, as enacted in 1961, referred in its definition of “[enterprise engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce,” inter alia, to: “any establishment of any such enterprise . . . which has employees engaged in commerce or in the production of goods for commerce if the annual gross volume of sales of such enterprise is not less than $1,000,000 . . . .” Pub. L. 87-30, 75 Stat. 65, 66 (emphasis added). The District Court construed the statute to require that two or more employees in each building be engaged in commerce in order for that building to be covered under the Act. It found that in no building were there two such employees, and therefore held that there was no coverage under the Act prior to the 1966 amendments. 324 F. Supp. 987, 995-997. The 1966 amendments, see n. 1, supra, required only that the “enterprise” have “employees” engaged in commerce, and under this standard the District Court found that the respondent qualified. Id., at 997. Though the Government appealed on this issue, the Court of Appeals did not reach it, 444 F. 2d 609, 614.
NLRB v. International Van Lines, 409 U. S. 48, 52 n. 4, and cases there cited. But see n. 8, infra.
Pub. L. 87-30, 75 Stat. 65, 67, 69.
As both the District Court and the Court of Appeals noted, the statutory concept of “employer” is “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer in relation to an employee . . . .” 29 U. S. C. § 203 (d). This definition was held to be broad enough that there might be “several simultaneous 'employers.' ” 444 F. 2d, at 611-612. See also 324 F. Supp. 987, 992; Wirtz v. Hebert, 368 F. 2d 139; Mid-Continent Pipe Line Co. v. Hargrave, 129 F. 2d 655.
Contrary to the view taken by the dissent, we specifically do not hold that “the buildings and the management company collectively are an enterprise . . . .” We deal solely with the management company and its “related activities performed ... for a common business purpose.”
It is stipulated that in all relevant years, the annual gross rental income collected by the respondent exceeded $1,000,000. 324 F. Supp., at 993.
We have granted certiorari in No. 72-844, Falk v. Brennan, sub nom. Falk v. Shultz, post, p. 954, to consider whether the proper measure of “gross sales” in this context is gross rentals collected or gross commissions, and whether maintenance employees are “employees” of the management company within the meaning of the Act.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Blackmun
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under § 13(c) of the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964 (Act or UMTA), 78 Stat. 307, as amended, 49 U. S. C. § 1609(c), a state or local government must make arrangements to preserve transit workers’ existing collective-bargaining rights before that government may receive federal financial assistance for the acquisition of a privately owned transit company. This case presents the issue whether § 13(c) by itself permits a union to sue in federal court for alleged violations of an arrangement of this kind or of the collective-bargaining agreement between the union and the local government transit authority.
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When the Act was under consideration in the Congress, that body was aware of the increasingly precarious financial condition of a number of private transportation companies across the country, and it feared that communities might be left without adequate mass transportation. See S. Rep. No. 82, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 4-5, 19-20 (1963). The Act was designed in part to provide federal aid for local governments in acquiring failing private transit companies so that communities could continue to receive the benefits of mass transportation despite the collapse of the private operations. See § § 2(b) and 3, as amended, 49 U. S. C. §§ 1601(b) and 1602.
At the same time, however, Congress was aware that public ownership might threaten existing collective-bargaining rights of unionized transit workers employed by private companies. If, for example, state law forbade collective bargaining by state and local government employees, the workers might lose their collective-bargaining rights when a private company was acquired by a local government. See Urban Mass Transportation — 1963, Hearings on S. 6 and S. 917 before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 318-323 (1963) (Senate Hearings) (statement of Andrew J. Biemiller, Director, Department. of Legislation, AFL-CIO). To prevent federal funds from being used to destroy the collective-bargaining rights of organized workers, Congress included § 13(c) in the Act. See H. R. Rep. No. 204, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 15-16 (1963).
Section 13(c) requires, as a condition of federal assistance under the Act, that the Secretary of Labor certify that “fair and equitable arrangements” have been made “to protect the interests of employees affected by [the] assistance.” The statute lists several protective steps that must be taken before a local government may receive federal aid; among these are the preservation of benefits under existing collective-bargaining agreements and the continuation of collective-bargaining rights. The protective arrangements must be specified in the contract granting federal aid.
B
In 1966, petitioner city of Jackson, Tenn., applied for federal aid to convert a failing private bus company into a public entity, petitioner Jackson Transit Authority. See App. 12a-16a. In order to satisfy § 13(c), the Authority so created entered into a “§ 13(c) agreement” with respondent Local Division 1285, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO-CLC, the union that represented the private company’s employees. See 29 CFR pt. 215 (1981). Among other things, the § 13(c) agreement guaranteed the preservation of the transit workers’ collective-bargaining rights. App. 16a-20a. The Secretary of Labor certified that the agreement was “fair and equitable.” Its substance was made a part of the grant contract between the city and the United States, and the city received approximately $279,000 in federal aid.
Thereafter, until 1975, the Authority’s unionized workers were covered by a series of collective-bargaining agreements. Six months after a new 3-year collective-bargaining agreement was signed in 1975, see id., at 31a, however, the Authority notified the union that it no longer considered itself bound by that contract. See id., at 45a.
Ultimately, the union filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. It sought damages and injunctive relief, alleging that petitioners had breached the § 13(c) agreement and the collective-bargaining contract. App. 8a, 10a-lla. The District Court concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the suit because the complaint rested on contract rights that should be enforced only in a state court. 447 F. Supp. 88 (1977).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed. 650 F. 2d 1379 (1981). Relying on Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678 (1946), that court first determined that it had subject-matter jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. §1331, because the union’s claim arose under the laws of the United States, specifically § 13(c). The court then held that § 13(c) implicitly provides a federal private right of action. Section 13(c) reflects national labor policy, the Court of Appeals reasoned, and the rights protected by the statute are thus federal rights. The court concluded that it was consistent with the congressional intent behind § 13(c) to permit enforcement of these federal rights in federal court.
Because of the importance of the interpretation of § 13(c) for local transit labor relations, we granted certiorari. 454 U. S. 1079 (1981).
II
While the Court of Appeals treated this as a private right of action case, see, e. g., Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U. S. 353 (1982), it does not fit comfortably in that mold. Indeed, since § 13(c) contemplates protective arrangements between grant recipients and unions as well as subsequent collective-bargaining agreements between those parties, see H. R. Rep. No. 204, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1963), it is reasonable to conclude that Congress expected the § 13(c) agreement and the collective-bargaining agreement, like .ordinary contracts, to be enforceable by private suit upon a breach. See Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11, 18-19 (1979). The gist of the union’s position is not that § 13(c) creates an implied right of action to sue for violations of the statute. Instead, the union argues that “[i]t was the intent of Congress that federal law would determine the binding effect of labor protective agreements under § 13(c) and of the collective bargaining agreements reached pursuant to § 13(c) between unions and recipients of UMTA funds” so that those agreements “are enforceable in the federal courts.” Brief for Respondent 24.
The issue, then, is not whether Congress intended the union to be able to bring contract actions for breaches of the two contracts, but whether Congress intended such contract actions to set forth federal, rather than state, claims. Admittedly, since the private right of action decisions address the related question whether Congress intended that a particular party be able to bring suit under a federal statute, those decisions may provide assistance in resolving this case. But the precise question before us is whether the union’s contract actions are federal causes of action, not whether the union can bring suit at all to enforce its contracts. See Local Div. 732, Amalgamated Transit Union v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, 667 F. 2d 1327, 1329-1334 (CA11 1982).
As the union points out, on several occasions the Court has determined that a plaintiff stated a federal claim when he sued to vindicate contractual rights set forth by federal statutes, despite the fact that the relevant statutes lacked express provisions creating federal causes of action. In Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S. 682 (1963), the Court held that a union had a federal cause of action to enforce an award of an airline adjustment board included in a collective-bargaining contract pursuant to § 204 of the Railway Labor Act, 45 U. S. C. § 184 (1958 ed.). Similarly, in Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Nemitz, 404 U. S. 37 (1971), the Court ruled that a railroad’s employees made out federal claims when they sought to enforce assurances made by the railroad to secure the Interstate Commerce Commission’s approval of a consolidation under a provision of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. §5(2)(f) (1970 ed.). And recently, in an analogous private right of action decision, the Court permitted a federal suit for rescission of a contract declared void by § 215 of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940, 15 U. S. C. § 80b-15, although the statute itself made no express provision for private suits. Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S., at 18-19. See also Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 375, 388 (1970) (recognizing federal right to rescind contracts rendered void by § 29(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U. S. C. §78cc(b)); American Surety Co. v. Shulz, 237 U. S. 159 (1915) (finding federal-question jurisdiction to hear suit on su-persedeas bond required by Rev. Stat. § 1007).
These decisions demonstrate that suits to enforce contracts contemplated by federal statutes may set forth federal claims and that private parties in appropriate cases may sue in federal court to enforce contractual rights created by federal statutes. But they do not dictate the result in this case. Whenever we determine the scope of rights and remedies under a federal statute, the critical factor is the congressional intent behind the particular provision at issue. See, e. g., Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S., at 18; Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 688 (1979); Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S., at 685-692; see also n. 9, infra. Thus, if Congress intended that § 13(c) agreements and collective-bargaining agreements be “creations of federal law,” Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S., at 692, and that the rights and duties contained in those contracts be federal in nature, see id., at 695, then the union’s suit states federal claims. Otherwise, the union’s complaint presents only state-law claims. See Miree v. De Kalb County, 433 U. S. 25 (1977).
»■ — < h-l
We begin with the language of the statute itself. See, e. g., Universities Research Assn., Inc. v. Coutu, 450 U. S. 754,771 (1981). The bare language of § 13(c) is not conclusive. In some ways, the statute seems to make § 13(c) agreements and collective-bargaining contracts creatures of federal law. Section 13(c) demands “fair and equitable arrangements” as prerequisites for federal aid; it requires the approval of the Secretary of Labor for those arrangements; it specifies five different varieties of protective provisions that must be included among the § 13(c) arrangements; and it expressly incorporates the protective arrangements into the grant contract between the recipient and the Federal Government. See n. 2, supra. On the other hand, labor relations between local governments and their employees are the subject of a longstanding statutory exemption from the National Labor Relations Act. 29 U. S. C. § 152(2). Section 13(c) evinces no congressional intent to upset the decision in the National Labor Relations Act to permit state law to govern the relationships between local governmental entities and the unions representing their employees. See Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 78 (1975) (noting reluctance to permit suit in federal court when “the cause of action [is] one traditionally relegated to state law”).
While the statutory language supplies no definitive answer, the legislative history is conclusive. A consistent theme runs throughout the consideration of § 13(c): Congress intended that labor relations between transit workers and local governments would be controlled by state law.
In 1963, Secretary of Labor Wirtz presented the original version of § 13(c) to the relevant House and Senate Committees. Before both Committees, Members of Congress expressed concern about the effect of the statute on state laws. And Secretary Wirtz explained to both Committees that, while attempts would be made to accommodate state law to the preservation of collective-bargaining rights, state law would control local transit labor relations. The Secretary told the House Committee that “this proposal is submitted on this basis, . . . that the State laws must control.” Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1963, Hearings on H. R. 3881 before the House Committee on Banking and Currency, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 482 (1963) (House Hearings). A Committee member raised the issue again; the Secretary repeated that “State laws would be controlling in the situation,” though he suggested that there “would be few, if any, situations” where state law and § 13(c) could not be reconciled. House Hearings, at 486. When similar concerns were expressed during his testimony before the Senate Committee, the Secretary reiterated: “I should like it quite clear that I think that there could be no superseding here of the State law.” Senate Hearings, at 313.
The House and Senate Reports took the Secretary at his word. The House Report advised that § 13(c) would ensure protection of the interests of workers, but that “subject to the basic standards set forth in the bill, specific conditions for worker protection will normally be the product of local bargaining and negotiation.” H. R. Rep. No. 204, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 16 (1963). The Senate Report was more direct: “In regard to the question as to whether these provisions would supersede State labor laws, the committee concurs in a statement made by the Secretary of Labor ‘that there could be no superseding of State laws by a provision of this kind.’ ” S. Rep. No. 82, 88th Cong., 1st Sess., 29 (1963).
During the debates, the role of state law under § 13(c) was discussed at length. Senators Goldwater and Tower suggested that § 13(c) would supplant state law with federal law. 109 Cong. Rec. 5416 (1963). Senator Williams, one of the bill’s chief sponsors, replied: “The legislative history has to be corrected” because “we must have a record that will show that the bill does not preempt State law; it does not control or dominate with irrevocable authority local situations.” Id., at 5417. The proposed statute, Senator Williams continued, would not “preempt or be a substitute for State law.” Ibid. Senator Goldwater remained adamant that “we are attempting a major alteration in the Nation’s labor laws.” Id., at 5418. But Senator Sparkman, the Chairman of the Senate Committee, repeated the Secretary’s assurance that § 13(c) “will not supersede or displace or override” state law. 109 Cong. Rec. 5418 (1963).
The Senate returned to the issue during a colloquy between Senator Goldwater and Senator Morse. Senator Goldwater feared that the proposed statute would override state laws denying public employees the right to strike. Id., at 5673. Senator Morse assured Senator Goldwater otherwise that “the State law would supervene.” Ibid. When Senator Goldwater inquired about state laws other than those concerning the right to strike, Senator Morse replied in the same vein: “The amendment does not supersede any State policy.” Ibid.
In an important exchange, Senator Goldwater noted that local government employers were excluded from the coverage of the National Labor Relations Act, see 29 U. S. C. §152(2), and asked whether § 13(c) would be inconsistent with that exclusion. 109 Cong. Rec. 5673-5674 (1963). Senator Morse responded that the language of the bill “make[s] it clear that the Taft-Hartley exemptions are not changed by the amendment.” Id., at 5674. See also id., at 5422 (remarks of Sen. Javits) (state law could not be overridden “under any phase of the Taft-Hartley law”). Senator Morse underscored the purpose of the amendment: “I cannot emphasize the point more than I already have done in the legislative history in our debate. It deals with municipal and State problems, and not Federal problems.” Id., at 5674. Finally, Senator Goldwater asked whether state law would control if there were no specific state law forbidding strikes by public employees. Senator Morse adhered to the same course: “In the absence of any local law, it would be for the State court to decide whether [the employees] had that right.” Ibid.
A similar, but more abbreviated, interchange took place on the House floor. When some Congressmen questioned the effect of § 13(c) on state law, they were reassured by Congressman Multer that “[n]othing in this bill. . . will infringe upon local law, whether it be of a State or municipality.” 110 Cong. Ree. 14980 (1964). And Congressman Rains repeated, “there is not one line in this bill that would vitiate in any way any State or local law.” Ibid.
Thus, Congress made it absolutely clear that it did not intend to create a body of federal law applicable to labor relations between local governmental entities and transit workers. Section 13(c) would not supersede state law, it would leave intact the exclusion of local government employers from the National Labor Relations Act, and state courts would retain jurisdiction to determine the application of state policy to local government transit labor relations. Congress intended that § 13(c) would be an important tool to protect the collective-bargaining rights of transit workers, by ensuring that state law preserved their rights before federal aid could be used to convert private companies into public entities. See 109 Cong. Rec. 5673 (1963) (remarks of Sen. Morse) (if city proposed to reject collective bargaining, it would be ineligible for federal aid). But Congress designed § 13(c) as a means to accommodate state law to collective bargaining, not as a means to substitute a federal law of collective bargaining for state labor law.
IV
Given this explicit legislative history, we cannot read § 13(c) to create federal causes of action for breaches of § 13(c) agreements and collective-bargaining contracts between UMTA aid recipients and transit unions. The legislative history indicates that Congress intended those contracts to be governed by state law applied in state courts.
Accordingly, 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.
Originally, § 13(c) was § 10(c). In 1966, the Act was amended, and the section received its present designation. Pub. L. 89-562, § 2(b)(1), 80 Stat. 716. Throughout this opinion, it is referred to as § 13(c).
Section 13(c) reads in full:
“It shall be a condition of any assistance under section 3 of this Act that fair and equitable arrangements are made, as determined by the Secretary of Labor, to protect the interests of employees affected by such assistance. Such protective arrangements shall include, without being limited to, such provisions as may be necessary for (1) the preservation of rights, privileges, and benefits (including continuation of pension rights and benefits) under existing collective bargaining agreements or otherwise; (2) the continuation of collective bargaining rights; (3) the protection of individual employees against a worsening of their positions with respect to their employment; (4) assurances of employment to employees of acquired mass transportation systems and priority of reemployment of employees terminated or laid off; and (5) paid training or retraining programs. Such arrangements shall include provisions protecting individual employees against a worsening of their positions with respect to their employment which shall in no event provide benefits less than those established pursuant to section 5(2)(f) of the Act of February 4, 1887 (24 Stat. 379), as amended. The contract for the granting of any such assistance shall specify the terms and conditions of the protective arrangements.”
According to the union’s complaint, the Authority since 1966 had contracted with a private individual, T. 0. Petty, for the management of the transportation system. App. 6a-7a. The union negotiated its 1975 contract with Petty; when he left as manager of the system, the Authority claimed it was not bound by the contract he had negotiated. Id., at 47a. The union alleged that petitioners had promised in the § 13(c) agreement to be bound by the contracts Petty had signed and that petitioners violated both the § 13(c) agreement and the 1975 collective-bargaining contract. App. 7a-8a.
Prior to filing suit, the union asked the Secretary of Labor and the Secretary of Transportation to find that petitioners had violated the § 13(c) agreement and to ensure that petitioners complied with the agreement. Both Secretaries refused. See 650 F. 2d 1379, 1381 (CA6 1981).
In addition to relief directed at petitioners, the union requested that the two Secretaries be ordered to take appropriate enforcement action against petitioners to compel compliance with the § 13(c) agreement. App. 11a. Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals refused the union’s request. See 447 F. Supp. 88, 90-92 (1977); 650 F. 2d, at 1387-1388. The union has not sought review of this ruling, and we express no opinion on that aspect of the litigation.
Several Courts of Appeals, in addition to the Sixth Circuit, have decided that § 13(e) authorizes federal suits for violations of § 13(c) agreements and collective-bargaining contracts between recipients of UMTA funds and transit unions. Division 587, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO v. Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle, 663 F. 2d 875 (CA9 1981); Local Div. 714, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO v. Greater Portland Transit District, 589 F. 2d 1 (CA1 1978); Local Div. 519, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO v. LaCrosse Municipal Transit Utility, 585 F. 2d 1340 (CA7 1978); Division 1287, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO v. Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, 582 F. 2d 444 (CA8 1978), cert. denied, 439 U. S. 1090 (1979). One Court of Appeals has reached the opposite conclusion. Local Div. 732, Amalgamated Transit Union v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority, 667 F. 2d 1327 (CA11 1982). In a related decision, the First Circuit has concluded that the terms of § 13(c) agreements do not override conflicting provisions of state law. Local Div. 589, Amalgamated Transit Union, AFL-CIO v. Massachusetts, 666 F. 2d 618 (1981), cert. pending, No. 81-1817.
Thus, we agree with the Court of Appeals that, strictly speaking, the District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U. S. C. § 1331 to hear the union’s suit. Under Bell v. Hood, 327 U. S. 678, 681 (1946), jurisdiction exists if the complaint is “drawn so as to claim a right to recover under the Constitution and laws of the United States. ” The complaint alleged a violation of the § 13(c) agreement required by the UMTA and of the subsequent collective-bargaining agreement contemplated by the Act, and prayed for relief under federal law. We do not consider the union’s asserted federal claims to be “wholly insubstantial and frivolous,” 327 U. S., at 682-683, so that the District Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the union’s suit. Thus, the District Court had jurisdiction for the purposes of determining whether the union stated a cause of action on which relief could be granted. Id., at 682. See also Wheeldin v. Wheeler, 373 U. S. 647 (1963).
The statute also provides that the protective “arrangements shall include provisions . . . which shall in no event provide benefits less than those established pursuant to section 5(2)(f)....” As we explain, see n. 9, infra, this portion of the statute strengthens the union’s position, but we do not consider it at all determinative.
The union points to the fact that Congress rejected amendments that would have required the continuation of collective-bargaining rights only to the extent not inconsistent with state law. See 109 Cong. Rec. 5422 (1963); id., at 5582; id., at 5684; 110 Cong. Rec. 14980 (1964). But, as Senator Williams explained, those amendments were rejected not because Congress thought § 13(c) would supplant state labor law but because such an amendment was “clearly . . . unnecessary” to guarantee that § 13(c) would not “supersede or preempt or override State law.” 109 Cong. Rec. 5421 (1963). Accord: 110 Cong. Rec. 14980 (1964) (remarks of Reps. Multer and Rains).
Beyond the explanation given by Senator Williams and repeated on the House floor, the defeat of these amendments merely reflected a congressional intent that the Federal Government be able to seek changes in state law and ultimately to refuse financial assistance when state law prevented compliance with § 13(c). See 109 Cong. Rec. 5684 (1963) (remarks of Sen. Morse); id., at 5422 (remarks of Sen. Javits).
In light of the legislative history of § 13(e), we do not find Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S. 11 (1979), or Machinists v. Central Airlines, Inc., 372 U. S. 682 (1963), to be controlling. Both cases turned on the language, purpose, and legislative history of the particular statute involved, see Transamerica, 444 U. S., at 18-19; Machinists, 372 U. S., at 685-695, and we read the congressional intent behind § 13(c) to be far different from the congressional purpose underlying the statutes at issue in those cases.
Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Nemitz, 404 U. S. 37 (1971), of course, is not to be overlooked. In that case, the Court decided that a railroad’s employees stated federal claims when they alleged a breach of an agreement entered into by the railroad under § 5(2)(f) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 49 U. S. C. § 5(2)(f) (1970 ed.). Section 13(c) refers to § 5(2)(f) and provides that the protective arrangements shall not provide benefits less than those established by § 5(2)(f). See nn. 2 and 7, swpra. If, when it passed § 13(c), Congress had expressed an awareness that § 5(2)(f) assurances could be enforced in federal court, or if there was reason to presume such awareness, the reference in § 13(c) to § 5(2)(f) would make this a different case. See generally Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc. v. Curran, 456 U. S. 353 (1982). But the legislative history contains no such congressional recognition. Furthermore, Nemitz was decided several years after § 13(c) was enacted. Consequently, we find the specific legislative history of § 13(c), not the holding of Nemitz, to be determinative.
The union relies upon the fact that Congress strengthened the language of § 13(c) during the course of its passage. Congress wrote § 13(c) to require protective provisions “necessary for” the protection of collective-bargaining rights, rather than provisions “as are found to be appropriate for” the protection of those rights, as the Kennedy administration had recommended. See House Hearings, at 476; 110 Cong. Rec. 14976 (1964). In addition, § 13(c)(2) was amended at the request of Senator Morse to require the “continuation” of collective-bargaining rights rather than the mere "encouragement” of the continuation of those rights. See 109 Cong. Rec. 5627 (1963); id., at 5685. But these alterations in the bill demonstrate only that Congress demanded that the Secretary ensure that state law preserved collective-bargaining rights before he provided federal aid for acquisition of a private transit company. When viewed in conjunction with the discussion of state law in the legislative history, the modifications of the original bill do not prove that Congress intended that federal rather than state law would govern a contract between a UMTA aid recipient and a union representing its employees.
Senator Javits summarized:
“[W]e have a balanced scheme. We do not override the [state] law; at the same time, we do not compel the Federal Government to go in where the law is adverse to the interest of labor and labor’s own point of view, and perhaps also even give encouragement to exempt a situation of this kind where the State desires to get this type of Federal help.” 109 Cong. Rec. 5422 (1963).
There remains the possibility that Congress might have intended a federal court to hear the union’s claims, but to apply state law. Such an anomalous result would be inconsistent with the emphasis in the legislative history that § 13(c) addresses “municipal and State problems, and not Federal problems,” id., at 5674. Thus, unless there is an independent source of jurisdiction, such as diversity or pendent jurisdiction, the union must sue in state court. See Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, 444 U. S., at 19, n. 8; Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U. S. 505, 506-507 (1900).
Based on the legislative history, we could not permit the union to bring a federal suit if we characterized its complaint as alleging that petitioners violated § 13(c) itself by virtue of the alleged contractual breaches. See Brief for Respondent 33-34.
Nor does 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1976 ed., Supp. IV) permit the union to bring suit. As the Court held in Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), § 1983 encompasses deprivations of rights secured by all “laws" of the United States, of which § 13(c) is, of course, one. But because we have determined that Congress did not intend that breaches of § 13(c) agreements or collective-bargaining contracts would constitute deprivations of federal rights secured by § 13(c), the union has no cause of action under § 1983. See Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 19-21 (1981).
There are other possible remedies for violations of § 13(c) agreements and collective-bargaining contracts. The union, of course, can pursue a contract action in state court. In addition, the Federal Government can respond by threatening to withhold additional financial assistance. See Local Div. 589, 666 F. 2d, at 634-635.
While we hold that the union cannot sue in federal court to enforce its contracts, we express no view on the entirely separate question whether the Federal Government could bring a federal suit against a UMTA funding recipient for violating the terms of its grant agreement with the Government. Such a suit would involve a different contract from the § 13(c) agreement and the collective-bargaining agreement at issue in this case. See generally Local Div. 732, 667 F. 2d, at 1338-1339; Local Div. No. 714, 589 F. 2d, at 13.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The questions presented by the certiorari petition concern the constitutionality of inconsistent verdicts in a nonjury criminal trial. Certiorari is granted and the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is reversed.
During the morning of March 26, 1973, respondent, Jose Rivera, his wife Cynthia Humdy, and their friend, Earl Robinson, entered the apartment of Milagros Torres. After a neighbor heard a woman scream, he called the police. The police arrested Humdy on the fire escape with $540 in cash in her coat pocket, and when the apartment door was opened, they found the place in shambles and arrested respondent and Robinson.
Each of the three intruders was indicted on five separate charges arising out of this one episode. They were tried jointly by a justice of the Supreme Court of New York sitting without a jury. The principal government witness was the victim Torres; Robinson was the only defense witness. If the judge had credited all of the testimony of Torres, presumably he would have found all three defendants guilty on all counts; acquittals presumably would have been rendered if the judge had credited all of Robinson’s testimony. However, he found all defendants not guilty on three counts, acquitted Robinson on all counts, and convicted respondent and his wife of robbery in the second degree, grand larceny in the third degree, and burglary in the third degree. Respondent’s convictions were affirmed on appeal. People v. Rivera, 57 App. Div. 2d 738, 393 N. Y. S. 2d 630, leave to appeal denied, 42 N. Y. 2d 894, 366 N. E. 2d 887 (1977).
In 1978, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied respondent’s application for a federal writ of habeas corpus. After reviewing the trial record, the District Court rejected several challenges to the conviction which he described as “variations on the claim of', insufficiency of the evidence.”
On appeal from that judgment, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit concluded that there was an apparent inconsistency in the state trial judge’s general verdicts acquitting Robinson and convicting respondent. 643 F. 2d 86. The Court of Appeals held that the New York trial judge had committed constitutional error because he had not explained that apparent inconsistency on the record. The court therefore entered an order requiring the state trial court either to grant respondent a new trial or to demon-, strate by appropriate findings that there is a rational basis for the facially inconsistent verdicts. Under the Court of Appeals’ holding, the adequacy of that explanation would thereafter be subject to review by the federal courts, which, if they were persuaded that the verdicts were irrationally inconsistent, would then decide whether respondent’s conviction is constitutionally permissible. The Court of Appeals recognized that its constitutional holding was unprecedented.
This case does not raise any question concerning the significance that an appellate court may attach to an apparent inconsistency in a verdict that is subject to review on direct appeal. This federal proceeding constituted a collateral attack on the final judgment of a state court that already had been affirmed on direct appeal. In such a proceeding a federal court is authorized to issue “a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court only on the ground that he is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §2254(a).
In view of the limited scope of review of a state judgment authorized in a federal habeas corpus proceeding, it is plain that the Court of Appeals erred in this case. On the assumption that the Court of Appeals correctly determined that the verdicts are facially inconsistent, we hold that there is no federal requirement that a state trial judge explain his reasons for acquitting a defendant in a state criminal trial; even if the acquittal rests on an improper ground, that error would not create a constitutional defect in a guilty verdict that is supported by sufficient evidence and is the product of a fair trial.
I
The work of appellate judges is facilitated when trial judges make findings of fact that explain the basis for controversial rulings. Although there are occasions when an explanation of the reasons for a decision may be required by the demands of due process, such occasions are the exception rather than the rule. Federal judges have no general supervisory power over state trial judges; they may not require the observance of any special procedures except when necessary to assure compliance with the dictates of the Federal Constitution. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals erred when it directed the state trial judge to provide an explanation of the apparent inconsistency in his acquittal of Robinson and his conviction of respondent without first determining whether an inexplicably inconsistent verdict would be unconstitutional.
II
Inconsistency in a verdict is not a sufficient reason for setting it aside. We have so held with respect to inconsistency between verdicts on separate charges against one defendant, Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S. 390 (1932), and also with respect to verdicts that treat codefendants in a joint trial inconsistently, United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277, 279 (1943) . Those cases, however, involved jury trials; as the Court of Appeals correctly recognized, both of those opinions stressed the unreviewable power of a jury to return a verdict of not guilty for impermissible reasons. It is argued that a different rule should be applied to cases in which a judge is the factfinder.
Although Dunn and Dotterweich preclude a holding that inconsistency in a verdict is intolerable in itself, inconsistency nevertheless might constitute evidence of arbitrariness that would undermine confidence in the quality of the judge’s conclusion. In this case, the Court of Appeals suggested the possibility that the trial judge might have relied on impermissible considerations such as the fact that neither respondent nor his wife testified, or knowledge of adverse information not contained in the record. Undeniably, these possibilities exist, but they also would have existed if Robinson had been convicted or if he had been tried separately. In bench trials, judges routinely hear inadmissible evidence that they are presumed to ignore when making decisions. It is equally routine for them to instruct juries that no adverse inference may be drawn from a defendant’s failure to testify; surely we must presume that they follow their own instructions when they are acting as factfinders. We are not persuaded that an apparent inconsistency in a trial judge’s verdict gives rise to an inference of irregularity in his finding of guilt that is sufficiently strong to overcome the well-established presumption that the judge adhered to basic rules of procedure.
Other explanations for an apparent inconsistency are far more likely. Most apparent is the likelihood that the judge’s actual observation of everything that transpired in the courtroom created some doubt about the guilt of one defendant that he might or might not be able to articulate in a convincing manner. In this case, if the judge was convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that respondent and his wife were both guilty, it would be most unfortunate if a concern about the plausibility of a lingering doubt about Robinson should cause him to decide to convict all three rather than to try to articulate the basis for his doubt.
It is also possible that the judge may have made an error of law and erroneously assumed, for example, that Robinson should not be found guilty without evidence that he was to share in the proceeds of the larceny. There is no reason— and surely no constitutional requirement — that such an error pertaining to the case against Robinson should redound to the benefit of respondent.
Even the unlikely possibility that the acquittal is the product of a lenity that judges are free to exercise at the time of sentencing but generally are forbidden to exercise when ruling on guilt or innocence, would not create a constitutional violation. We are aware of nothing in the Federal Constitution that would prevent a State from empowering its judges to render verdicts of acquittal whenever they are convinced that no sentence should be imposed for reasons that are unrelated to guilt or innocence. The Constitution does not prohibit state judges from being excessively lenient.
The question that respondent has standing to raise is whether his trial was fairly conducted. The trial judge, the New York appellate courts, the Federal District Court, and the United States Court of Appeals all agreed that the record contains adequate evidence of his guilt. These courts also agreed that the proceedings leading up to respondent’s conviction were conducted fairly. Apart from the acquittal of Robinson, this record discloses no constitutional error. Even assuming that this acquittal was logically inconsistent with the conviction of respondent, respondent, who was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt after a fair trial, has no constitutional ground to complain that Robinson was acquitted.
Reversed.
They were indicted for robbery in the first degree, robbery in the second degree, possession of a dangerous weapon, grand larceny in the third degree, and burglary in the second degree.
The grand larceny count was dismissed at the sentencing stage as a lesser included count within robbery in the second degree.
“The next argument set forth is directed at the sufficiency of the evidence presented in petitioner’s state court criminal trial. Such an allegation is beyond the scope of federal habeas corpus review and does not rise to the level of a constitutional infringement, United States ex rel. Nersesian v. Smith, 418 F. Supp. 26, 27 (SDNY 1976) unless ‘there was no proof whatever of the crime charged.’ United States ex rel. Terry v. Henderson, 426 F. 2d 1125, 1131 (2d Cir. 1972). I have reviewed the trial transcript. Any allegation that the trial record is devoid of evidence must be rejected as are Petitioner’s Points IV, VI, VII, and VIII which, when liberally read, are variations on the claim of insufficiency of the evidence.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-12.
The District Court’s ruling predated this Court’s decision in Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S. 307 (1979). The Court of Appeals held, however, that the insufficiency of the evidence claim is without merit even under the test of Jackson. 643 F. 2d 86, 90, n. 2 (CA2 1981).
The Court of Appeals concluded that “when verdicts in a non-jury trial are facially inconsistent, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not permit a conviction to stand unless the trial court demonstrates by appropriate findings that the conviction validly rests on a rational basis.” Id., at 87.
“For the foregoing reasons we reverse the District Court’s judgment and remand with directions to enter an order conditionally vacating petitioner’s conviction and awarding him a new trial unless the state trial court demonstrates by appropriate findings rendered within ninety days that petitioner’s conviction is valid.” Id., at 97.
“If the state trial court makes findings purporting to demonstrate the validity of the conviction, petitioner may return to the District Court and renew his habeas corpus challenge to his conviction. At that point, the issue will be whether the state court conviction, considered in light of the acquittal of petitioner’s co-defendant and in light of the state trial court’s findings, denies petitioner his liberty without due process of law.” Id., at 97-98 (footnote omitted).
See id., at 94. The Court of Appeals relied on United States v. Maybury, 274 F. 2d 899 (1960), in which a divided panel of the Second Circuit reversed a conviction on one count of a two-count indictment because the majority found the acquittal on the second count to be inconsistent with the conviction on the first. Judge Friendly expressed the view that the defendant could be retried on both counts, id., at 904^906; Judge Lumbard expressed the view that the defendant could be retried on neither count and that the indictment must be dismissed, id., at 906-907 (dissenting in part). Judge Learned Hand concluded that the verdicts were not logically inconsistent and would not have reversed the conviction “[rjegardless of whether the doctrine of [Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S. 390 (1932)] applies to cases tried to a judge.” Id., at 908 (dissenting in part and concurring in part). As the Court of Appeals in this case recognized, “in prohibiting inconsistent bench trial verdicts, Maybury does not purport to rest on any provision of the Constitution and may well have been decided solely in the exercise of the Court’s supervisory power over the administration of criminal justice within this Circuit.” 643 F. 2d, at 94.
In this case the Court of Appeals described the “Maybury rule barring inconsistent verdicts in federal criminal bench trials” as “well established in this Circuit.” Id., at 91. We note, however, that in none of the three cases cited for that proposition was a verdict actually overturned on the ground of inconsistency. Indeed, in one of those cases the court expressly noted that an inconsistency resulting from an acquittal that may have rested on the trial judge’s erroneous view of the law could not justify reversal of the conviction. See United States v. Wilson, 342 F. 2d 43, 45 (CA2 1965). In all events, the Court of Appeals noted: “To our knowledge, however, this is the first time that a habeas applicant has asked us to overturn a state conviction on the basis of the Maybury rule.” 643 F. 2d, at 91.
In United States v. Duz-Mor Diagnostic Laboratory, Inc., 650 F. 2d 223 (1981), a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit followed the Second Circuit’s reasoning in this case.
In Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 146 (1973), with particular reference to a challenged jury instruction, the Court articulated the difference between a federal court of appeals’ supervisory power over the district courts within its jurisdiction and the court of appeals’ authority to grant relief under 28 U. S. C. § 2254:
“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.”
It is noteworthy that the Courts of Appeals are not in agreement that the Maybury holding is an appropriate exercise of the supervisory power over federal district courts. See, e. g., United States v. West, 549 F. 2d 545 (CA8), cert. denied, 430 U. S. 956 (1977).
See Arizona v. Washington, 434 U. S. 497, 517 (1978) (“Review of any trial court decision is, of course, facilitated by findings and by an explanation of the reasons supporting the decision. No matter how desirable such procedural assistance may be, it is not constitutionally mandated in a case such as this”).
See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U. S. 471, 489 (1972); Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U. S. 539, 564-565 (1974).
Moreover, when other procedural safeguards have minimized the risk of unfairness, there is a diminished justification for requiring a judge to explain his rulings. See Connecticut Board of Pardons v. Dumschat, 452 U. S. 458, 472 (1981) (Stevens, J., dissenting).
Our holding that the risk of constitutional error inherent in facially inconsistent bench trial verdicts is not substantial, see discussion infra, at 345-348, undercuts the initial premise of the Court of Appeals’ analysis of the question whether a state prisoner is constitutionally entitled to an explanation of such verdicts.
Accord, Hamling v. United States, 418 U. S. 87, 101 (1974). Cf. Hartzell v. United States, 322 U. S. 680, 682, n. 3 (1944) (the trial court’s setting aside of the conspiracy convictions of petitioner’s only alleged co-conspirators “makes it impossible to sustain the petitioner’s conviction upon ... the conspiracy count”); but cf. Standefer v. United States, 447 U. S. 10 (1980) (a defendant accused of aiding and abetting in the commission of a federal offense may be convicted after the named principal has been acquitted of that offense in a previous trial).
“Equally baseless is the claim of Dotterweich that, having failed to find the corporation guilty, the jury could not find him guilty. Whether the jury’s verdict was the result of carelessness or compromise or a belief that the responsible individual should suffer the penalty instead of merely increasing, as it were, the cost of running the business of the corporation, is immaterial. Juries may indulge in precisely such motives or vagaries. Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S. 390.” .
Justice Holmes’ opinion in Dunn, his last for the Court, characteristically was brief and to the point. He quoted the following passage from Steckler v. United States, 7 F. 2d 59, 60 (CA2 1925):
“ ‘The most that can be said in such cases is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant’s guilt. We interpret the acquittal as no more than their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.’ ” Dunn v. United States, 284 U. S., at 393. After citing Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U. S. 135 (1920), he added:
“That the verdict may have been the result of compromise, or of a mistake on the part of the jury, is possible. But verdicts cannot be upset by speculation or inquiry into such matters.” 284 U. S., at 393-394.
See 643 F. 2d, at 94-95.
Cf. Arizona v. Washington, 434 U. S., at 518 (White, J., dissenting): “[In Townsend v. Sain, 372 U. S. 293 (1963), the] Court concluded that ‘the coequal responsibilities of state and federal judges in the administration of federal constitutional law are such that we think the district judge may, in the ordinary case in which there has been no articulation, properly assume that the state trier of fact applied correct standards of federal law to the facts, in the absence of evidence . . . that there is reason to suspect that an incorrect standard was in fact applied.’ Id., at 314-315. A silent record is not a sufficient basis for concluding that the state judge has committed constitutional error; the mere possibility of error is not enough to warrant habeas corpus relief.”
In fact, the New York Supreme Court Justice who tried this case stated that he had a reasonable doubt as to Robinson’s guilt. 643 F. 2d, at 90.
See n. 7, supra.
«-pjjg question whether the evidence is constitutionally sufficient is of course wholly unrelated to the question of how rationally the verdict was actually reached. Just as the standard announced today does not permit a court to make its own subjective determination of guilt or innocence, it does not require scrutiny of the reasoning process actually used by the factfinder — if known.” Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U. S., at 319-320, n. 13.
Cf. 643 F. 2d, at 94, n. 5 (rejecting respondent’s equal protection challenge to the allegedly inconsistent verdicts). See also North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 722-723 (1969). Our conclusion that federal habeas corpus relief is not authorized in this case is buttressed by the practical problems with the Court of Appeals’ holding even if some constitutional right of the convicted defendant were more clearly implicated. In Henderson v. Kibbe, 431 U. S. 145, 154, n. 13 (1977), we noted that such practical problems are relevant in determining whether federal habeas relief is available:
“The strong interest in preserving the finality of judgments, [citations omitted], as well as the interest in orderly trial procedure, must be overcome before collateral relief can be justified. For a collateral attack may be made many years after the conviction when it may be impossible, as a practical matter, to conduct a retrial.”
On remand from the federal habeas court, the state trial judge, if he is still on the bench, may not remember the criminal case, much less the reasons for convicting one codefendant but acquitting another. Confronted by defense counsel’s assertion that the evidence of guilt was the same for both codefendants, he may well decide that he erroneously acquitted one co-defendant; such a finding would have to satisfy the federal habeas court, but would hardly placate the habeas petitioner.
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.
Ms. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court. In this case we áre once again called upon to consider the extent of state authority over the activities of non-Indians engaged in commerce on an Indian reservation. The State of Arizona seeks to apply its motor carrier license and use fuel taxes to petitioner Pinetop Logging Co. (Pinetop), an enterprise consisting of two non-Indian corporations authorized to do business in Arizona and operating solely on the Fort Apache Reservation. Pinetop and petitioner White Mountain Apache Tribe contend that the taxes are pre-empted by federal law or, alternatively, that they represent an unlawful infringement on tribal self-government. The Arizona Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ claims. We hold that the taxes are pre-empted by federal law, and we therefore reverse.
I
The 6,500 members of petitioner White Mountain Apache Tribe reside on the Fort Apache Reservation in a mountainous and forested region of northeastern Arizona. The Tribe is organized under a constitution approved by the Secretary of the Interior under the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U. S. C. § 476. The revenue used to fund the Tribe’s governmental programs is derived almost exclusively from tribal enterprises. Of these enterprises, timber operations have proved by far the most important, accounting for over 90% of the Tribe’s total annual profits.
The Fort Apache Reservation occupies over 1,650,000 acres, including 720,000 acres of commercial forest. Approximately 300,000 acres are used for the harvesting of timber on a “sustained yield” basis, permitting each area to be cut every 20 years without endangering the forest’s continuing productivity. Under federal law, timber on reservation land is owned by the United States for the benefit of the Tribe and cannot be harvested for sale without the consent of Congress. Acting under the authority of 25 CFR § 141.6 (1979) and the tribal constitution, and with the specific approval of the Secretary of the Interior, the Tribe in 1964 organized the Fort Apache Timber Co. (FATCO), a tribal enterprise that manages, harvests, processes, and sells timber. FATCO, which conducts all of its activities on the reservation, was created with the aid of federal funds. It employs about 300 tribal members.
The United States has entered into contracts with FATCO, authorizing it to harvest timber pursuant to regulations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. FATCO has itself contracted with six logging companies, including Pinetop, which perform certain operations that FATCO could not carry out as economically on its own. Since it first entered into agreements with FATCO in 1969, Pinetop has been required to fell trees, cut them to the correct size, and transport them to FATCO’s sawmill in return for a contractually specified fee. Pinetop employs approximately 50 tribal members. Its activities, performed solely on the Fort Apache Reservation, are subject to extensive federal control.
In 1971 respondents sought to impose on Pinetop the two state taxes at issue here. The first, a motor carrier license tax, is assessed on “[e]very common motor carrier of property and every contract motor carrier of property.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 40-641 (A)(1) (Supp. 1979). Pinetop is a “contract motor carrier of property” since it is engaged in “the transportation by motor vehicle of property, for compensation, on any public highway.” § 40-601 (A) (1) (1974). The motor carrier license tax amounts to 2.5% of the carrier’s gross receipts. § 40-641 (A)(1) (Supp. 1979). The second tax at issue is an excise or use fuel tax designed “[f]or the purpose of partially compensating the state for the use of its highway ” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1552 (Supp. 1979). The tax amounts to eight cents per gallon of fuel used “in the propulsion of a motor vehicle on any highway within this state.” Ibid. The use fuel tax was assessed on Pinetop because it uses diesel fuel to propel its vehicles on the state highways within the Fort Apache Reservation.
Pinetop paid the taxes under protest, and then brought suit in state court, asserting that under federal law the taxes could not lawfully be imposed on logging activities conducted exclusively within the reservation or on hauling activities on Bureau of Indian Affairs and tribal roads. The Tribe agreed to reimburse Pinetop for any tax liability incurred as a result of its on-reservation business activities, and the Tribe intervened in the action as a plaintiff.
Both petitioners and respondents moved for summary judgment on the issue of the applicability of the two taxes to Pinetop. Petitioners submitted supporting affidavits from the manager of FATCO, the head forester of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Chairman of the White Mountain Apache Tribal Council; respondents offered no affidavits disputing the factual assertions by petitioners’ affiants. The trial court awarded summary judgment to respondents, and the petitioners appealed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals rejected petitioners’ pre-emption claim. 120 Ariz. 282, 585 P. 2d 891 (1978). Purporting to apply the test set forth in Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497 (1956), the court held that the taxes did not conflict with federal regulation of tribal timber, that the federal interest was not so dominant as to preclude assessment of the challenged state taxes, and that the federal regulatory scheme did not “occupy the field.” The court also concluded that the state taxes would not unlawfully infringe on tribal self-government. The Arizona Supreme Court declined to review the decision of the Court of Appeals. We granted certiorari. 444 U. S, 823 (1980).
II
Although “ [generalizations on this subject have become . . . treacherous,” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 148 (1973), our decisions establish several basic principles with respect to the boundaries between state regulatory authority and tribal self-government. Long ago the Court departed from' Mr. Chief Justice Marshall’s view that “the laws of [a State] can have no force” within reservation boundaries, Worcester v. Georgia, 6 Pet. 515, 561 (1832). See Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463, 481-483 (1976); New York ex rel. Ray v. Martin, 326 U. S. 496 (1946); Utah & Northern R. Co. v. Fisher, 116 U. S. 28 (1885). At the same time we have recognized that the Indian tribes retain “attributes of sovereignty over both their members and their territory.” United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S. 544, 557 (1975). See also United States v. Wheeler, 435 U. S. 313, 323 (1978); Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49, 55-56 (1978). As a result, there is no rigid rule by which to resolve the question whether a particular state law may be applied to an Indian reservation or to tribal members. The status of the tribes has been described as “ 'an anomalous one and of complex character,’ ” for despite their partial assimilation into American culture, the tribes have retained “ 'a semi-independent position . . . not as States, not as nations, not as possessed of the full attributes of sovereignty, but as a separate people, with the power of regulating their internal and social relations, and thus far not brought under the laws of the Union or of the State within whose limits they resided.’ ” McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 173 (1973), quoting United States v. Kagama, 118 U. S. 375, 381-382 (1886).
Congress has broad power to regulate tribal affairs under the Indian Commerce Clause, Art. 1, § 8, cl. 3. See United States v. Wheeler, supra, at 322-323. This congressional authority and the “semi-independent position” of Indian tribes have given rise to two independent but related barriers to the assertion of state regulatory authority over tribal reservations and members. First, the exercise of such authority may be pre-empted by federal law. See, e. g.. Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685 (1965); McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, supra. Second, it may unlawfully infringe “on the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them.” Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 220 (1959). See also Washington v. Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U. S. 463, 502 (1979); Fisher v. District Court, 424 U. S. 382 (1976) (per curiam); Kennedy v. District Court of Montana, 400 U. S. 423 (1971). The two barriers are independent because either, standing alone, can be a sufficient basis for holding state law inapplicable to activity undertaken on the reservation or by tribal members. They are related, however, in two important ways. The right of tribal self-government is ultimately dependent on and subject to the broad power of Congress. Even so, traditional notions of Indian self-government are so deeply engrained in our jurisprudence that they have provided an important “backdrop,” McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, supra, at 172, against which vague or ambiguous federal enactments must always be measured.
The unique historical origins of tribal sovereignty make it generally unhelpful to apply to federal enactments regulating Indian tribes those standards of pre-emption that have emerged in other areas of the law. Tribal reservations are not States, and the differences in the form and nature of their sovereignty make it treacherous to import to one notions of pre-emption that are properly applied to the other. The tradition of Indian sovereignty over the reservation and tribal members must inform the determination whether the exercise of state authority has been pre-empted by operation of federal law. Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, supra, at 475. As we have repeatedly recognized, this tradition is reflected and encouraged in a number of congressional enactments demonstrating a firm federal policy of promoting tribal self-sufficiency and economic development. Ambiguities in federal law have been construed generously in order to comport with these traditional notions of sovereignty and with the federal policy of encouraging tribal independence. See McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, supra, at 174-175, and n. 13. We have thus rejected the proposition that in order to find a particular state law to have been pre-empted by operation of federal law, an express congressional statement to that effect is required. Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, supra. At the same time any applicable regulatory interest of the State must be given weight, McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, supra, at 171, and “automatic exemptions 'as a matter of constitutional law’ ” are unusual. Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S., at 481, n. 17.
When on-reservation conduct involving only Indians is at issue, state law is generally inapplicable, for the State’s regulatory interest is likely to be minimal and the federal interest in encouraging tribal self-government is at its strongest. See Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, supra, at 480-481; McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n. More difficult questions arise where, as here, a State asserts authority over the conduct of non-Indians engaging in activity on the reservation. In such cases we have examined the language of the relevant federal treaties and statutes in terms of both the broad policies that underlie them and the notions of sovereignty that have developed from historical traditions of tribal independence. This inquiry is not dependent on mechanical or absolute conceptions of state or tribal sovereignty, but has called for a particularized inquiry into the nature of the state, federal, and tribal interests at stake, an inquiry designed to determine whether, in the specific context, the exercise of state authority would violate federal law. Compare Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, supra, and Williams v. Lee, supra, with Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, supra, and Thomas v. Gay, 169 U. S. 264 (1898). Cf. McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S., at 171; Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S., at 148.
Ill
With these principles in mind, we turn to the respondents’ claim that they may, consistent with federal law, impose the contested motor vehicle license and use fuel taxes on the logging and hauling operations of petitioner Pinetop. At the outset we observe that the Federal Government’s regulation of the harvesting of Indian timber is comprehensive. That regulation takes the form of Acts of Congress, detailed regulations promulgated by the Secretary of the Interior, and day-to-day supervision by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Under 25 U. S. C. §§ 405-407, the Secretary of the Interior is granted broad authority over the sale of timber on the reservation. Timber on Indian land may be sold only with the consent of the Secretary, and the proceeds from any such sales, less administrative expenses incurred by the Federal Government, are to be used for the benefit of the Indians or transferred to the Indian owner.. Sales of timber must “be based upon a consideration of the needs and best interests of the Indian owner and his heirs.” 25 U. S. C. § 406 (a). The statute specifies the factors which the Secretary must consider in making that determination. In order to assure the continued productivity of timber-producing land on tribal reservations, timber on unallotted lands “may be sold in accordance with the principles of sustained yield.” 25 U. S. C. § 407. The Secretary is granted power to determine the disposition of the proceeds from timber sales. He is authorized to promulgate regulations for the operation and management of Indian forestry units. 25 U. S. C. § 466.
Acting pursuant to this authority, the Secretary has promulgated a detailed set of regulations to govern the harvesting and sale of tribal timber. Among the stated objectives of the regulations is the “development of Indian forests by the Indian people for the purpose of promoting self-sustaining communities, to the end that the Indians may receive from their own property not only the stumpage value, but also the benefit of whatever profit it is capable of yielding and whatever labor the Indians are qualified to perform.” 25 CFR § 141.3 (a)(3) (1979). The regulations cover a wide variety of matters: for example, they restrict clear-cutting, § 141.5; establish comprehensive guidelines for the sale of timber, §141.7; regulate the advertising of timber sales, §§141.8, 141.9; specify the manner in which bids may be accepted and rejected, §141.11; describe the circumstances in which contracts may be entered into, §§ 141.12, 141.13; require the approval of all contracts by the Secretary, § 141.13; call for timber-cutting permits to be approved by the Secretary, § 141.19; specify fire protective measures, § 141.21; and provide a board of administrative appeals, § 141.23. Tribes are expressly authorized to establish commercial enterprises for the harvesting and logging of tribal timber. § 141.6.
Under these regulations, the Bureau of Indian Affairs exercises literally daily supervision over the harvesting and management of tribal timber. In the present case, contracts between FATCO and Pinetop must be approved by the Bureau; indeed, the record shows that some of those contracts were drafted by employees of the Federal Government. Bureau employees regulate the cutting, hauling, and marking of timber by FATCO and Pinetop. The Bureau decides such matters as how much timber will be cut, which trees will be felled, which roads are to be used, which hauling equipment Pinetop should employ, the speeds at which logging equipment may travel, and the width, length, height, and weight of loads.
The Secretary has also promulgated detailed regulations governing the roads developed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. 25 CFR Part 162 (1979). Bureau roads are open to “[f]ree public use.” § 162.8. Their administration and maintenance are funded by the Federal Government, with contributions from the Indian tribes. §§ 162.6-162.6a. On the Fort Apache Reservation the Forestry Department of the Bureau has required FATCO and its contractors, including Pinetop, to repair and maintain existing Bureau and tribal roads and in some cases to construct new logging roads. Substantial sums have been spent for these purposes. In its federally approved contract with FATCO, Pinetop has agreed to construct new roads and to repair existing ones. A high percentage of Pinetop’s receipts are expended for those purposes, and it has maintained separate personnel and equipment to carry out a variety of tasks relating to road maintenance.
In these circumstances we agree with petitioners that the federal regulatory scheme is so pervasive as to preclude the additional burdens sought to be imposed in this case. Respondents seek to apply their motor vehicle license and use fuel taxes on Pinetop for operations that are conducted solely on Bureau and tribal roads within the reservation. There is no room for these taxes in the comprehensive federal regulatory scheme. In a variety of ways, the assessment of state taxes would obstruct federal policies. And equally important, respondents have been unable to identify any regulatory function or service performed by the State that would justify the assessment of taxes for activities on Bureau and tribal roads within the reservation.
At the most general level, the taxes would threaten the overriding federal objective of guaranteeing Indians that they will “receive . . . the benefit of whatever profit [the forest] is capable of yielding. . . .” 25 CFR, § 141.3 (a)(3) (1979). Underlying the federal regulatory program rests a policy of assuring that the profits derived from timber sales will inure to the benefit of the Tribe, subject only to administrative expenses incurred by the Federal Government. That objective is part of the general federal policy of encouraging tribes “to revitalize their self-government” and to assume control over their “business and economic affairs.” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S., at 151. The imposition of the taxes at issue would undermine that policy in a context in which the Federal Government has undertaken to regulate the most minute details of timber production and expressed a firm desire that the Tribe should retain the benefits derived from the harvesting and sale of reservation timber.
In addition, the taxes would undermine the Secretary’s ability to make the wide range of determinations committed to his authority concerning the setting of fees and rates with respect to the harvesting and sale of tribal timber. The Secretary reviews and approves the terms of the Tribe’s agreements with its contractors, sets fees for services rendered to the Tribe by the Federal Government, and determines stump-age rates for timber to be paid to the Tribe. Most notably in reviewing or writing the terms of the contracts between FATCO and its contractors, federal agents must predict the amount and determine the proper allocation of all business expenses, including fuel costs. The assessment of state taxes would throw additional factors into the federal calculus, reducing tribal revenues and diminishing the profitability of the enterprise for potential contractors.
Finally, the imposition of state taxes would adversely affect the Tribe’s ability to comply with the sustained-yield management policies imposed by federal law. Substantial expenditures are paid out by the Federal Government, the Tribe, and its contractors in order to undertake a wide variety of measures to ensure the continued productivity of the forest. These measures include reforestation, fire control, wildlife promotion, road improvement, safety inspections, and general policing of the forest. The expenditures are largely paid for out of tribal revenues, which are in turn derived almost exclusively from the sale of timber. The imposition of state taxes on FATCO’s contractors would effectively diminish the amount of those revenues and thus leave the Tribe and its contractors with reduced sums with which to pay out federally required expenses.
As noted above, this is not a case in which the State seeks to assess taxes in return for governmental functions it performs for those on whom the taxes fall. Nor have respondents been able to identify a legitimate regulatory interest served by the taxes they seek to impose. They refer to a general desire to raise revenue, but we are unable to discern a responsibility or service that justifies the assertion of taxes imposed for on-reservation operations conducted solely on tribal and Bureau of Indian Affairs roads. Pinetop’s business in Arizona is conducted solely on the Fort Apache Reservation. Though at least the use fuel tax purports to “compensat[e] the state for the use of its highways,” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 28-1552 (Supp. 1979), no such compensatory purpose is present here. The roads at issue have been built, maintained, and policed exclusively by the Federal Government, the Tribe, and its contractors. We do not believe that respondents’ generalized interest in raising revenue is in this context sufficient to permit its proposed intrusion into the federal regulatory scheme with respect to the harvesting and sale of tribal timber.
Respondents’ argument is reduced to a claim that they may assess taxes on non-Indians engaged in commerce on the reservation whenever there is no express congressional statement to the contrary. That is simply not the law. In a number of cases we have held that state authority over non-Indians acting on tribal reservations is pre-empted even though Congress has offered no explicit statement on the subject. See Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685 (1965); Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217 (1958); Kennerly v. District Court of Montana, 400 U. S. 423 (1971). The Court has repeatedly emphasized that there is a significant geographical component to tribal sovereignty, a component which remains highly relevant to the pre-emption inquiry; though the reservation boundary is not absolute, it remains an important factor to weigh in determining whether state authority- has exceeded the permissible limits. “ ‘The cases in this Court have consistently guarded the authority of Indian governments over their reservations.’ ” United States v. Mazurie, 419 U. S., at 558, quoting Williams v. Lee, supra, at 223. Moreover, it is undisputed that the economic burden of the asserted taxes will ultimately fall on the Tribe. Where, as here, the Federal Government has undertaken comprehensive regulation of the harvesting and sale of tribal timber, where a number of the policies underlying the federal regulatory scheme are threatened by the taxes respondents seek to impose, and where respondents are unable to justify the taxes except in terms of a generalized interest in raising revenue, we believe that thé proposed exercise of state authority is impermissible.
Both the reasoning and result in this case follow naturally from our unanimous decision in Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, supra. There the State of Arizona sought to impose a “gross proceeds” tax on a non-Indian company which conducted a retail trading business on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Referring to the tradition of sovereign power over the reservation, the Court held that the “comprehensive federal regulation of Indian traders” prohibited the assessment of the attempted taxes. Id., at 688. No federal statute by its terms precluded the assessment of state tax. Nonetheless, the “detailed regulations,” specifying “in the most minute fashion,” id., at 689, the. licensing and regulation of Indian traders, were held “to show that Congress has taken the business of Indian trading on reservations so fully in hand that no room remains for state laws imposing additional burdens upon traders.” Id., at 690. The imposition of those burdens, we held, “could . . . disturb and disarrange the statutory plan” because the economic burden of the state taxes would eventually be passed on to the Indians themselves. Id., at 691. We referred to the fact that the Tribe had been “largely free to run the reservation and its affairs without state control, a policy which has automatically relieved Arizona of all burdens for carrying on those same responsibilities.” Id., at 690. And we emphasized that “since federal legislation has left the State with no duties or responsibilities respecting the reservation Indians, we cannot believe that Congress intended to leave to the State the privilege of levying this tax.” Id., at 691. The present case, we conclude, is in all relevant respects indistinguishable from Warren Trading Post.
The decision of the Arizona Court of Appeals is
Reversed.
[For concurring opinion of Me. Justice Powell, see post, p. 170.]
The Fort Apache Reservation was originally established as the White Mountain Reservation by an Executive Order signed by President Grant on November 9, 1871. By the Act of Congress of June 7, 1897, 30 Stat. 64; the White Mountain Reservation was divided into the Fort Apache and San Carlos Reservations.
In 1973, for example, tribal enterprises showed a net profit of $1,667,091, $1,508,713 of which was attributable to timber operations.
FATCO initially attempted to perform some of its own logging and hauling operations but found itself unable to do these tasks economically.
Respondents are the Arizona Highway Department, the Arizona Highway Commission, and individual members of each entity.
Between November 1971 and May 1976 Pinetop paid under protest $19,114.59 in use fuel taxes and $14,701.42 in motor carrier license taxes. Since that time it has continued to pay taxes pending the outcome of this case. Refund litigation is pending in state court with respect to the five other non-Indian contractors employed by the Tribe, and that litigation has been stayed pending the outcome of this suit.
For purposes of this action petitioners have conceded Pinetop’s liability for both motor carrier license and use fuel taxes attributable to travel on state highways within the reservation. Pinetop has maintained records of fuel attributable to travel on those highways, and computations would evidently be made in order to allocate a portion of the gross receipts taxable under the motor carrier license tax to state highways.
When Pinetop contracted to undertake timber operations for FATCO in 1969, both Pinetop and FATCO believed that it would not be required to pay state-taxes. After respondents assessed the taxes at issue, FATCO agreed to pay them to avoid the loss of Pinetop’s services.
After the trial court entered summary judgment on the issue of the applieabilhy of the state taxes, the case proceeded to trial on the state-law issue of the manner of calculating the motor vehicle license tax Final judgment was entered for respondents on all issues after trial. The Arizona Court of Appeals reversed the decision of the Superior Court on the calculation of the motor vehicle license tax. 120 Ariz. 282, 291, 585 P 2d 891, 900 (1978).
The shift in approach is discussed in Williams v. Lee, 358 U. S. 217, 219 (1959): Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U. S. 60, 71-75 (1962); and McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Comm’n, 411 U. S. 164, 172 (1973).
For example, the Indian Financing Act of 1974, 25 U. S. C. § 1451 et seq., states: “It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress . . . to help develop and utilize Indian resources, both physical and human, to a point where the Indians will fully exercise responsibility for the utilization and management of their own resources and where they will enjoy a standard of living from their own productive efforts comparable to that enjoyed by non-Indians in neighboring communities.” Similar policies underlie the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, 25 U. S. C. § 450 et seq., as well as the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 25 U. S. C. § 461 et seq., whose “intent and purpose . . . was 'to rehabilitate the Indian’s economic life and to give him a chance to develop the initiative destroyed by a century of oppression and paternalism.’” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U. S. 145, 152 (1973), quoting H. R. Rep. No. 1804, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., 6 (1934). See also Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U. S. 49 (1978). Cf. Gross, Indian Self-Determination and Tribal Sovereignty: An Analysis of Recent Federal Policy, 56 TexasL. Rev. 1195 (1978).
In the case of “Indians going beyond reservation boundaries,” however, a “nondiseriminatory state law” is generally applicable in the absence of “express federal law to the contrary.” Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, supra, at 148-149.
Federal policies with respect to tribal timber have a long history. In United States v. Cook, 19 Wall. 591 (1874), and Pine River Logging Co. v. United States, 186 U. S. 279 (1902), the Court held that tribal members had no right to sell timber on reservation land unless the sale was related to the improvement of the land. At the same time the Court interpreted the governing statute as designed “to permit deserving Indians, who had no other sufficient means of support, to cut... a limited quantity of . . . timber . . . and to use the proceeds for their support . . . , provided that 10 percent of the gross proceeds should go to the stumpage or poor fund of the tribe, from which the old, sick and otherwise helpless might be supported.” Id., at 285-286.
The Attorney General interpreted the holding in Cook to mean that Indians had no right to reservation timber. See 19 Op. Atty. Gen. 194 (1888). This interpretation was overturned by Congress by Act of June 25, 1910, ch. 431, 36 Stat. 855, as amended, 25 U. S. C. § 407, and also repudiated in United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 U. S. Ill (1938). Thus, as the Court summarized in United States v. Algoma Lumber Co., 305 U. S. 415, 420 (1939), “[u]nder . . . established principles applicable to land reservations created for the benefit of the Indian tribes, the Indians are beneficial owners of the land and the timber standing upon it and of the proceeds of their sale, subject to the plenary power of control by the United States, to be exercised for the benefit and protection of the Indians.” See 25 U. S. C. § 196; United States v. Mitchell, 445 U. S. 535 (1980).
Those factors include “(1) the state of growth of the timber and the need for maintaining the productive capacity of the land for the benefit of the owner and his heirs, (2) the highest and the best use of the land, including the advisability and practicality of devoting it to other uses for the benefit of the owner and his heirs, and (3) the present and future financial needs of the owner and his heirs.” 25 U. S. C. § 406 (a).
In oral argument counsel for respondents appeared to concede that the asserted state taxes could not lawfully be applied to tribal roads and was unwilling to defend the contrary conclusion of the court below, which made no distinction between Bureau and tribal roads under state and federal law. Tr. of Oral Arg. 34-37. Contrary to respondents’ position throughout the litigation and in their brief in this Court, counsel limited his argument to a contention that the taxes could be asserted on the roads of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ibid. ' For purposes of federal pre-emption, however, we see no basis, and respondents point to none, for distinguishing between roads maintained by the Tribe and roads maintained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Of course, the fact that the economic burden of the tax falls on the Tribe does not by itself mean that the tax is pre-empted, as Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U. S. 463 (1976), makes clear. Our decision today is based on the pre-emptive effect of the comprehensive federal regulatory scheme, which, like that in Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, 380 U. S. 685 (1965), leaves no room for the additional burdens sought to be imposed by state law.
Respondents also contend that the taxes are authorized by the Buck Act, 4 U. S. C. § 105 et seq., and the Hayden-Cartwright Act, 4 U. S. C. § 104. In Warren Trading Post Co. v. Arizona Tax Comm’n, supra, at 691, n. 18, we squarely held that the Buck Act did not apply to Indian reservations, and respondents present no sufficient reason for us to depart from that holding. We agree with petitioners that the Hayden-Cartwright Act, which authorizes state taxes “on United States military or other reservations,” was not designed to overcome the otherwise pre-emptive effect of federal regulation of tribal timber. We need not reach the more general question whether the Hayden-Cartwright Act applies to Indian reservations at all.
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 |
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Justice Breyer
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question in this ease arises at the intersection of the Nation’s labor and antitrust laws. A group of professional football players brought this antitrust suit against football club owners. The club owners had bargained with the players’ union over a wage issue until they reached impasse. The owners then had agreed among themselves (but not with the union) to implement the terms of their own last best bargaining offer. The question before us is whether federal labor laws shield such an agreement from antitrust attack. We believe that they do. This Court has previously found in the labor laws an implicit antitrust exemption that applies where needed to make the collective-bargaining process work. Like the Court of Appeals, we conclude that this need makes the exemption applicable in this case.
I
We can state the relevant facts briefly. In 1987, a collective-bargaining agreement between the National Football League (NFL or League), a group of football clubs, and the NFL Players Association, a labor union, expired. The NFL and the Players Association began to negotiate a new contract. In March 1989, during the negotiations, the NFL adopted Resolution G-2, a plan that would permit each club to establish a “developmental squad” of up to six rookie or “first-year” players who, as free agents, had failed to secure a position on a regular player roster. See App. 42. Squad members would play in practice games and sometimes in regular games as substitutes for injured players. Resolution G-2 provided that the club owners would pay all squad members the same weekly salary.
The next month, April, the NFL presented the developmental squad plan to the Players Association. The NFL proposed a squad player salary of $1,000 per week. The Players Association disagreed. It insisted that the club owners give developmental squad players benefits and protections similar to those provided regular players, and that they leave individual squad members free to negotiate their own salaries.
Two months later, in June, negotiations on the issue of developmental squad salaries reached an impasse. The NFL then unilaterally implemented the developmental squad program by distributing to the clubs a uniform contract that embodied the terms of Resolution G-2 and the $1,000 proposed weekly salary. The League advised club owners that paying developmental squad players more or less than $1,000 per week would result in disciplinary action, including the loss of draft choices.
In May 1990, 235 developmental squad players brought this antitrust suit against the League and its member clubs. The players claimed that their employers’ agreement to pay them a $1,000 weekly salary violated the Sherman Act. See 15 U. S. C. § 1 (forbidding agreements in restraint of trade). The Federal District Court denied the employers’ claim of exemption from the antitrust laws; it permitted the case to reach the jury; and it subsequently entered judgment on a jury treble-damages award that exceeded $30 million. The NFL and its member clubs appealed.
The Court of Appeals (by a split 2-to-l vote) reversed. The majority interpreted the labor laws as “waiving] antitrust liability for restraints on competition imposed through the collective-bargaining process, so long as such restraints operate primarily in a labor market characterized by collective bargaining.” 50 F. 3d 1041, 1056 (CADC 1995). The court held, consequently, that the club owners were immune from antitrust liability. We granted certiorari to review that determination. Although we do not interpret the exemption as broadly as did the Appeals Court, we nonetheless find the exemption applicable, and we affirm that court’s immunity conclusion.
II
The immunity before us rests upon what this Court has called the “nonstatutory” labor exemption from the antitrust laws. Connell Constr. Co. v. Plumbers, 421 U. S. 616, 622 (1975); see also Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea Co., 381 U. S. 676 (1965); Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657 (1965). The Court has implied this exemption from federal labor statutes, which set forth a national labor policy favoring free and private collective bargaining, see 29 U. S. C. § 151; Teamsters v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283, 295 (1959); which require good-faith bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions, see 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(5), 158(d); NLRB v. Wooster Div. of Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342, 348-349 (1958); and which delegate related rulemaking and interpretive authority to the National Labor Relations Board (Board), see 29 U. S. C. § 153; San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 242-245 (1959).
This implicit exemption reflects both history and logic. As a matter of history, Congress intended the labor statutes (from which the Court has implied the exemption) in part to adopt the views of dissenting Justices in Duplex Printing Press Co. v. Deering, 254 U. S. 443 (1921), which Justices had urged the Court to interpret broadly a different explicit “statutory” labor exemption that Congress earlier (in 1914) had written directly into the antitrust laws. Id., at 483-488 (Brandeis, J., joined by Holmes and Clarke, JJ., dissenting) (interpreting § 20 of the Clayton Act, 38 Stat. 738, 29 U. S. C. § 52); see also United States v. Hutcheson, 312 U. S. 219, 230-236 (1941) (discussing congressional reaction to Duplex). In the 1930’s, when it subsequently enacted the labor statutes, Congress, as in 1914, hoped to prevent judicial use of antitrust law to resolve labor disputes — a kind of dispute normally inappropriate for antitrust law resolution. See Jewel Tea, supra, at 700-709 (opinion of Goldberg, J.); Marine Cooks v. Panama S. S. Co., 362 U. S. 365, 370, n. 7 (1960); A. Cox, Law and the National Labor Policy 3-8 (1960); cf. Duplex, supra, at 485 (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (explicit “statutory” labor exemption reflected view that “Congress, not the judges, was the body which should declare what public policy in regard to the industrial struggle demands”). The implicit (“nonstatutory”) exemption interprets the labor statutes in accordance with this intent, namely, as limiting an antitrust court’s authority to determine, in the area of industrial conflict, what is or is not a “reasonable” practice. It thereby substitutes legislative and administrative labor-related determinations for judicial antitrust-related determinations as to the appropriate legál limits of industrial conflict. See Jewel Tea, supra, at 709-710.
As a matter of logic, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to require groups of employers and employees to bargain together, but at the same time to forbid them to make among themselves or with each other any of the competition-restricting agreements potentially necessary to make the process work or its results mutually acceptable. Thus, the implicit exemption recognizes that, to give effect to federal labor laws and policies and to allow meaningful collective bargaining to take place, some restraints on' competition imposed through the bargaining process must be shielded from antitrust sanctions. See Connell, supra, at 622 (federal labor law’s “goals” could “never” be achieved if ordinary anti-competitive effects of collective bargaining were held to violate the antitrust laws); Jewel Tea, supra, at 711 (national labor law scheme would be “virtually destroyed” by the routine imposition of antitrust penalties upon parties engaged in collective bargaining); Pennington, supra, at 665 (implicit exemption necessary to harmonize Sherman Act with “national policy... of promoting ‘the peaceful settlement of industrial disputes by subjecting labor-management controversies to the mediatory influence of negotiation’ ”) (quoting Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 211 (1964)).
The petitioners and their supporters concede, as they must, the legal existence of the exemption we have described. They also concede that, where its application is necessary to make the statutorily authorized collective-bargaining process work as Congress intended, the exemption must apply both to employers and to employees. Accord, Volkswagenwerk Aktiengesellschaft v. Federal Maritime Comm’n, 390 U. S. 261, 287, n. 5 (1968) (Harlan, J., concurring); Jewel Tea, supra, at 729-782, 735 (opinion of Goldberg, J.); Brief for AFL-CIO as Amicus Curiae in Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, O. T. 1981, No. 81-334, pp. 16-17; see also P. Areeda & H. Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 229’d (1995 Supp.) (collecting recent Court of Appeals cases); cf. H. A. Artists & Associates, Inc. v. Actors’ Equity Assn., 451 U. S. 704, 717, n. 20 (1981) (explicit “statutory” exemption applies only to “bona fide labor organization^]”). Nor does the dissent take issue with these basic principles. See post, at 253-254. Consequently, the question before us is one of determining the exemption’s scope: Does it apply to an agreement among several employers bargaining together to implement after impasse the terms of their last best good-faith wage offer? We assume that such conduct, as practiced in this case, is unobjectionable as a matter of labor law and policy. On that assumption, we conclude that the exemption applies.
Labor law itself regulates directly, and considerably, the kind of behavior here at issue — the postimpasse imposition of a proposed employment term concerning a mandatory subject of bargaining. Both the Board and the courts have held that, after impasse, labor law permits employers unilaterally to implement changes in pre-existing conditions, but only insofar as the new terms meet carefully circumscribed conditions. For example, the new terms must be “reasonably comprehended” within the employer’s preimpasse proposals (typically the last rejected proposals), lest by imposing more or less favorable terms, the employer unfairly undermined the union’s status. Storer Communications, Inc., 294 N. L. R. B. 1056, 1090 (1989); Taft Broadcasting Co., 163 N. L. R. B. 475, 478 (1967), enf’d, 395 F. 2d 622 (CADC 1968); see also NLRB v. Katz, 369 U. S. 736, 745, and n. 12 (1962). The collective-bargaining proceeding itself must be free of any unfair labor practice, such as an employer’s failure to have bargained in good faith. See Akron Novelty Mfg. Co., 224 N. L. R. B. 998, 1002 (1976) (where employer has not bargained in good faith, it may not implement a term of employment); 1 R Hardin, The Developing Labor Law 697 (3d ed. 1992) (same). These regulations reflect the fact that impasse and an accompanying implementation of proposals constitute an integral part of the bargaining process. See Bonanno Linen Serv., Inc., 243 N. L. R. B. 1093, 1094 (1979) (describing use of impasse as a bargaining tactic), enf’d, 630 F. 2d 25 (CA1 1980), aff’d, 454 U. S. 404 (1982); Colorado-Ute Elec. Assn., 295 N. L. R. B. 607, 609 (1989), enf. denied on other grounds, 939 F. 2d 1392 (CA10 1991), cert. denied, 504 U. S. 955 (1992).
Although the case law we have cited focuses upon bargaining by a single employer, no one here has argued that labor law does, or should, treat multiemployer bargaining differently in this respect. Indeed, Board and court decisions suggest that the joint implementation of proposed terms after impasse is a familiar practice in the context of multiem-ployer bargaining. See, e. g., El Cerrito Mill & Lumber Co., 316 N. L. R. B. 1005 (1995); Paramount Liquor Co., 307 N. L. R. B. 676, 686 (1992); NKS Distributors, Inc., 304 N. L. R. B. 338, 340-341 (1991), rev’d, 50 F. 3d 18 (CA9 1995); Sage Development Co., 301 N. L. R. B. 1173, 1175 (1991); Walker Constr. Co., 297 N. L. R. B. 746, 748 (1990), enf’d, 928 F. 2d 695 (CA5 1991); Food Employers Council, Inc., 293 N. L. R. B. 333, 334, 345-346 (1989); Tile, Terazzo & Marble Contractors Assn., 287 N. L. R. B. 769, 772 (1987), enf’d, 935 F. 2d 1249 (CA11 1991), cert. denied, 502 U. S. 1031 (1992); Salinas Valley Ford Sales, Inc., 279 N. L. R. B. 679, 686, 690 (1986); Carlsen Porsche Audi, Inc., 266 N. L. R. B. 141, 152-153 (1983); Typographic Service Co., 238 N. L. R. B. 1565 (1978); United Fire Proof Warehouse Co. v. NLRB, 356 F. 2d 494, 498-499 (CA7 1966); Cuyamaca Meats, Inc. v. Butchers’ and Food Employers’ Pension Trust Fund, 638 F. Supp. 885, 887 (SD Cal. 1986), aff'd, 827 F. 2d 491 (CA9 1987), cert. denied, 485 U. S. 1008 (1988). We proceed on that assumption.
Multiemployer bargaining itself is a well-established, important, pervasive method of collective bargaining, offering advantages to both management and labor. See Appendix, infra, p; 251 (multiemployer bargaining accounts for more than 40% of major collective-bargaining agreements, and is used in such industries as construction, transportation, retail trade, clothing manufacture, and real estate, as well as professional sports); NLRB v. Truck Drivers, 353 U. S. 87, 95 (1957) (Buffalo Linen) (Congress saw multiemployer bargaining as “a vital factor in the effectuation of the national policy of promoting labor peace through strengthened collective bargaining”); Charles D. Bonanno Linen Service, Inc. v. NLRB, 454 U. S. 404, 409, n. 3 (1982) (Bonanno Linen) (multiemployer bargaining benefits both management and labor, by saving bargaining resources, by encouraging development of industry-wide worker benefits programs that smaller employers could not otherwise afford, and by inhibiting employer competition at the workers’ expense); Brief for Respondent NLRB in Bonanno Linen, O. T. 1981, No. 80-931, p. 10, n. 7 (same); General Subcommittee on Labor, House Committee on Education and Labor, Multiemployer Association Bargaining and its Impact on the Collective Bargaining Process, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 10-19, 32-33 (Comm. Print 1964) (same); see also C. Bonnett, Employers’ Associations in the United States: A Study of Typical Associations (1922) (history). The upshot is that the practice at issue here plays a significant role in a collective-bargaining process that itself constitutes.an important part of the Nation’s industrial relations system.
In these circumstances, to subject the practice to antitrust law is to require antitrust courts to answer a host of important practical questions about how collective bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions is to proceed — the very result that the implicit labor exemption seeks to avoid. And it is to place in jeopardy some of the potentially beneficial labor-related effects that multiemployer bargaining can achieve. That is because unlike labor law, which sometimes welcomes anticompetitive agreements conducive to industrial harmony, antitrust law forbids all agreements among competitors (such as competing employers) that unreasonably lessen competition among or between them in virtually any respect whatsoever. See, e. g., Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. v. United States, 282 U. S. 30 (1930) (agreement to insert arbitration provisions in motion picture licensing contracts). Antitrust law also sometimes permits judges or juries to premise antitrust liability upon little more than uniform behavior among competitors, preceded by conversations implying that later uniformity might prove desirable, see, e. g., United States v. General Motors Corp., 384 U. S. 127, 142-143 (1966); United States v. Foley, 598 F. 2d 1323, 1331-1332 (CA4 1979), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 1043 (1980), or accompanied by other conduct that in context suggests that each competitor failed to make an independent decision, see, e. g., American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 328 U. S. 781, 809-810 (1946); United States v. Masonite Corp., 316 U. S. 265, 275 (1942); Interstate Circuit, Inc. v. United States, 306 U. S. 208, 226-227 (1939). See generally 6 P. Areeda, Antitrust Law ¶¶ 1416-1427 (1986); Turner, The Definition of Agreement Under the Sherman Act: Conscious Parallelism and Refusals to Deal, 75 Harv. L. Rev. 655 (1962).
If the antitrust laws apply, what are employers to do once impasse is reached? If all impose terms similar to their last joint offer, they invite an antitrust action premised upon identical behavior (along with prior or accompanying conversations) as tending to show a common understanding or agreement. If any, or all, of them individually impose terms that differ significantly from that offer, they invite an unfair labor practice charge. Indeed, how can employers safely discuss their offers together even before a bargaining impasse occurs? A preimpasse discussion about, say, the practical advantages or disadvantages of a particular proposal invites a later antitrust claim that they agreed to limit the kinds of action each would later take should an impasse occur. The same is true of postimpasse discussions aimed at renewed negotiations with the union. Nor would adherence to the terms of an expired collective-bargaining agreement eliminate a potentially plausible antitrust claim charging that they had “conspired’' or tacitly “agreed” to do so, particularly if maintaining the status quo were not in the immediate economic self-interest of some. Cf. Interstate Circuit, supra, at 222-223; 6 Areeda, supra, ¶ 1425. All this is to say that to permit antitrust liability here threatens to introduce instability and uncertainty into the collective-bargaining process, for antitrust law often forbids or discourages the kinds of joint discussions and behavior that the collective-bargaining process invites or requires.
We do not see any obvious answer to this problem. We recognize, as the Government suggests, that, in principle, antitrust courts might themselves try to evaluate particular kinds of employer understandings, finding them “reasonable” (hence lawful) where justified by collective-bargaining necessity. But any such evaluation means a web of detailed rules spun by many different nonexpert antitrust judges and juries, not a set of labor rules enforced by a single expert administrative body, namely the Board. The labor laws give the Board, not antitrust courts, primary responsibility for policing the collective-bargaining process. And one of their objectives was to take from antitrust courts the authority to determine, through application of the antitrust laws, what is socially or economically desirable collective-bargaining policy. See supra, at 236-237; see also Jewel Tea, 381 U. S., at 716-719 (opinion of Goldberg, J.).
III
Both petitioners and their supporters advance several suggestions for drawing the exemption boundary line short of this case. We shall explain why we find them unsatisfactory.
A
Petitioners claim that the implicit exemption applies only to labor-management agreements — a limitation that they deduce from case law language, see, e. g., Connell, 421 U. S., at 622 (exemption for “some union-employer agreements”) (emphasis added), and from a proposed principle — that the exemption must rest upon labor-management consent. The language, however, reflects only the fact that the cases previously before the Court involved collective-bargaining agreements, see id., at 619—620; Pennington, 381 U. S., at 660; Jewel Tea, supra, at 679-680; the language does not reflect the exemption’s rationale, see 50 F. 3d, at 1050.
Nor do we see how an exemption limited by petitioners’ principle of labor-management consent could work. One cannot mean the principle literally — that the exemption applies only to understandings embodied in a collective-bargaining agreement — for the collective-bargaining process may take place before the making of any agreement or after an agreement has expired. Yet a multiemployer bargaining process itself necessarily involves many procedural and substantive understandings among participating employers as well as with the union. Petitioners cannot rescue their principle by claiming that the exemption applies only insofar as both labor and management consent to those understandings. Often labor will not (and should not) consent to certain common bargaining positions that employers intend to maintain. Cf. Areeda & Hovenkamp, Antitrust Law ¶ 229’d, at 277 (“[J]oint employer preparation and bargaining in the context of a formal multi-employer bargaining unit is clearly exempt”). Similarly, labor need not consent to certain tactics that this Court has approved as part of the multiemployer bargaining process, such as unit-wide lockouts and the use of temporary replacements. See NLRB v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278, 284 (1965); Buffalo Linen, 353 U. S., at 97.
Petitioners cannot save their consent principle by weakening it, as by requiring union consent only to the multi-employer bargaining process itself. This general consent is automatically present whenever multiemployer bargaining takes place. See Hi-Way Billboards, Inc., 206 N. L. R. B. 22 (1973) (multiemployer unit “based on consent” and “established by an unequivocal agreement by the parties”), enf. denied on other grounds, 500 F. 2d 181 (CA5 1974); Weyerhaeuser Co., 166 N. L. R. B. 299, 299-300 (1967). As so weakened, the principle cannot help decide which related practices are, or are not, subject to antitrust immunity.
B
The Government argues that the exemption should terminate at the point of impasse. After impasse, it says, “employers no longer have a duty under the labor laws to maintain the status quo,” and “are free as a matter of labor law to negotiate individual arrangements on an interim basis with the union.” Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 17.
Employers, however, are not completely free at impasse to act independently. The multiemployer bargaining unit ordinarily remains intact; individual employers cannot withdraw. Bonanno Linen, 454 U. S., at 410-413. The duty to bargain survives; employers must stand ready to resume collective bargaining. See, e.g., Worldwide Detective Bureau, 296 N. L. R. B. 148, 155 (1989); Hi-Way Billboards, Inc., supra, at 23. And individual employers can negotiate individual interim agreements with the union only insofar as those agreements are consistent with “the duty to abide by the results of group bargaining.” Bonanno Linen, supra, at 416. Regardless, the absence of a legal “duty” to act jointly is not determinative. This Court has implied antitrust immunities that extend beyond statutorily required joint action to joint action that a statute “expressly or impliedly allows or assumes must also be immune.” 1 P. Areeda & D. Turner, Antitrust Law ¶ 224, p. 145 (1978); see, e. g., Gordon v. New York Stock Exchange, Inc., 422 U. S. 659, 682-691 (1975) (immunizing application of joint rule that securities law permitted, but did not require); United States v. National Assn. of Securities Dealers, Inc., 422 U. S. 694, 720-730 (1975) (same).
More importantly, the simple “impasse” line would not solve the basic problem we have described above. Supra, at 241-242. Labor law permits employers, after impasse, to engage in considerable joint behavior, including joint lockouts and replacement hiring. See, e. g., Brown, supra, at 289 (hiring of temporary replacement workers after lockout was “reasonably adapted to the achievement of a legitimate end — preserving the integrity of the multiemployer bargaining unit”). Indeed, as a general matter, labor law often limits employers to four options at impasse: (1) maintain the status quo, (2) implement their last offer, (3) lock out their workers (and either shut down or hire temporary replacements), or (4) negotiate separate interim agreements with the union. See generally 1 Hardin, The Developing Labor Law, at 516-520, 696-699. What is to happen if the parties cannot reach an interim agreement? The other alternatives are limited. Uniform employer conduct is likely. Uniformity — at least when accompanied by discussion of the matter— invites antitrust attack. And such attack would ask antitrust courts to decide the lawfulness of activities intimately related to the bargaining process.
The problem is aggravated by the fact that “impasse” is often temporary, see Bonanno Linen, supra, at 412 (approving Board’s view of impasse as “a recurring feature in the bargaining process,... a temporary deadlock or hiatus in negotiations which in almost all cases is eventually broken, through either a change of mind or the application of economic force”) (internal quotation marks omitted); W. Simkin & N. Fidandis, Mediation and the Dynamics of Collective Bargaining 139-140 (2d ed. 1986); it may differ from bargaining only in degree, see 1 Hardin, supra, at 691-696; Taft Broadcasting Co., 163 N. L. R. B., at 478; it may be manipulated by the parties for bargaining purposes, see Bonanno Linen, supra, at 413, n. 8 (parties might, for strategic purposes, “precipitate an impasse”); and it may occur several times during the course of a single labor dispute, since the bargaining process is not over when the first impasse is reached, cf. J. Bartlett, Familiar Quotations 754:8 (16th ed. 1992). How are employers to discuss future bargaining positions during a temporary impasse? Consider, too, the adverse consequences that flow from failing to guess how an antitrust court would later draw the impasse line. Employers who erroneously concluded that impasse had not been reached would risk antitrust liability were they collectively to maintain the status quo, while employers who erroneously concluded that impasse had occurred would risk unfair labor practice charges for prematurely suspending multiemployer negotiations.
The United States responds with suggestions for softening an “impasse” rule by extending the exemption after impasse “for such time as would be reasonable in the circumstances” for employers to consult with counsel, confirm that impasse has occurred, and adjust their business operations, Brief for United States et al. as Amici Curiae 24; by reestablishing the exemption once there is a “resumption of good-faith bargaining,” id., at 18, n. 5; and by looking to antitrust law’s “rule of reason” to shield — “in some circumstances”— such joint actions as the unit-wide lockout or the concerted maintenance of previously established joint benefit or retirement plans, ibid. But even as so modified, the impasse-related rule creates an exemption that can evaporate in the middle of the bargaining process, leaving later antitrust courts free to second-guess the parties’ bargaining decisions and consequently forcing them to choose their collective-bargaining responses in light of what they predict or fear that antitrust courts, not labor law administrators, will eventually decide. Cf. Dallas General Drivers, Warehousemen and Helpers, Local Union No. 74 v. NLRB, 355 F. 2d 842, 844-845 (CADC 1966) (“The problem of deciding when further bargaining... is futile is often difficult for the bargainers and is necessarily so for the Board. But in the whole complex of industrial relations few issues are less suited to appellate judicial appraisal... or better suited to the expert experience of a board which deals constantly with such problems”).
C
Petitioners and their supporters argue in the alternative for a rule that would exempt postimpasse agreement about bargaining “tactics,” but not postimpasse agreement about substantive “terms,” from the reach of antitrust. See 50 F. 3d, at 1066-1069 (Wald, J., dissenting). They recognize, however, that both the Board and the courts have said that employers can, and often do, employ the imposition of “terms” as a bargaining “tactic.” See, e. g., American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 316 (1965); Colorado-Ute Elec. Assn., Inc. v. NLRB, 939 F. 2d 1392, 1404 (CA10 1991), cert. denied, 504 U. S. 955 (1992); Circuit-Wise, Inc., 309 N. L. R. B. 905, 921 (1992); Hi-Way Billboards, 206 N. L. R. B., at 23; Bonanno Linen, 243 N. L. R. B., at 1094. This concession as to joint “tactical” implementation would turn the presence of an antitrust exemption upon a determination of the employers’ primary purpose or motive. See, e. g., 50 F. 3d, at 1069 (Wald, J., dissenting). But to ask antitrust courts, insulated from the bargaining process, to investigate an employer group’s subjective motive is to ask them to conduct an inquiry often more amorphous than those we have previously discussed. And, in our view, a labor/ antitrust line drawn on such a basis would too often raise the same related (previously discussed) problems. See supra, at 237, 241-242; Jewel Tea, 381 U. S., at 716 (opinion of Goldberg, J.) (expressing concern about antitrust judges “roaming at large” through the bargaining process).
D
Petitioners make several other arguments. They point, for example, to cases holding applicable, in collective-bargaining contexts, general “backdrop” statutes, such as a state statute requiring a plant-closing employer to make employee severance payments, Fort Halifax Packing Co. v. Coyne, 482 U. S. 1 (1987), and a state statute mandating certain minimum health benefits, Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724 (1985). Those statutes, however, “ ‘neither encourage[d] nor discourage[d] the collective-bargaining processes that are the subject of the [federal labor laws].’” Fort Halifax, supra, at 21 (quoting Metropolitan Life, supra, at 755). Neither did those statutes come accompanied with antitrust’s labor-related history. Cf. Oliver, 358 U. S., at 295-297 (state antitrust law interferes with collective bargaining and is not applicable to labor-management agreement).
Petitioners also say that irrespective of how the labor exemption applies elsewhere to multiemployer collective bargaining, professional sports is “special.” We can understand how professional sports may be special in terms of, say, interest, excitement, or concern. But we do not understand how they are special in respect to labor law’s antitrust exemption. We concede that the clubs that make up a professional sports league are not completely independent economic competitors, as they depend upon a degree of cooperation for economic survival. National Collegiate Athletic Assn. v. Board of Regents of Univ. of Okla., 468 U. S. 85, 101-102 (1984); App. 110-115 (declaration of NFL Commissioner). In the present context, however, that circumstance makes the league more like a single bargaining employer, which analogy seems irrelevant to the legal issue before us.
We also concede that football players often have special individual talents, and, unlike many unionized workers, they often negotiate their pay individually with their employers. See 'post, at 255 (Stevens, J., dissenting). But this characteristic seems simply a feature, like so many others, that might give employees (or employers) more (or less) bargaining power, that might lead some (or all) of them to favor a particular kind of bargaining, or that might lead to certain demands at the bargaining table. We do not see how it could make a critical legal difference in determining the underlying framework in which bargaining is to take place. See generally Jacobs & Winter, Antitrust Principles and Collective Bargaining by Athletes: Of Superstars in Peonage, 81 Yale L. J. 1 (1971). Indeed, it would be odd to fashion an antitrust exemption that gave additional advantages to professional football players (by virtue of their superior bargaining power) that transport workers, coal miners, or meat packers would not enjoy.
The dissent points to other “unique features” of the parties’ collective-bargaining relationship, which, in the dissent’s view, make the case “atypical.” Post, at 255. It says, for example, that the employers imposed the restraint simply to enforce compliance with league-wide rules, and that the bargaining consisted of nothing more than the sending of a “notice,” and therefore amounted only to “so-called” bargaining. Post, at 256-257. Insofar as these features underlie an argument for looking to the employers’ true purpose, we have already discussed them. See supra, at 247-248. Insofar as they suggest that there was not a genuine impasse, they fight the basic assumption upon which the District Court
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case we must decide whether the act of state doctrine bars a court in the United States from entertaining a cause of action that does not rest upon the asserted invalidity of an official act of a foreign sovereign, but that does require imputing to foreign officials an unlawful motivation (the obtaining of bribes) in the performance of such an official act.
I
The facts as alleged in respondent s complaint are as follows: In 1981, Harry Carpenter, who was then chairman of the board and chief executive officer of petitioner W. S. Kirkpatrick & Co., Inc. (Kirkpatrick), learned that the Republic of Nigeria was interested in contracting for the construction and equipment of an aeromedical center at Kaduna Air Force Base in Nigeria. He made arrangements with Benson “Tunde” Atóndele, a Nigerian citizen, whereby Akindele would endeavor to secure the contract for Kirkpatrick. It was agreed that, in the event the contract was awarded to Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick would pay to two Panamanian entities controlled by Akindele a “commission” equal to 20% of the contract price, which would in turn be given as a bribe to officials of the Nigerian Government. In accordance with this plan, the contract was awarded to petitioner W. S. Kirkpatrick & Co., International (Kirkpatrick International), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kirkpatrick; Kirkpatrick paid the promised “commission” to the appointed Panamanian entities; and those funds were disbursed as bribes. All parties agree that Nigerian law prohibits both the payment and the receipt of bribes in connection with the award of a government contract.
Respondent Environmental Tectonics Corporation, International, an unsuccessful bidder for the Kaduna contract, learned of the 20% “commission” and brought the matter to the attention of the Nigerian Air Force and the United States Embassy in Lagos. Following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey brought charges against both Kirkpatrick and Carpenter for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, 91 Stat. 1495, as amended, 15 U. S. C. §78dd-l et seq., and both pleaded guilty.
Respondent then brought this civil action in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey against Carpenter, Akindele, petitioners, and others, seeking damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U. S. C. §1961 et seq., the Robinson-Patman Act, 49 Stat. 1526, 15 U. S. C. § 13 et seq., and the New Jersey Anti-Racketeering Act, N. J. Stat. Ann. § 2C:41-2 et seq. (West 1982). The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on the ground that the action was barred by the act of state doctrine.
The District Court, having requested and received a letter expressing the views of the legal adviser to the United States Department of State as to the applicability of the act of state doctrine, treated the motion as one for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and granted the motion. 659 F. Supp. 1381 (1987). The District Court concluded that the act of state doctrine applies “if the inquiry presented for judicial determination includes the motivation of a sovereign act which would result in embarrassment to the sovereign or constitute interference in the conduct of foreign policy of the United States.” Id., at 1392-1393 (citing Clayco Petroleum Corp. v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 712 F. 2d 404, 407 (CA9 1983)). Applying that principle to the facts at hand, the court held that respondent’s suit had to be dismissed because in order to prevail respondent would have to show that “the defendants or certain of them intended to wrongfully influence the decision to award the Nigerian Contract by payment of a bribe, that the Government of Nigeria, its officials or other representatives knew of the offered consideration for awarding the Nigerian Contract to Kirkpatrick, that the bribe was actually received or anticipated and that ‘but for’ the payment or anticipation of the payment of the bribe, ETC would have been awarded the Nigerian Contract.” 659 F. Supp., at 1393 (footnote omitted).
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reversed. 847 F. 2d 1052 (1988). Although agreeing with the District Court that “the award of a military procurement contract can be, in certain circumstances, a sufficiently formal expression of a government’s public interests to trigger application” of the act of state doctrine, id., at 1058, it found application of the doctrine unwarranted on the facts of this case. The Court of Appeals found particularly persuasive the letter to the District Court from the legal adviser to the Department of State, which had stated that in the opinion of the Department judicial inquiry into the purpose behind the act of a foreign sovereign would not produce the “unique embarrassment, and the particular interference with the conduct of foreign affairs, that may result from the judicial determination that a foreign sovereign’s acts are invalid.” Id., at 1061. The Court of Appeals acknowledged that “the Department’s legal conclusions as to the reach of the act of state doctrine are not controlling on the courts,” but concluded that “the Department’s factual assessment of whether fulfillment of its responsibilities will be prejudiced by the course of civil litigation is entitled to substantial respect.” Id., at 1062. In light of the Department’s view that the interests of the Executive Branch would not be harmed by prosecution of the action, the Court of Appeals held that Kirkpatrick had not met its burden of showing that the case should not go forward; accordingly, it reversed the judgment of the District Court and remanded the case for trial. Id., at 1067. We granted cer-tiorari, 492 U. S. 905 (1989).
II
This Court’s description of the jurisprudential foundation for the act of state doctrine has undergone some evolution over the years. We once viewed the doctrine as an expression of international law, resting upon “the highest considerations of international comity and expediency,” Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., 246 U. S. 297, 303-304 (1918). We have more recently described it, however, as a consequence of domestic separation of powers, reflecting “the strong sense of the Judicial Branch that its engagement in the task of passing on the validity of foreign acts of state may hinder” the conduct of foreign affairs, Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U. S. 398, 423 (1964). Some Justices have suggested possible exceptions to application of the doctrine, where one or both of the foregoing policies would seemingly not be served: an exception, for example, for acts of state that consist of commercial transactions, since neither modern international comity nor the current position of our Executive Branch accorded sovereign immunity to such acts, see Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba, 425 U. S. 682, 695-706 (1976) (opinion of White, J.); or an exception for cases in which the Executive Branch has represented that it has no objection to denying validity to the foreign sovereign act, since then the courts would be impeding no foreign policy goals, see First National City Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba, 406 U. S. 759, 768-770 (1972) (opinion of Rehnquist, J.).
The parties have argued at length about the applicability of these possible exceptions, and, more generally, about whether the purpose of the act of state doctrine would be furthered by its application in this case. We find it unnecessary, however, to pursue those inquiries, since the factual predicate for application of the act of state doctrine does not exist. Nothing in the present suit requires the Court to declare invalid, and thus ineffective as “a rule of decision for the courts of this country,” Ricaud v. American Metal Co., 246 U. S. 304, 310 (1918), the official act of a foreign sovereign.
In every case in which we have held the act of state doctrine applicable, the relief sought or the defense interposed would have required a court in the United States to declare invalid the official act of a foreign sovereign performed within its own territory. In Underhill v. Hernandez, 168 U. S. 250, 254 (1897), holding the defendant’s detention of the plaintiff to be tortious would have required denying legal effect to “acts of a military commander representing the authority of the revolutionary party as government, which afterwards succeeded and was recognized by the United States.” In Oetjen v. Central Leather Co., supra, and in Ricaud v. American Metal Co., supra, denying title to the party who claimed through purchase from Mexico would have required declaring that government’s prior seizure of the property, within its own territory, legally ineffective. See Oetjen, supra, at 304; Ricaud, supra, at 310. In Sabbatino, upholding the defendant’s claim to the funds would have required a holding that Cuba’s expropriation of goods located in Havana was null and void. In the present case, by contrast, neither the claim nor any asserted defense requires a determination that Nigeria’s contract with Kirkpatrick International was, or was not, effective.
Petitioners point out, however, that the facts necessary to establish respondent’s claim will also establish that the contract was unlawful. Specifically, they note that in order to prevail respondent must prove that petitioner Kirkpatrick made, and Nigerian officials received, payments that violate Nigerian law, which would, they assert, support a finding that the contract is invalid under Nigerian law. Assuming that to be true, it still does not suffice. The act of state doctrine is not some vague doctrine of abstention but a “principle of decision binding on federal and state courts alike.” Sabbatino, supra, at 427 (emphasis added). As we said in Ricaud, “the act within its own boundaries of one sovereign State . . . becomes ... a rule of decision for the courts of this country.” 246 U. S., at 310. Act of state issues only arise when a court must decide — that is, when the outcome of the case turns upon — the effect of official action by a foreign sovereign. When that question is not in the case, neither is the act of state doctrine. That is the situation here. Regardless of what the court’s factual findings may suggest as to the legality of the Nigerian contract, its legality is simply not a question to be decided in the present suit, and there is thus no occasion to apply the rule of decision that the act of state doctrine requires. Cf. Sharon v. Time, Inc., 599 F. Supp. 538, 546 (SDNY 1984) (“The issue in this litigation is not whether [the alleged] acts are valid, but whether they occurred”).
In support of their position that the act of state doctrine bars any factual findings that may cast doubt upon the validity of foreign sovereign acts, petitioners cite Justice Holmes’ opinion for the Court in American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347 (1909). That was a suit under the United States antitrust laws, alleging that Costa Rica’s seizure of the plaintiff’s property had been induced by an unlawful conspiracy. In the course of a lengthy opinion Justice Holmes observed, citing Underhill, that “a seizure by a state is not a thing that can be complained of elsewhere in the courts.” 213 U. S., at 357-358. The statement is conced-edly puzzling. Underhill does indeed stand for the proposition that a seizure by a state cannot be complained of elsewhere — in the sense of being sought to be declared ineffective elsewhere. The plaintiff in American Banana, however, like the plaintiff here, was not trying to undo or disregard the governmental action, but only to obtain damages from private parties who had procured it. Arguably, then, the statement did imply that suit would not lie if a foreign state’s actions would be, though not invalidated, impugned.
Whatever Justice Holmes may have had in mind, his statement lends inadequate support to petitioners’ position here, for two reasons. First, it was a brief aside, entirely unnecessary to the decision. American Banana was squarely decided on the ground (later substantially overruled, see Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Corp., 370 U. S. 690, 704-705 (1962)) that the antitrust laws had no extraterritorial application, so that “what the defendant did in Panama or Costa Rica is not within the scope of the statute.” 213 U. S., at 357. Second, whatever support the dictum might provide for petitioners’ position is more than overcome by our later holding in United States v. Sisal Sales Corp., 274 U. S. 268 (1927). There we held that, American Banana notwithstanding, the defendant’s actions in obtaining Mexico’s enactment of “discriminating legislation” could form part of the basis for suit under the United States antitrust laws. 274 U. S., at 276. Simply put, American Banana was not an act of state case; and whatever it said by way of dictum that might be relevant to the present case has not survived Sisal Sales.
Petitioners insist, however, that the policies underlying our act of state cases — international comity, respect for the sovereignty of foreign nations on their own territory, and the avoidance of embarrassment to the Executive Branch in its conduct of foreign relations — are implicated in the present case because, as the District Court found, a determination that Nigerian officials demanded and accepted a bribe “would impugn or question the nobility of a foreign nation’s motivations,” and would “result in embarrassment to the sovereign or constitute interference in the conduct of foreign policy of the United States.” 659 F. Supp., at 1392-1393. The United States, as amicus curiae, favors the same approach to the act of state doctrine, though disagreeing with petitioners as to the outcome it produces in the present case. We should not, the United States urges, “attach dispositive significance to the fact that this suit involves only the ‘motivation’ for, rather than the ‘validity’ of, a foreign sovereign act,” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 37, and should eschew “any rigid formula for the resolution of act of state cases generally,” id., at 9. In some future case, perhaps, “litigation . . . based on alleged corruption in the award of contracts or other commercially oriented activities of foreign governments could sufficiently touch on ‘national nerves’ that the act of state doctrine or related principles of abstention would appropriately be found to bar the suit,” id., at 40 (quoting Sabbatino, 376 U. S., at 428), and we should therefore resolve this case on the narrowest possible ground, viz., that the letter from the legal adviser to the District Court gives sufficient indication that, “in the setting of this case,” the act of state doctrine poses no bar to adjudication, ibid
These urgings are deceptively similar to what we said in Sabbatino, where we observed that sometimes, even though the validity of the act of a foreign sovereign within its own territory is called into question, the policies underlying the act of state doctrine may not justify its application. We suggested that a sort of balancing approach could be applied— the balance shifting against application of the doctrine, for example, if the government that committed the “challenged act of state” is no longer in existence. 376 U. S., at 428. But what is appropriate in order to avoid unquestioning judicial acceptance of the acts of foreign sovereigns is not similarly appropriate for the quite opposite purpose of expanding judicial incapacities where such acts are not directly (or even indirectly) involved. It is one thing to suggest, as we have, that the policies underlying the act of state doctrine should be considered in deciding whether, despite the doctrine’s technical availability, it should nonetheless not be invoked; it is something quite different to suggest that those underlying policies are a doctrine unto themselves, justifying expansion of the act of state doctrine (or, as the United States puts it, unspecified “related principles of abstention”) into new and uncharted fields.
The short of the matter is this: Courts in the United States have the power, and ordinarily the obligation, to decide cases and controversies properly presented to them. The act of state doctrine does not establish an exception for cases and controversies that may embarrass foreign governments, but merely requires that, in the process of deciding, the acts of foreign sovereigns taken within their own jurisdictions shall be deemed valid. That doctrine has no application to the present case because the validity of no foreign sovereign act is at issue.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Even if we agreed with the Government’s fundamental approach, we would question its characterization of the legal adviser’s letter as reflecting the absence of any policy objection to the adjudication. The letter, which is reprinted as an appendix to the opinion of the Court of Appeals, see 847 F. 2d 1052,1067-1069 (CA3 1988), did not purport to say whether the State Department would like the suit to proceed, but rather responded (correctly, as we hold today) to the question whether the act of state doctrine was applicable.
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.
This case presents the question whether a party who has had issues of fact adjudicated adversely to it in an equitable action may be collaterally estopped from relitigating the same issues before a jury in a subsequent legal action brought against it by a new party.
The respondent brought this stockholder’s class action against the petitioners in a Federal District Court. The complaint alleged that the petitioners, Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. (Parklane), and 13 of its officers, directors, and stockholders, had issued a materially false and misleading proxy statement in connection with a merger. The proxy statement, according to the complaint, had violated §§ 14 (a), 10 (b), and 20 (a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 895, 891, 899, as amended, 15 U. S. C.. §§ 78n (a), 78j (b), and 78t (a), as well as various rules and regulations promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The complaint sought damages, rescission of the merger, and recovery of costs.
Before this action came to trial, the SEC filed suit against the same defendants in the Federal District Court, alleging that the proxy statement that had been issued by Parklane was materially false and misleading in essentially the same respects as those that had been alleged in the respondent’s complaint. Injunctive relief was requested. After a 4-day trial, the District Court found that the proxy statement was materially false and misleading in the respects alleged, and entered a declaratory judgment to that effect. SEC v. Parklane Hosiery Co., 422 F. Supp. 477. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this judgment. 558 F. 2d 1083.
The respondent in the present case then moved for partial summary judgment against the petitioners, asserting that the petitioners were collaterally estopped from relitigating the issues that had been resolved against them in the action brought by the SEC. The District Court denied the motion on the ground that such an application of collateral estoppel would deny the petitioners their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that a party who has had issues of fact determined against him after a full and fair opportunity to litigate in a non jury trial is collaterally estopped from obtaining a subsequent jury trial of these same issues of fact. 565 F. 2d 815. The appellate court concluded that “the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to jury trial only with respect to issues of fact, [and] once those issues have been fully and fairly adjudicated in a prior proceeding, nothing remains for trial, either with or without a jury.” Id., at 8.19. Because of an intercircuit conflict, we granted certiorari. 435 U. S. 1006.
I
The threshold question to be considered is whether, quite apart from the right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment, the petitioners can be precluded from relitigating facts resolved adversely to them in a prior equitable proceeding with another party under the general law of collateral estop-pel. Specifically, we must determine whether a litigant who was not a party to a prior judgment may nevertheless use that judgment “offensively” to prevent a defendant from relitigat-ing issues resolved in the earlier proceeding.
A
Collateral estoppel, like the related doctrine of res judicata, has the dual purpose of protecting litigants from the burden of relitigating an identical issue with the same party or his privy and of promoting judicial economy by preventing needless litigation. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 328-329. Until relatively recently, however, the scope of collateral estoppel was limited by the doctrine of mutuality of parties. Under this mutuality doctrine, neither party could use a prior judgment as an estoppel against the other unless both parties were bound by the judgment. Based on the premise that it is somehow unfair to allow a party to use a prior judgment when he himself would not be so bound, the mutuality requirement provided a party who had litigated and lost in a previous action an opportunity to relitigate identical issues with new parties.
By failing to recognize the obvious difference in position between a party who has never litigated an issue and one who has fully litigated and lost, the mutuality requirement was criticized almost from its inception. Recognizing the validity of this criticism, the Court in Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, supra, abandoned the mutuality requirement, at least in cases where a patentee seeks to relitigate the validity of a patent after a federal court in a previous lawsuit has already declared it invalid. The “broader question” before the Court, however, was “whether it is any longer tenable to afford a litigant more than one full and fair opportunity for judicial resolution of the same issue.” 402 U. S., at 328. The Court strongly suggested a negative answer to that question:
“In any lawsuit where a defendant, because of the mutuality principle, is forced to present a complete defense on the merits to a claim which the plaintiff has fully litigated and lost in a prior action, there is an arguable misallocation of resources. To the extent the defendant in the second suit may not win by asserting, without contradiction, that the plaintiff had fully and fairly, but unsuccessfully, litigated the same claim in the prior suit, the defendant’s time and money are diverted from alternative uses — productive or otherwise — to relitigation of a decided issue. And, still assuming that the issue was resolved correctly in the first suit, there is reason to be concerned about the plaintiff’s allocation of resources. Permitting repeated litigation of the same issue as long as the supply of unrelated defendants holds out reflects either the aura of the gaming table or 'a lack of discipline and of disinterestedness on the part of the lower courts, hardly a worthy or wise basis for fashioning rules of procedure.’ Kerotest Mfg. Co. v. C-O-Two Co., 342 U. S. 180, 185 (1952). Although neither judges, the parties, nor the adversary system performs perfectly in all cases, the requirement of determining whether the party against whom an estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate is a most significant safeguard.” Id., at 329.
B
The Blonder-Tongue case involved defensive use of collateral estoppel — a plaintiff was estopped from asserting a claim that the plaintiff had previously litigated and lost against another defendant. The present case, by contrast, involves offensive use of collateral estoppel — a plaintiff is seeking to estop a defendant from relitigating the issues which the defendant previously litigated and lost against another plaintiff. In both the offensive and defensive use situations, the party against whom estoppel is asserted has litigated and lost in an earlier action. Nevertheless, several reasons have been advanced why the two situations should be treated differently.
First, offensive use of collateral estoppel does not promote judicial economy in the same manner as defensive use does. Defensive use of collateral estoppel precludes a plaintiff from relitigating identical issues by merely “switching adversaries.” Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Savings Assn., 19 Cal. 2d, at 813, 122 P. 2d, at 895. Thus defensive collateral estoppel gives a plaintiff a strong incentive to join all potential defendants in the first action if possible. Offensive use of collateral estoppel, on the other hand, creates precisely the opposite incentive. Since a plaintiff will be able to rely on a previous judgment against a defendant but will not be bound by that judgment if the defendant wins, the plaintiff has every incentive to adopt a “wait and see” attitude, in the hope that the first action by another plaintiff will result in a favorable judgment. E. g., Nevarov v. Caldwell, 161 Cal. App. 2d 762, 767-768, 327 P. 2d 111, 116; Reardon v. Allen, 88 N. J. Super. 560, 571-572, 213 A. 2d 26, 32. Thus offensive use of collateral estoppel will likely increase rather than decrease the total amount of litigation, since potential plaintiffs will have everything to gain and nothing to lose by not intervening in the first action.
A second argument against offensive use of collateral estop-pel is that it may be unfair to a defendant. If a defendant in the first action is sued for small or nominal damages, he may have little incentive to defend vigorously, particularly if future suits are not foreseeable. The Evergreens v. Nunan, 141 F. 2d 927, 929 (CA2); cf. Berner v. British Commonwealth Pac. Airlines, 346 F. 2d 532 (CA2) (application of offensive collateral estoppel denied where defendant did not appeal an adverse judgment awarding damages of $35,000 and defendant was later sued for over $7 million). Allowing offensive collateral estoppel may also be unfair to a' defendant if the judgment relied upon as a basis for the estoppel is itself inconsistent with one or more previous judgments in favor of the defendant. Still another situation where it might be unfair to apply offensive estoppel is where the second action affords the defendant procedural opportunities unavailable in the first action that could readily cause a different result.
C
We have concluded that the preferable approach for dealing with these problems in the federal courts is not to preclude the use of offensive collateral estoppel, but to grant trial courts broad discretion to determine when it should be applied. The general rule should be that in cases where a plaintiff could easily have joined in the earlier action or where, either for the reasons discussed above or for other reasons, the application of offensive estoppel would be unfair to a defendant, a trial judge should not allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel.
In the present case, however, none of the circumstances that might justify reluctance to allow the offensive use of collateral estoppel is present. The application of offensive collateral estoppel will not here reward a private plaintiff who could have joined in the previous action, since the respondent probably could not have joined in the injunctive action brought by the SEC even had he so desired. Similarly, there is no unfairness to the petitioners in applying offensive collateral estoppel in this case. First, in light of the serious allegations made in the SEC’s complaint against the petitioners, as well as the foreseeability of subsequent private suits that typically follow a successful Government judgment, the petitioners had every incentive to litigate the SEC lawsuit fully and vigorously. Second, the judgment in the SEC action was not inconsistent with any previous decision. Finally, there will in the respondent’s action be no procedural opportunities available to the petitioners that were unavailable in the first action of a •kind that might be likely to cause a different result.
We conclude, therefore, that none of the considerations that would justify a refusal to allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel is present in this case. Since the petitioners received a “full and fair” opportunity to litigate their claims in the SEC action, the contemporary law of collateral estoppel leads inescapably to the conclusion that the petitioners are collaterally estopped from relitigating the question of whether the proxy statement was materially false and misleading.
II
The question that remains is whether, notwithstanding the law of collateral estoppel, the use of offensive collateral estoppel in this case would violate the petitioners’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.
A
“[T]he thrust of the [Seventh] Amendment was to preserve the right to jury trial as it existed in 1791.” Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 193. At common law, a litigant was not entitled to have a jury determine issues that had been previously adjudicated by a chancellor in equity. Hopkins v. Lee, 6 Wheat. 109; Smith v. Kernochen, 7 How. 198, 217-218; Brady v. Daly, 175 U. S. 148, 158-159; Shapiro & Coquillette, The Fetish of Jury Trial in Civil Cases: A Comment on Rachal v. Hill, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 442, 448-458 (1971).
Recognition that an equitable determination could have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action was the major premise of this Court’s decision in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500. In that case the plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment that certain arrangements between it and the defendant were not in violation of the antitrust laws, and asked for an injunction to prevent the defendant from instituting an antitrust action to challenge the arrangements. The defendant denied the allegations .and counterclaimed for treble damages under the antitrust laws, requesting a trial by jury of the issues common to both the legal and equitable claims. The Court of Appeals upheld denial of the request, but this Court reversed, stating:
“[T]he effect of the action of the District Court could be, as the Court of Appeals believed, 'to limit the petitioner’s opportunity fully to try to a jury every issue which has a bearing upon its treble damage suit,’ for determination of the issue of clearances by the judge might ‘operate either by way of res judicata or collateral estoppel so as to conclude both parties with respect thereto at the subsequent trial of the treble damage claim.’ ” Id., at 504.
It is thus clear that the Court in the Beacon Theatres case thought that if an issue common to both legal and equitable claims was first determined by a judge, relitigation of the issue before a jury might be foreclosed by res judicata or collateral estoppel. To avoid this result, the Court held, that when legal and equitable claims are joined in the same action, the trial judge has only limited discretion in determining the sequence of trial and “that discretion . . . must, wherever possible, be exercised to preserve jury trial.” Id., at 510.
Both the premise of Beacon Theatres, and the fact that it enunciated no more than a general prudential rule were confirmed by this Court’s decision in Katchen v. Landy, 382 U. S. 323. In that case the Court held that a bankruptcy court, sitting as a statutory court of equity, is empowered to adjudicate equitable claims prior to legal claims, even though the factual issues decided in the equity action would have been triable by a jury under the Seventh Amendment if the legal claims had been adjudicated first. The Court stated:
“Both Beacon Theatres and Dairy Queen recognize that there might be situations in which the Court could proceed to resolve the equitable claim first even though the results might be dispositive of the issues involved in the legal claim.” Id., at 339.
Thus the Court in Katchen v. Landy recognized that an equitable determination can have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action and that this estoppel does not violate the Seventh Amendment.
B
Despite the strong support to be found both in history and in the recent decisional law of this Court for the proposition that an equitable determination can have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action, the petitioners argue that application of collateral estoppel in this case would nevertheless violate their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The petitioners contend that since the scope of the Amendment must be determined by reference to the common law as it existed in 1791, and since the common law permitted collateral estoppel only where there was mutuality of parties, collateral estoppel cannot constitutionally be applied when such mutuality is absent.
The petitioners have advanced no persuasive reason, however, why the meaning of the Seventh Amendment should depend on whether or not mutuality of parties is present. A litigant who has lost because of adverse factual findings in an equity action is equally deprived of a jury trial whether he is estopped from relitigating the factual issues against the same party or a new party. In either case, the party against whom estoppel is asserted has litigated questions of fact, and has had the facts determined against him in an earlier proceeding. In either case there is no further factfinding function for the jury to perform, since the common factual issues have been resolved in the previous action. Cf. Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300, 310 (“No one is entitled in a civil case to trial by jury unless and except so far as there are issues of fact to be determined”).
The Seventh Amendment has never been interpreted in the rigid manner advocated by the petitioners. On the contrary, many procedural devices developed since 1791 that have diminished the civil jury’s historic domain have been found not to be inconsistent with the Seventh Amendment. See Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 388-393 (directed verdict does not violate the Seventh Amendment); Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U. S. 494, 497-498 (retrial limited to question of damages does not violate the Seventh Amendment even though there was no practice at common law for setting aside a verdict in part); Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. United States, 187 U. S. 315, 319-321 (summary judgment does not violate the Seventh Amendment).
The Galloway case is particularly instructive. There the party against whom a directed verdict had been entered argued that the procedure was unconstitutional under the Seventh Amendment. In rejecting this claim, the Court said:
“The Amendment did not bind the federal courts to the exact procedural incidents or details of jury trial according to the common law in 1791, any more than it tied them to the common-law system of pleading or the specific rules of evidence then prevailing. Nor were 'the rules of the common law’ then prevalent, including those relating to the procedure by which the judge regulated the jury’s role on questions of fact, crystallized in a fixed and immutable system. . . .
“The more logical conclusion, we think, and the one which both history and the previous decisions here support, is that the Amendment was designed to preserve the basic institution of jury trial in only its most fundamental elements, not the great mass of procedural forms and details, varying even then so widely among common-law jurisdictions.” 319 U. S., at 390, 392 (footnote omitted).
The law of collateral estoppel, like the law in other procedural areas defining the scope of the jury’s function, has evolved since 1791. Under the rationale of the Galloway case, these developments are not repugnant to the Seventh Amendment simply for the reason that they did not exist in 1791. Thus if, as we have held, the law of collateral estoppel forecloses the petitioners from relitigating the factual issues determined against them in the SEC action, nothing in the Seventh Amendment dictates a different result, even though because of lack of mutuality there would have been no collateral estoppel in 1791.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is
Affirmed.
The amended complaint alleged that the proxy statement that had been issued to the stockholders was false and misleading because it failed to disclose: (1) that the president of Parklane would financially benefit as a result of the company’s going private; (2) certain ongoing negotiations that could have resulted in financial benefit to Parklane; and (3) that the appraisal of the fair value of Parklane stock was based on insufficient information to be accurate.
A private plaintiff in an action under the proxy rules is not entitled to relief simply by demonstrating that the proxy solicitation was materially false and misleading. The plaintiff must also show that he was injured and prove damages. Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 376, 386-390. Since the SEC action was limited to a determination of whether the proxy statement contained materially false and misleading information, the respondent conceded that he would still have to prove these other elements of his prima facie case in the private action. The petitioners’ right to a jury trial on those remaining issues is not contested.
The position of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is in conflict with that taken by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Rachal v. Hill, 435 F. 2d 59.
In this context, offensive use of collateral estoppel occurs when the plaintiff seeks to foreclose the defendant from litigating an issue the defendant has previously litigated unsuccessfully in an action with another party. Defensive use occurs when a defendant seeks to prevent a plaintiff from asserting a claim the plaintiff has previously litigated and lost against another defendant.
Under the doctrine of res judicata, a judgment on the merits in a prior suit bars a second suit involving the same parties or their privies based on the same cause of action. Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, on the other hand, the second action is upon a different cause of action and the judgment in the prior suit precludes relitigation of issues actually litigated and necessary to the outcome of the first action. IB J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 0.405 [1], pp. 622-624 (2d ed. 1974); e. g., Lawlor v. National Screen Serv. Corp., 349 U. S. 322, 326; Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U. S. 591, 597; Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351, 352-353.
E. g., Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Co., 225 U. S, 111, 127 (“It is a principle of general elementary law that estoppel of a judgment must be mutual”); Buckeye Powder Co. v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours Powder Co., 248 U. S. 55, 63; Restatement of Judgments §93 (1942).
It is a violation of due process for a judgment to be binding on a litigant who was not a party or a privy and therefore has never had an opportunity to be heard. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 329; Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32, 40.
This criticism was summarized in the Court’s opinion in Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, supra, at 332-327. The opinion of Justice Traynor for a unanimous California Supreme Court in Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Savings Assn., 19 Cal. 2d 807, 812, 122 P. 2d 892, 895, made the point succinctly: “No satisfactory rationalization has been advanced for the requirement of mutuality. Just why a party who was not bound by a previous action should be precluded from asserting it as res judicata against a party who was bound by it is difficult to comprehend.”
In Triplett v. Lowell, 297 U. S. 638, the Court had held that a determination of patent invalidity in a prior action did not bar a plaintiff from relitigating the validity of a patent in a subsequent action against a different defendant. This holding of the Triplett case was explicitly overruled in the Blonder-Tongue case.
The Court also emphasized that relitigation of issues previously adjudicated is particularly wasteful in patent cases because of their staggering expense and typical length. 402 U. S., at 334, 348. Under the doctrine of mutuality of parties an alleged infringer might find it cheaper to pay royalties than to challenge a patent that had been declared invalid in a prior suit, since the holder of the patent is entitled to a statutory presumption of validity. Id., at 338.
Various commentators have expressed reservations regarding the application of offensive collateral estoppel. Currie, Mutuality of Estoppel: Limits of the Bernhard Doctrine, 9 Stan. L. Rev. 281 (1957); Semmel, Collateral Estoppel, Mutuality and Joinder of Parties, 68 Colum. L. Rev. 1457 (1968); Note, The Impacts of Defensive and Offensive Assertion of Collateral Estoppel by a Nonparty, 35 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1010 (1967). Professor Currie later tempered his reservations. Civil Procedure: The Tempest Brews, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 25 (1965).
Under the mutuality requirement, a plaintiff could accomplish this result since he would not have been bound by the judgment had the original defendant won.
The Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 88 (3) (Tent. Draft No. 2, Apr. 15, 1975) provides that application of collateral estoppel may be denied if the party asserting it “could have effected joinder in the first action between himself and his present adversary.”
In Professor Currie's familiar example, a railroad collision injures 50 passengers all of whom bring separate actions against the railroad. After the railroad wins the first 25 suits, a plaintiff wins in suit 26. Professor Currie argues that offensive use of collateral estoppel should not be applied so as to allow plaintiffs 27 through 50 automatically to recover. Currie, supra, 9 Stan. L. Rev., at 304. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments §88 (4), supra.
If, for example, the defendant in the first action was forced to defend in an inconvenient forum and therefore was unable to engage in full scale discovery or call witnesses, application of offensive collateral estoppel may be unwarranted. Indeed, differences in available procedures may sometimes justify not allowing a prior judgment to have estoppel effect in a subsequent action even between the same parties, or where defensive estoppel is asserted against a plaintiff who has litigated and lost. The problem of unfairness is particularly acute in eases of offensive estoppel, however, because the defendant against whom estoppel is asserted typically will not have chosen the forum in the first action. See, id., § 88 (2) and Comment d.
This is essentially the approach of id., § 88, which recognizes that “the distinct trend if not the clear weight of recent authority is to the effect that there is no intrinsic difference between 'offensive’ as distinct from 'defensive’ issue preclusion, although a stronger showing that the prior opportunity to litigate was adequate may be required in the former situation than the latter.” Id., Reporter’s Note, at 99.
SEC v. Everest Management Corp., 475 F. 2d 1236, 1240 (CA2) (“[T]he complicating effect of the additional issues and the additional parties outweighs any advantage of a single disposition of the common issues”). Moreover, consolidation of a private action with one brought by the SEC without its consent is prohibited by statute. 15 U. S. C. § 78u (g).
After a 4-day trial in which the petitioners had every opportunity to present evidence and call witnesses, the District Court held for the SEC. The petitioners then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which affirmed the judgment against them. Moreover, the petitioners were already aware of the action brought by the respondent, since it had commenced before the filing of the SEC action.
It is true, of course, that the petitioners in the present action would be entitled to a jury trial of the issues bearing on whether the proxy statement was materially false and misleading had the SEC action never been brought — a matter to be discussed in Part II of this opinion. But the presence or absence of a jury as factfinder is basically neutral, quite unlike, for example, the necessity of defending the first lawsuit in an inconvenient forum.
The Seventh Amendment provides: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shaE exceed twenty doEars, the right to jury trial shall be preserved. . .
The authors of this article conclude that the historical sources “indicates that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, determinations in equity were thought to have as much force as determinations at law, and that the possible impact on jury trial rights was not viewed with concern. ... If coEateral estoppel is otherwise warranted, the jury trial question should not stand in the way.” 85 Harv. L. Rev., at 455-456. This common-law rule is adopted in the Restatement of Judgments § 68, Comment j (1942).
Similarly, in both Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469, and Meeker v. Ambassador Oil Cory., 375 U. S. 160, the Court held that legal claims should ordinarily be tried before equitable claims to preserve the right to a jury trial.
The petitioners’ reliance on Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, is misplaced. In the Dimick case the Court held that an increase by the trial judge of the amount of money damages awarded by the jury violated the second clause of the Seventh Amendment, which provides that “no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” Collateral estoppel does not involve the “re-examination” of any fact decided by a jury. On the contrary, the whole premise of collateral estoppel is that once an issue has been resolved in a prior proceeding, there is no further factfinding function to be performed.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals went on to state:
“Were there any doubt about the [question whether the petitioners were entitled to a jury redetermination of the issues otherwise subject to collateral estoppel] it should in any event be resolved against the defendants in this case for the reason that, although they were fully aware of the pendency of the present suit throughout the non-jury trial of the SEC case, they made no effort to protect their right to a jury trial of the damage claims asserted by plaintiffs, either by seeking to expedite trial of the present action or by requesting Judge Duffy, in the exercise of his discretion pursuant to Rule 39 (b), (c), F.R.Civ.P., to order that the issues in the SEC case be tried by a jury or before an advisory jury.” 565 F. 2d, at 821-822. (Footnote omitted.)
The Court of Appeals was mistaken in these suggestions. The petitioners did not have a. right to a jury trial in the equitable injunctive action brought by the SEC. Moreover, an advisory jury, which might have only delayed and complicated that proceeding, would not in any event have been a Seventh Amendment jury. And the petitioners were not in a position to expedite the private action and stay the SEC action. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 provides for prompt enforcement actions by the SEC unhindered by parallel private actions. 15 U. S. C. § 78u (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: | 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.
This appeal arises from the denial of a motion for a preliminary injunction in the District Court. Appellants are several Republican voters, plaintiffs below, who allege that Maryland's Sixth Congressional District was gerrymandered in 2011 for the purpose of retaliating against them for their political views.
In May 2017, six years after the Maryland General Assembly redrew the Sixth District, plaintiffs moved the District Court to enjoin Maryland's election officials from holding congressional elections under the 2011 map. They asserted that "extend[ing] this constitutional offense"-i.e., the alleged gerrymander-"into the 2018 election would be a manifest and irreparable injury." Record in No. 1:13-cv-3233, Doc. 177-1, p. 3. In order to allow time for the creation of a new districting map, plaintiffs urged the District Court to enter a preliminary injunction by August 18, 2017. Id., at 32.
On August 24, 2017, the District Court denied plaintiffs' motion and stayed further proceedings pending this Court's disposition of partisan gerrymandering claims in Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161. 266 F.Supp.3d 799. The District Court found that plaintiffs had failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient to warrant a preliminary injunction. Id., at 808-814. The District Court also held that it was "in no position to award [p]laintiffs the remedy they ... requested on the timetable they ... demanded." Id., at 815. The court explained that, notwithstanding its "diligence in ruling on the pending preliminary injunction motion (which has been a priority for each member of this panel)," plaintiffs' proposed August deadline for injunctive relief had "already come and gone." Ibid.
In addition, the District Court emphasized that it was concerned about "measuring the legality and constitutionality of any redistricting plan in Maryland ... according to the proper legal standard." Id., at 816. In the District Court's view, it would be "better equipped to make that legal determination and to chart a wise course for further proceedings" after this Court issued a decision in Gill . Ibid. Plaintiffs ask this Court to vacate the District Court's order and remand for further consideration of whether a preliminary injunction is appropriate.
We now note our jurisdiction and review the District Court's decision for an abuse of discretion, keeping in mind that a preliminary injunction is "an extraordinary remedy never awarded as of right." Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 24, 129 S.Ct. 365, 172 L.Ed.2d 249 (2008). As a matter of equitable discretion, a preliminary injunction does not follow as a matter of course from a plaintiff's showing of a likelihood of success on the merits. See id., at 32, 129 S.Ct. 365. Rather, a court must also consider whether the movant has shown "that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest." Id., at 20, 129 S.Ct. 365.
Plaintiffs made no such showing below. Even if we assume-contrary to the findings of the District Court-that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claims, the balance of equities and the public interest tilted against their request for a preliminary injunction.
First, a party requesting a preliminary injunction must generally show reasonable diligence. Cf. Holmberg v. Armbrecht, 327 U.S. 392, 396, 66 S.Ct. 582, 90 L.Ed. 743 (1946). That is as true in election law cases as elsewhere. See Lucas v. Townsend, 486 U.S. 1301, 1305, 108 S.Ct. 1763, 100 L.Ed.2d 589 (1988) (KENNEDY, J., in chambers); Fishman v. Schaffer, 429 U.S. 1325, 1330, 97 S.Ct. 14, 50 L.Ed.2d 56 (1976) (Marshall, J., in chambers). In this case, appellants did not move for a preliminary injunction in the District Court until six years, and three general elections, after the 2011 map was adopted, and over three years after the plaintiffs' first complaint was filed.
Plaintiffs argue that they have nevertheless pursued their claims diligently, and they attribute their delay in seeking a preliminary injunction to the "convoluted procedural history of the case" and the "dogged refusal to cooperate in discovery" by state officials. Reply Brief 22. Yet the record suggests that the delay largely arose from a circumstance within plaintiffs' control: namely, their failure to plead the claims giving rise to their request for preliminary injunctive relief until 2016. Although one of the seven plaintiffs before us filed a complaint in 2013 alleging that Maryland's congressional map was an unconstitutional gerrymander, that initial complaint did not present the retaliation theory asserted here. See Amended Complaint, Doc. 11, p. 3 (Dec. 2, 2013) (explaining that the gerrymandering claim did not turn upon "the reason or intent of the legislature" in adopting the map).
It was not until 2016 that the remaining plaintiffs joined the case and filed an amended complaint alleging that Maryland officials intentionally retaliated against them because of their political views. See 3 App. 640-643. Plaintiffs' newly presented claims-unlike the gerrymandering claim presented in the 2013 complaint-required discovery into the motives of the officials who produced the 2011 congressional map. See, e.g., Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion to Compel, Doc. 111-1, p. 3 (Jan. 4, 2017) (describing plaintiffs' demand that various state officials "testify ... and answer questions concerning legislative intent"). It is true that the assertion of legislative privilege by those officials delayed the completion of that discovery. See Joint Motion To Extend Deadlines for Completion of Fact Discovery and Expert Witness Disclosures, Doc. 161, pp. 1-2 (Mar. 3, 2017); Joint Motion To Extend Deadlines for Completion of Fact Discovery and Expert Witness Disclosures, Doc. 170, pp. 1-2 (Mar. 27, 2017). But that does not change the fact that plaintiffs could have sought a preliminary injunction much earlier. See Fishman, supra, at 1330, 97 S.Ct. 14. In considering the balance of equities among the parties, we think that plaintiffs' unnecessary, years-long delay in asking for preliminary injunctive relief weighed against their request.
Second, a due regard for the public interest in orderly elections supported the District Court's discretionary decision to deny a preliminary injunction and to stay the proceedings. See Purcell v. Gonzalez, 549 U.S. 1, 4-5, 127 S.Ct. 5, 166 L.Ed.2d 1 (2006) (per curiam ). Plaintiffs themselves represented to the District Court that any injunctive relief would have to be granted by August 18, 2017, to ensure the timely completion of a new districting scheme in advance of the 2018 election season. Despite the District Court's undisputedly diligent efforts, however, that date had "already come and gone" by the time the court ruled on plaintiffs' motion. 266 F.Supp.3d, at 815. (Such deadline has also, of course, long since passed for purposes of entering a preliminary injunction on remand from this Court.)
On top of this time constraint was the legal uncertainty surrounding any potential remedy for the plaintiffs' asserted injury. At the time the District Court made its decision, the appeal in Gill was pending before this Court. The District Court recognized that our decision in Gill had the potential to "shed light on critical questions in this case" and to set forth a "framework" by which plaintiffs' claims could be decided and, potentially, remedied. 266 F.Supp.3d, at 815-816. In the District Court's view, "charging ahead" and adjudicating the plaintiffs' claims in that fluctuating legal environment, when firmer guidance from this Court might have been forthcoming, would have been a mistake. Id., at 816. Such a determination was within the sound discretion of the District Court. Given the District Court's decision to wait for this Court's ruling in Gill before further adjudicating plaintiffs' claims, the court reasonably could have concluded that a preliminary injunction would have been against the public interest, as an injunction might have worked a needlessly "chaotic and disruptive effect upon the electoral process," Fishman, supra, at 1330, 97 S.Ct. 14 and because 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," University of Tex. v. Camenisch, 451 U.S. 390, 395, 101 S.Ct. 1830, 68 L.Ed.2d 175 (1981). In these particular circumstances, we conclude that the District Court's decision denying a preliminary injunction cannot be regarded as an abuse of discretion.
The order of the District Court 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: | 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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), 5 U. S. C. § 1101 et seq., certain federal employees may obtain administrative and judicial review of specified adverse employment actions. The question before us is whether the CSRA provides the exclusive avenue to judicial review when a qualifying employee challenges an adverse employment action by arguing that a federal statute is unconstitutional. We hold that it does.
I
The CSRA “established a comprehensive system for reviewing personnel action taken against federal employees.” United States v. Fausto, 484 U. S. 439, 455 (1988). As relevant here, Subchapter II of Chapter 75 governs review of major adverse actions taken against employees “for such cause as will promote the efficiency of the service.” 5 U. S. C. §§ 7503(a), 7513(a). Employees entitled to review are those in the “competitive service” and “excepted service” who meet certain requirements regarding probationary periods and years of service. § 7511(a)(1). The reviewable agency actions are removal, suspension for more than 14 days, reduction in grade or pay, or furlough for 30 days or less. §7512.
When an employing agency proposes a covered action against a covered employee, the CSRA gives the employee the right to notice, representation by counsel, an opportunity to respond, and a written, reasoned decision from the agency. § 7513(b). If the agency takes final adverse action against the employee, the CSRA gives the employee the right to a hearing and to be represented by an attorney or other representative before the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB). §§ 7513(d), 7701(a)(1)-(2). The MSPB is authorized to order relief to prevailing employees, including reinstatement, backpay, and attorney’s fees. §§ 1204(a)(2), 7701(g).
An employee who is dissatisfied with the MSPB’s decision is entitled to judicial review in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. That court “shall review the record and hold unlawful and set aside any agency action, findings, or conclusions” that are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law,” “obtained without procedures required by law, rule, or regulation having been followed,” or “unsupported by substantial evidence.” §§ 7703(a)(1), (c). The Federal Circuit has “exclusive jurisdiction” over appeals from a final decision of the MSPB. 28 U. S. C. § 1295(a)(9); see also 5 U. S. C. § 7703(b)(1) (judicial review of an MSPB decision “shall be” in the Federal Circuit).
II
Petitioners are former federal competitive service employees who failed to comply with the Military Selective Service Act, 50 U. S. C. App. § 453. That Act requires male citizens and permanent-resident aliens of the United States between the ages of 18 and 26 to register for the Selective Service. Another federal statute, 5 U. S. C. § 3328 (hereinafter Section 3328), bars from employment by an executive agency anyone who has knowingly and willfully failed to register. Pursuant to Section 3328, petitioners were discharged (or allegedly constructively discharged) by respondents, their employing agencies.
Among petitioners, only Michael Elgin appealed his removal to the MSPB. Elgin argued that Section 3328 is an unconstitutional bill of attainder and unconstitutionally discriminates on the basis of sex when combined with the registration requirement of the Military Selective Service Act. The MSPB referred Elgin’s appeal to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for an initial decision. The ALJ dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, concluding that an employee is not entitled to MSPB review of agency action that is based on an absolute statutory bar to employment. App. to Pet. for Cert. 100a-101a. The ALJ also held that Elgin’s constitutional claims could not “confer jurisdiction” on the MSPB because it “lacks authority to determine the constitutionality of a statute.” Id., at 101a.
Elgin neither petitioned for review by the full MSPB nor appealed to the Federal Circuit. Instead, he joined the other petitioners in filing suit in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, raising the same constitutional challenges to Section 3328 and the Military Selective Service Act. App. 4, 26-28, 29. Petitioners sought equitable relief in the form of a declaratory judgment that the challenged statutes are unconstitutional, an injunction prohibiting enforcement of Section 3328, reinstatement to their former positions, backpay, benefits, and attorney’s fees. Id., at 29-30.
The District Court rejected respondents’ argument that it lacked jurisdiction and denied petitioners’ constitutional claims on the merits. See Elgin v. United States, 697 F. Supp. 2d 187 (Mass. 2010). The District Court held that the CSRA did not preclude it from hearing petitioners’ claims, because the MSPB had no authority to determine the constitutionality of a federal statute. Id., at 193. Hence, the District Court concluded that it retained jurisdiction under the general grant of federal-question jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. § 1331. 697 F. Supp. 2d, at 194.
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit vacated the judgment and remanded with instructions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. See 641 F. 3d 6 (2011). The Court of Appeals held that challenges to a removal are not exempted from the CSRA review scheme simply because the employee argues that the statute authorizing the removal is unconstitutional. Id., at 11-12. According to the Court of Appeals, the CSRA provides a forum—the Federal Circuit— that may adjudicate the constitutionality of a federal statute, and petitioners “were obliged to use it.” Id., at 12-13.
We granted certiorari to decide whether the CSRA precludes district court jurisdiction over petitioners’ claims even though they are constitutional claims for equitable relief. See 565 U. S. 962 (2011). We conclude that it does, and we therefore affirm.
Ill
We begin with the appropriate standard for determining whether a statutory scheme of administrative and judicial review provides the exclusive means of review for constitutional claims. Petitioners argue that even if they may obtain judicial review of their constitutional claims before the Federal Circuit, they are not precluded from pursuing their claims in federal district court. According to petitioners, the general grant of federal-question jurisdiction in 28 U. S. C. § 1331, which gives district courts authority over constitutional claims, remains undisturbed unless Congress explicitly directs otherwise. In support of this argument, petitioners rely on Webster v. Doe, 486 U. S. 592, 603 (1988), which held that “where Congress intends to preclude judicial review of constitutional claims[,] its intent to do so must be clear.” The Webster Court noted that this “heightened showing” was required “to avoid the ‘serious constitutional question’ that would arise if a federal statute were construed to deny any judicial forum for a colorable constitutional claim.” Ibid, (quoting Bowen v. Michigan Academy of Family Physicians, 476 U. S. 667, 681, n. 12 (1986)). Petitioners contend that the CSRA does not meet this standard because it does not expressly bar suits in district court.
Petitioners’ argument overlooks a necessary predicate to the application of Webster’s heightened standard: a statute that purports to “deny any judicial forum for a colorable constitutional claim.” 486 U. S., at 603. Webster’s standard does not apply where Congress simply channels judicial review of a constitutional claim to a particular court. We held as much in Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, 510 U. S. 200 (1994). In that case, we considered whether a statutory scheme of administrative review followed by judicial review in a federal appellate court precluded district court jurisdiction over a plaintiff’s statutory and constitutional claims. Id., at 206. We noted that the plaintiffs claims could be “meaningfully addressed in the Court of Appeals” and that the case therefore did “not present the ‘serious constitutional question’ that would arise if an agency statute were construed to preclude all judicial review of a constitutional claim.” Id., at 215, and n. 20 (quoting Bowen, supra, at 681, n. 12). Accordingly, we did not require Webster’s “heightened showing,” but instead asked only whether Congress’ intent to preclude district court jurisdiction was “ ‘fairly discernible in the statutory scheme.’ ” 510 U. S., at 207 (quoting Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340, 351 (1984)).
Like the statute in Thunder Basin, the CSRA does not foreclose all judicial review of petitioners’ constitutional claims, but merely directs that judicial review shall occur in the Federal Circuit. Moreover, as we explain below, the Federal Circuit is fully capable of providing meaningful review of petitioners’ claims. See infra, at 16-21. Accordingly, the appropriate inquiry is whether it is “fairly discernible” from the CSRA that Congress intended covered employees appealing covered agency actions to proceed exclusively through the statutory review scheme, even in cases in which the employees raise constitutional challenges to federal statutes.
IV
To determine whether it is “fairly discernible” that Congress precluded district court jurisdiction over petitioners’ claims, we examine the CSRA’s text, structure, and purpose. See Thunder Basin, supra, at 207; Fausto, 484 U. S., at 443.
A
This is not the first time we have addressed the impact of the CSRA’s text and structure on the availability of judicial review of a federal employee’s challenge to an employment decision. In Fausto, we considered whether a so-called “nonpreference excepted service employe[e]” could challenge his suspension in the United States Claims Court, even though the CSRA did not then afford him a right to review in the MSPB or the Federal Circuit. Id., at 440-441, 448. Citing “[t]he comprehensive nature of the CSRA, the attention that it gives throughout to the rights of nonprefer-enee excepted service employees, and the fact that it does not include them in provisions for administrative and judicial review contained in Chapter 75,” the Court concluded that “the absence of provision for these employees to obtain judicial review” was a “considered congressional judgment.” Id., at 448. The Court thus found it “fairly discernible” that Congress intended to preclude all judicial review of Fausto’s statutory claims. Id., at 452 (citing Block, supra, at 349).
Just as the CSRA’s “elaborate” framework, 484 U. S., at 443, demonstrates Congress’ intent to entirely foreclose judicial review to employees to whom the CSRA denies statutory review, it similarly indicates that extrastatutory review is not available to those employees to whom the CSRA grants administrative and judicial review. Indeed, in Fausto we expressly assumed that “competitive service employees, who are given review rights by Chapter 75, cannot expand these rights by resort to” judicial review outside of the CSRA scheme. See id., at 450, n. 3. As Fausto explained, the CSRA “prescribes in great detail the protections and remedies applicable to” adverse personnel actions against federal employees. Id., at 443. For example, Sub-chapter II of Chapter 75, the portion of the CSRA relevant to petitioners, specifically enumerates the major adverse actions and employee classifications to which the CSRA’s procedural protections and review provisions apply. 5 U. S. C. §§ 7511, 7512. The subchapter then sets out the procedures due an employee prior to final agency action. § 7513. And, Chapter 77 of the CSRA exhaustively details the system of review before the MSPB and the Federal Circuit. §§ 7701, 7703; see also Fausto, supra, at 449 (emphasizing that the CSRA’s structure evinces “the primacy” of review by the MSPB and the Federal Circuit). Given the painstaking detail with which the CSRA sets out the method for covered employees to obtain review of adverse employment actions, it is fairly discernible that Congress intended to deny such employees an additional avenue of review in district court.
Petitioners do not dispute that they are employees who suffered adverse actions covered by the foregoing provisions of the CSRA. Nor do they contest that the CSRA’s text and structure support implied preclusion of district court jurisdiction, at least as a general matter. Petitioners even acknowledge that the MSPB routinely adjudicates some constitutional claims, such as claims that an agency took adverse employment action in violation of an employee’s First or Fourth Amendment rights, and that these claims must be brought within the CSRA scheme. See Brief for Petitioners 33; Tr. of Oral Arg. 7-11, 15, 21; see also, e. g., Smith v. Department of Transp., 106 MSPR 59, 78-79 (2007) (applying Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563 (1968), to an employee’s claim that he was suspended in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights); Garrison v. Department of Justice, 67 MSPR 154 (1995) (considering whether an order directing an employee to submit to a drug test was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment). Nevertheless, petitioners seek to carve out an exception to CSRA exclusivity for facial or as-applied constitutional challenges to federal statutes.
The text and structure of the CSRA, however, provide no support for such an exception. The availability of administrative and judicial review under the CSRA generally turns on the type of civil service employee and adverse employment action at issue. See, e.g., 5 U. S. C. §§ 7511(a)(1) (defining “employee”), 7512 (defining “[ajctions covered”), 7513(d) (providing that “[ajn employee against whom an action is taken under this section is entitled to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board”), 7703(a)(1) (providing that “[a]ny employee... adversely affected or aggrieved by a final order or decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board may obtain judicial review of the order or decision” in the Federal Circuit). Nothing in the CSRA’s text suggests that its exclusive review scheme is inapplicable simply because a covered employee challenges a covered action on the ground that the statute authorizing that action is unconstitutional. As the Government correctly notes, “[t]he plain language of [the CSRA’s] provisions applies to an employee who challenges his removal on the ground that the statute requiring it is unconstitutional no less than it applies to an employee who challenges his removal on any other ground.” Brief for Respondents 33-34.
In only one situation does the CSRA expressly exempt a covered employee’s appeal of a covered action from Federal Circuit review based on the type of claim at issue. When a covered employee “alleges that a basis for the action was discrimination” prohibited by enumerated federal employment laws, 5 U. S. C. § 7702(a)(1)(B), the CSRA allows the employee to obtain judicial review of an unfavorable MSPB decision by filing a civil action as provided by the applicable employment law. See § 7703(b)(2). Each of the cross-referenced employment laws authorizes an action in federal district court. See 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(f); 29 U. S. C. § 633a(c); § 216(b). Title 5 U. S. C. § 7703(b)(2) demonstrates that Congress knew how to provide alternative forums for judicial review based on the nature of an employee’s claim. That Congress declined to include an exemption from Federal Circuit review for challenges to a statute’s constitutionality indicates that Congress intended no such exception.
B
The purpose of the CSRA also supports our conclusion that the statutory review scheme is exclusive, even for employees who bring constitutional challenges to federal statutes. As we have previously explained, the CSRA’s “integrated scheme of administrative and judicial review” for aggrieved federal employees was designed to replace an “‘outdated patchwork of statutes and rules’” that afforded employees the right to challenge employing agency actions in district courts across the country. Fausto, 484 U. S., at 444-445. Such widespread judicial review, which included appeals in all of the Federal Courts of Appeals, produced “wide variations in the kinds of decisions... issued on the same or similar matters” and a double layer of judicial review that was “wasteful and irrational.” Id., at 445 (internal quotation marks omitted).
The CSRA’s objective of creating an integrated scheme of review would be seriously undermined if, as petitioners would have it, a covered employee could challenge a covered employment action first in a district court, and then again in one of the courts of appeals, simply by alleging that the statutory authorization for such action is unconstitutional. Such suits would reintroduce the very potential for inconsistent decisionmaking and duplicative judicial review that the CSRA was designed to avoid. Moreover, petitioners’ position would create the possibility of parallel litigation regarding the same agency action before the MSPB and a district court. An employee could challenge the constitutionality of the statute authorizing an agency’s action in district court, but the MSPB would remain the exclusive forum for other types of challenges to the agency’s decision. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 4-7, 9, 15-16.
Petitioners counter that doctrines regarding claim splitting and preclusion would bar parallel suits before the MSPB and the district court. But such doctrines would not invariably eliminate the possibility of simultaneous proceedings, for a tribunal generally has discretion to decide whether to dismiss a suit when a similar suit is pending elsewhere. See 18 C. Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure § 4406 (2d ed. 2002 and Supp. 2011). In any event, petitioners point to nothing in the CSRA to support the odd notion that Congress intended to allow employees to pursue constitutional claims in district court at the cost of forgoing other, potentially meritorious claims before the MSPB.
Finally, we note that a jurisdictional rule based on the nature of an employee’s constitutional claim would deprive the aggrieved employee, the MSPB, and the district court of clear guidance about the proper forum for the employee’s claims at the outset of the case. For example, petitioners contend that facial and as-applied constitutional challenges to statutes may be brought in district court, while other constitutional challenges must be heard by the MSPB. See supra, at 12; n. 5, infra. But, as we explain below, that line is hazy at best and incoherent at worst. See ibid. The dissent’s approach fares no better. The dissent carves out for district court adjudication only facial constitutional challenges to statutes, but we have previously stated that “the distinction between facial and as-applied challenges is not so well defined that it has some automatic effect or that it must always control the pleadings and disposition in every case involving a constitutional challenge.” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 331 (2010). By contrast, a jurisdictional rule based on the type of employee and adverse agency action at issue does not involve such amorphous distinctions. Accordingly, we conclude that the better interpretation of the CSRA is that its exclusivity does not turn on the constitutional nature of an employee’s claim, but rather on the type of the employee and the challenged employment action.
y
Petitioners raise three additional factors in arguing that their claims are not the type that Congress intended to be reviewed within the CSRA scheme. Specifically, petitioners invoke our “presum[ption] that Congress does not intend to limit [district court] jurisdiction if ‘a finding of preclusion could foreclose all meaningful judicial review’; if the suit is ‘wholly collateral to a statute’s review provisions’; and if the claims are ‘outside the agency’s expertise.’” Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 489 (2010) (quoting Thunder Basin, 510 U. S., at 212-213). Contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, none of those characteristics are present here.
A
First, petitioners argue that the CSRA review scheme provides no meaningful review of their claims because the MSPB lacks authority to declare a federal statute unconstitutional. Petitioners are correct that the MSPB has repeatedly refused to pass upon the constitutionality of legislation. See, e. g., Malone v. Department of Justice, 13 M. S. P. B. 81, 83 (1983) (“[I]t is well settled that administrative agencies are without authority to determine the constitutionality of statutes”). This Court has also stated that “adjudication of the constitutionality of congressional enactments has generally been thought beyond the jurisdiction of administrative agencies.” Thunder Basin, 510 U. S., at 215 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted).
We need not, and do not, decide whether the MSPB’s view of its power is correct, or whether the oft-stated principle that agencies cannot declare a statute unconstitutional is truly a matter of jurisdiction. See ibid. (describing this rule as “not mandatory”). In Thunder Basin, we held that Congress’ intent to preclude district court jurisdiction was fairly discernible in the statutory scheme “[e]ven if” the administrative body could not decide the constitutionality of a federal law. Ibid. That issue, we reasoned, could be “meaningfully addressed in the Court of Appeals” that Congress had authorized to conduct judicial review. Ibid. Likewise, the CSRA provides review in the Federal Circuit, an Article III court fully competent to adjudicate petitioners’ claims that Section 3328 and the Military Selective Service Act’s registration requirement are unconstitutional.
Petitioners insist, however, that the Federal Circuit cannot decide their constitutional claims either. Emphasizing the Federal Circuit’s holdings that its jurisdiction over employee appeals is coextensive with the MSPB’s jurisdiction, petitioners argue that the Federal Circuit likewise lacks jurisdiction to decide their challenge to the constitutionality of a federal statute. Petitioners are incorrect.
As we have explained, the CSRA makes MSPB jurisdiction over an appeal dependent only on the nature of the employee and the employment action at issue. See supra, at 5-6, 12-13; see also 5 CFR § 1201.3(a) (stating that “[t]he Board has jurisdiction over appeals from agency actions” and enumerating covered actions); Todd v. MSPB, 55 F. 3d 1574, 1576 (CA Fed. 1995) (explaining that the employee “has the burden of establishing that she and the action she seeks to appeal [are] within the [MSPB’s] jurisdiction”). Accordingly, as the cases cited by petitioners demonstrate, the Federal Circuit has questioned its jurisdiction when an employee appeals from a type of adverse action over which the MSPB lacked jurisdiction. But the Federal Circuit has never held, in an appeal from agency action within the MSPB’s jurisdiction, that its authority to decide particular legal questions is derivative of the MSPB’s authority. To the contrary, in Briggs v. MSPB, 331 F. 3d 1307, 1312-1313 (2003), the Federal Circuit concluded that it could determine the constitutionality of a statute upon which an employee’s removal was based, notwithstanding the MSPB’s professed lack of authority to decide the question.
Petitioners next contend that even if the Federal Circuit could consider their claims in the first instance, resolution of the claims requires a factual record that neither the MSPB (because it lacks authority to decide the legal question) nor the Federal Circuit (because it is an appellate court) can create. To the contrary, we think the CSRA review scheme fully accommodates an employee’s potential need to establish facts relevant to his constitutional challenge to a federal statute. Even without factfinding capabilities, the Federal Circuit may take judicial notice of facts relevant to the constitutional question. See, e. g., Rothe Development Corp. v. Department of Defense, 545 F. 3d 1023, 1045-1046 (CA Fed. 2008) (judicially noticing facts relevant to equal protection challenge). And, if resolution of a constitutional claim requires the development of facts beyond those that the Federal Circuit may judicially notice, the CSRA empowers the MSPB to take evidence and find facts for Federal Circuit review. See 5 U. S. C. §§ 1204(b)(1)-(2) (providing that the MSPB may administer oaths, examine witnesses, take depositions, issue interrogatories, subpoena testimony and documents, and otherwise receive evidence when a covered employee appeals a covered adverse employment action). Unlike petitioners, we see nothing extraordinary in a statutory scheme that vests reviewable factfinding authority in a non-Article III entity that has jurisdiction over an action but cannot finally decide the legal question to which the facts pertain. Congress has authorized magistrate judges, for example, to conduct evidentiary hearings and make findings of fact relevant to dispositive pretrial motions, although they are powerless to issue a final ruling on such motions. See 28 U. S. C. §§ 636(b)(1)(A)-(B); United States v. Raddatz, 447 U. S. 667, 673 (1980).
Petitioners nonetheless insist that the MSPB will never reach the factfinding stage in an appeal challenging the constitutionality of a federal statute, pointing to the ALJ’s dismissal for lack of jurisdiction in petitioner Elgin’s case. Again, petitioners are incorrect. When a covered employee appeals a covered adverse action, the CSRA grants the MSPB jurisdiction over the appeal. See supra, at 18. If the employee attacks the adverse action on the ground that a statute is unconstitutional, the MSPB may determine that it lacks authority to decide that particular issue; but absent another infirmity in the adverse action, the MSPB will affirm the employing agency’s decision rather than dismiss the appeal. See, e. g., Briggs, supra, at 1311. The Federal Circuit can then review the MSPB decision, including any factual record developed by the MSPB in the course of its decision on the merits.
Contrary to petitioners’ suggestion, Elgin’s case does not illustrate that the MSPB will invariably dismiss an appeal challenging the' constitutionality of a federal statute before reaching the factfinding stage. The ALJ dismissed Elgin’s case on the threshold jurisdictional ground that he was not an “employee” with a right to appeal to the MSPB because his employment was absolutely barred by statute. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 100a-101a. The Government conceded before the First Circuit that this jurisdictional argument was incorrect, see Brief for Respondents 10, and the Court of Appeals agreed, see 641 F. 3d, at 10-11. The parties do not raise that issue here, and we do not address it. What matters for present purposes is that the particular circumstances of Elgin’s case do not demonstrate that the MSPB will dismiss an appeal that is otherwise within its jurisdiction merely because it lacks the authority to decide a particular claim.
In sum, the CSRA grants the MSPB and the Federal Circuit jurisdiction over petitioners’ appeal because they are covered employees challenging a covered adverse employment action. Within the CSRA review scheme, the Federal Circuit has authority to consider and decide petitioners’ constitutional claims. To the extent such challenges require factual development, the CSRA equips the MSPB with tools to create the necessary record. Thus, petitioners’ constitutional claims can receive meaningful review within the CSRA scheme.
B
Petitioners next contend that the CSRA does not preclude district court jurisdiction over their claims because they are “wholly collateral” to the CSRA scheme. According to petitioners, their bill-of-attainder and sex discrimination claims “have nothing to do with the types of day-to-day personnel actions adjudicated by the MSPB,” Brief for Petitioners 29, and petitioners “are not seeking the CSRA’s ‘protections and remedies/ ” Reply Brief 3. We disagree.
As evidenced by their district court complaint, petitioners’ constitutional claims are the vehicle by which they seek to reverse the removal decisions, to return to federal employment, and to receive the compensation they would have earned but for the adverse employment action. See App. 29-30. A challenge to removal is precisely the type of personnel action regularly adjudicated by the MSPB and the Federal Circuit within the CSRA scheme. Likewise, reinstatement, backpay, and attorney’s fees are precisely the kinds of relief that the CSRA empowers the MSPB and the Federal Circuit to provide. See supra, at 6; see also Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U. S. 602, 614 (1984) (holding that plaintiffs’ claims were not wholly collateral to a statutory scheme of administrative and judicial review of Medicare payment decisions, where plaintiffs’ constitutional and statutory challenge to an agency’s procedure for reaching payment decisions was “at bottom” an attempt to reverse the agency’s decision to deny payment). Far from a suit wholly collateral to the CSRA scheme, the case before us is a challenge to CSRA-covered employment action brought by CSRA-covered employees requesting relief that the CSRA routinely affords.
C
Relatedly, petitioners argue that their constitutional claims are not the sort that Congress intended to channel through the MSPB because they are outside the MSPB’s expertise. But petitioners overlook the many threshold questions that may accompany a constitutional claim and to which the MSPB can apply its expertise. Of particular relevance here, preliminary questions unique to the employment context may obviate the need to address the constitutional challenge. For example, petitioner Henry Tucker asserts that his resignation amounted to a constructive discharge. That issue falls squarely within the MSPB’s expertise, and its resolution against Tucker would avoid the need to reach his constitutional claims. In addition, the challenged statute may be one that the MSPB regularly construes, and its statutory interpretation could alleviate constitutional concerns. Or, an employee’s appeal may involve other statutory or constitutional claims that the MSPB routinely considers, in addition to a constitutional challenge to a federal statute. The MSPB’s resolution of those claims in the employee’s favor might fully dispose of the case.. Thus, because the MSPB’s expertise can otherwise be “brought to bear” on employee appeals that challenge the constitutionality of a statute, we see no reason to conclude that Congress intended to exempt such claims from exclusive review before the MSPB and the Federal Circuit. See Thunder Basin, 510 U. S., at 214-215 (concluding that, where administrative Commission’s expertise “could be brought to bear” on appeal, Commission’s exclusive review of alleged statutory violation was appropriate despite its lack of expertise in interpreting a particular statute (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted)).
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude that it is fairly discernible that the CSR.A review scheme was intended to preclude district court jurisdiction over petitioners’ claims. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
The CSRA divides civil service employees into three main categories. Fausto, 484 U. S., at 441, n. 1. “Senior Executive Service” employees occupy high-level positions in the Executive Branch but are not required to be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. 5 U. S. C. §3131(2). “[C]ompetitive service” employees—the relevant category for purposes of this case—are all other Executive Branch employees whose nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate are not required and who are not specifically excepted from the competitive service by statute. § 2102(a)(1). The competitive service also includes employees in other branches of the Federal Government and in the District of Columbia government who are specifically included by statute. §§ 2102(a)(2)—(3). Finally, “excepted service” employees are employees who are not in the Senior Executive Service or in the competitive service. § 2103.
See § 7701(b)(1) (authorizing referral of MSPB appeals to an ALJ); 5 CFR §§ 1201.111-1201.114 (2011) (detailing procedures for an initial decision by an ALJ and review by the MSPB).
Certain veterans and their close relatives are considered “preference eligible” civil service employees. Fausto, 484 U. S., at 441, n. 1.
Although Fausto interpreted the CSRA to entirely foreclose judicial review, the Court had no need to apply a heightened standard like that applied in Webster v. Doe, 486 U. S. 592 (1988), because Fausto did not press any constitutional claims.
According to petitioners, the MSPB can decide claims that an agency violated an employee’s First or Fourth Amendment rights (and those claims consequently must be brought within the CSRA scheme), supra, at 12, because such claims allege only that an agency “acted in an unconstitutional manner” and do not challenge the constitutionality of a federal statute either facially or as applied. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 10, 21. That distinction is dubious at best. Agencies are created by and act pursuant to statutes. Thus, unless an action is beyond the scope of the agency’s statutory authority, an employee’s claim that the agency “acted in an unconstitutional manner” will generally be a claim that the statute authorizing the agency action was unconstitutionally applied to him. See, e. g., Pickering v. Board of Ed. of Township High School Dist. 205, Will Cty., 391 U. S. 563, 565 (1968) (holding that the statute authorizing a government employee’s termination was unconstitutional as applied under the First and Fourteenth Amendments where the employee was fired because of his speech). In any event, the curious line that petitioners draw only highlights the weakness of their position, for it certainly is not “fairly discernible” from the CSRA’s text, structure, or purpose that the statutory review scheme is exclusive for so-called “unconstitutional manner” claims but not for facial or as-applied constitutional challenges to statutes. See supra, at 11-14.
The dissent misreads Thunder Basin. The dissent contends that the “heart of the preclusion analysis” in Thunder Basin involved statutory claims reviewable by the administrative body and that the “only constitutional issue” was decided by this Court “ ‘not on preclusion grounds but on the merits.’” Post, at 32 (opinion of Alito, J.) (quoting 510 U. S., at 219 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment)). To be sure, the Thunder Basin Court did decide the merits of the petitioner’s “second constitutional challenge,” namely whether the Court’s finding of preclusion was itself unconstitutional. See id., at 219-221, and n.; see also id., at 216 (describing this “alternative” argument). But the petitioner’s suit also included another constitutional claim: a due process challenge to a statute that permitted a regulatory agency, before a hearing, to immediately fine the petitioner for noncompliance with the statute. See Brief for Petitioner in Thunder Basin Coal Co. v. Reich, O. T. 1993, No. 92-896, p. 13. The Court expressly found that the statutory review scheme pre
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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of California requires a contractor on a public works project to pay its workers the prevailing wage in the project’s locale. An exception to this requirement permits a contractor to pay a lower wage to workers participating in an approved apprenticeship program. This case presents the question whether the pre-emption provision of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 1001 et seq., supersedes California’s prevailing wage law to the extent that the law prohibits payment of an apprentice wage to an apprentice trained in an unapproved program. We conclude that California’s law does not “relate to” employee benefit plans, and thus is not pre-empted.
I
A
Since 1931, the Davis-Bacon Act, 46 Stat. 1494, as amended, 40 U. S. C. §§ 276a to 276a-5, has required that the wages paid on federal public works projects equal wages paid in the project’s locale on similar, private construction jobs. California, in 1937, adopted a similar statute, which requires contractors who are awarded public works projects to pay their workers “not less than the general prevailing rate of per diem wages for work of a similar character in the locality in which the public work is performed.” Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 1771 (West 1989). Under both the Davis-Bacon Act and California’s prevailing wage law, public works contractors may pay less than the prevailing journeyman wage to apprentices in apprenticeship programs that meet standards promulgated under the National Apprenticeship Act, 50 Stat. 664, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §50 (known popularly as the Fitzgerald Act). See 29 CFR § 29.5(b)(5) (1996); Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §1777.5 (West 1989 and Supp. 1997). In most circumstances, California public works contractors are not obliged to employ apprentices, but if they do, the apprentice wage is only permitted for those apprentices in approved programs. is
programs. The federal arbiter of apprenticeship program adequacy is the Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training (BAT), located within the Department of Labor. An apprenticeship program that seeks to provide federal public works contractors with apprentice-wage-eligible apprentices must receive the blessing of either the BAT or a “State Apprenticeship Agency.” 29 CFR §29.3 (1996). Since 1978, California’s state apprenticeship agency, the California Apprenticeship Council (CAC), has been authorized under 29 CFR §29.12 to approve apprenticeship programs for federal purposes. App. 37. California has also charged the CAC with approving apprenticeship programs for purposes of California’s prevailing wage statute. See Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 3071 (West 1989). Pursuant to the Fitzgerald Act, the United States Secretary of Labor has promulgated apprenticeship program standards. 29 CFR §29.5 (1996). California has adopted its own apprenticeship standards, 8 Cal. Code Regs. §212 (1996), that are “substantively similar” to the federal standards. Southern Cal. Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., Joint Apprenticeship Committee v. California Apprenticeship Council, 4 Cal. 4th 422, 434, 841 P. 2d 1011, 1017 (1992) (Southern Cal. ABC). The CAC uses its own standards whether approving an apprenticeship program for federal or for state purposes.
An apprenticeship program in California may be sponsored by an individual employer, an individual labor union, a group of employers, a group of labor organizations, or by a joint management-labor venture (a so-called joint apprenticeship committee). See Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §3075 (West 1989).
B
In the spring of 1987, respondent Dillingham Construction was awarded a public works contract as the general contractor for the construction of the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility. Dillingham subcontracted electronic installation work to respondent Manuel J. Arceo, doing business as Sound Systems Media.
When Sound Systems Media was awarded the subcontract, it was signatory to a collective-bargaining agreement that provided a wage scale for apprentices, and required Sound Systems Media to contribute to a CAC-approved apprenticeship program, the Northern California Sound and Communications Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee.
In May 1988, after work on the project was underway, the existing union withdrew its representation of Sound Systems Media employees. Two months later, Sound Systems Media entered a new collective-bargaining agreement with a different union. That agreement, like the earlier one, included a scale of wages for apprentices and provided for an affiliation with a joint apprenticeship committee, the Electronic and Communications Systems Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (Electronic and Communications Systems JATC). Sound Systems Media relied on this new committee for its apprentices, to whom it paid the apprentice wage provided in the collective-bargaining agreement. The Electronic and Communications Systems JATC, however, did not seek CAC approval until August 1989 and did not gain approval until October 1990. That approval was not retroactive.
In March 1989, yet another union filed a complaint against Sound Systems Media with petitioner Division of Apprenticeship Standards of the California Department of Industrial Relations. Petitioner issued a notice of noncompliance to both Dillingham Construction and Sound Systems Media, charging that Sound Systems Media had violated Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 1771 (West 1989) by paying the apprentice wage, rather than the prevailing journeyman wage, to apprentices from a nonapproved program. The County of Sonoma was ordered to withhold certain moneys from Dillingham Construction for the violation.
Respondents filed suit to prevent petitioners from interfering with payment under the subcontract. Their complaint alleged, inter alia, that ERISA pre-empted enforcement of the prevailing wage law. Respondents argued that the Electronic and Communications Systems JATC was an “employee welfare benefit plan” within the meaning of ERISA §3(1), 29 U.S.C. §1002(1), and that California’s prevailing wage statute “relate[d] to” it, and was therefore superseded by ERISA’s pre-emption provision, § 514(a), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(a). The District Court agreed that the prevailing wage statute “relate[d] to” ERISA plans, but con-eluded that pre-emption was forestalled by ERISA’s saving clause, § 514(d), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(d). Pre-emption of the prevailing wage statute, the District Court determined, would “impair the purposes of the Fitzgerald Act and its regulations within the meaning of ERISA’s savings clause.” Dillingham Constr. N. A., Inc. v. County of Sonoma, 778 F. Supp. 1522, 1530 (ND Cal. 1991).
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. 57 F. 3d 712 (1995). Agreeing with the District Court, the Ninth Circuit held that the Electronic and Communications Systems JATC was an employee welfare benefit plan and that §1777.5 “relate[d] to” it. Id., at 718-719. Because California’s prevailing wage statute was not an “enforcement mechanism” of the Fitzgerald Act, however, the Ninth Circuit parted company with the District Court and held that § 1777.5 was not preserved by ERISA’s saving clause. Id., at 721. The decision of the Court of Appeals accorded with that of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in National Elevator Industry, Inc. v. Calhoon, 957 F. 2d 1555, cert. denied, 506 U. S. 953 (1992). Both decisions conflict— as to whether a state prevailing wage law “relate[s] to” apprenticeship programs, and as to the reach of the saving clause — with that of the Eighth Circuit in Minnesota Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. v. Minnesota Dept. of Labor and Industry, 47 F. 3d 975 (1995). We granted certiorari, 517 U. S. 1133 (1996), and now reverse.
II
Both lower courts determined, and neither party disputes, that the Electronic and Communications Systems JATC was a “plan, fund, or program [that] was established or is maintained for the purpose of providing for its participants . . . apprenticeship or other training programs.” §3(1), 29 U. S. C. § 1002(1). The question thus presented to us is whether California’s prevailing wage statute “relate[s] to” that “employee welfare benefit plan” within the meaning of ERISA’s pre-emption clause.
Since shortly after its enactment, we have endeavored with some regularity to interpret and apply the “unhelpful text” of ERISA’s pre-emption provision. New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645, 656 (1995). We have long acknowledged that ERISA’s pre-emption provision is “clearly expansive.” Id., at 655. It has
“a ‘broad scope,’ Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 724, 739 (1985), and an ‘expansive sweep,’ Pilot Life Ins. Co. v. Dedeaux, 481 U. S. 41, 47 (1987); and ... it is ‘broadly worded,’ Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 138 (1990), ‘deliberately expansive,’ Pilot Life, supra, at 46, and ‘conspicuous for its breadth,’ [FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52, 58 (1990)].” Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc., 504 U. S. 374, 384 (1992).
Our efforts at applying the provision have yielded a two-part inquiry: A “law ‘relate[s] to’ a covered employee benefit plan for purposes of § 514(a) ‘if it [1] has a connection with or [2] reference to such a plan.’ ” District of Columbia v. Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, 506 U. S. 125, 129 (1992) (quoting Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., 463 U. S. 85, 96-97 (1983)). Under the latter inquiry, we have held pre-empted a law that “impos[ed] requirements by reference to [ERISA] covered programs,” Greater Washington Bd. of Trade, supra, at 130-131; a law that specifically exempted ERISA plans from an otherwise generally applicable garnishment provision, Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Service, Inc., 486 U. S. 825, 828, n. 2, 829-830 (1988); and a common-law cause of action premised on the existence of an ERISA' plan, Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 140 (1990). Where a State’s law acts immediately and exclusively upon ERISA plans, as in Mackey, or where the existence of ERISA plans is essential to the law’s operation, as in Greater Washington Bd. of Trade and Ingersoll-Rand, that “reference” will result in pre-emption.
A law that does not refer to ERISA plans may yet be pre-empted if it has a “connection with” ERISA plans. Two Terms ago, we recognized that an “uncritical literalism” in applying this standard offered scant utility in determining Congress’ intent as to the extent of § 514(a)’s reach. Travelers, 514 U. S., at 656. Rather, to determine whether a state law has the forbidden connection, we look both to “the objectives of the ERISA statute as a guide to the scope of the state law that Congress understood would survive,” ibid., as well as to the nature of the effect of the state law on ERISA plans, id., at 658-659.
As is always the case in our pre-emption jurisprudence, where “federal law is said to bar state action in fields of traditional state regulation,... we have worked on the ‘assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.’ ” Id., at 655 (quoting Rice v. Santa Fe Elevator Corp., 331 U. S. 218, 230 (1947)) (citation omitted).
A
Respondents and several of their amici urge us to conclude that § 1777.5 makes “reference to” ERISA plans. Because it seems that approved apprenticeship programs need not necessarily be ERISA plans, we decline to do so.
On its face, § 1777.5 appears to allow the lower apprentice wage only to a contractor who acquires apprentices through a “joint apprenticeship committee” — an apprenticeship program sponsored by the collective efforts of management and organized labor. See Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §§3075, 3076 (West 1989). Were this the true extent of the prevailing wage law’s reach, respondents’ “reference to” argument might be more persuasive. The CAC has, however, promulgated regulations making clear that the class of apprenticeship program sponsors who may provide approved apprentices is broader. See 8 Cal. Code Regs. § 230.1(a) (1992) (“Registered apprentices can only be obtained from the Apprenticeship Committee of the craft or trade in the area of the site of the public work” (emphasis added)); id., § 228(c) (defining an apprenticeship committee as “an apprenticeship program sponsor”); Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §3075 (West 1989) (stating that an “apprenticeship program sponsor may be a joint apprenticeship committee, unilateral management or labor apprenticeship committee, or an individual employer”). An apprenticeship program, it would seem, can be maintained by a single employer, and its costs can be defrayed out of that employer’s general assets.
To comport with § 302(c)(6) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947, 61 Stat. 157, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 186(c)(6), the expenses of any joint apprenticeship committee must be defrayed out of moneys placed into a separate fund. The existence of that fund triggers ERISA coverage over programs like that of the Electronic and Communications Systems JATC. See ERISA Advisory Op. No. 94-14A (Apr. 20, 1994). But an employee benefit program not funded through a separate fund is not an ERISA plan. In Massachusetts v. Morash, 490 U. S. 107 (1989), we recognized a distinction between vacation benefits paid out of an accumulated fund and those paid out of an employer’s general assets. A fund established to pay vacation benefits, we held, constituted an employee welfare benefit plan; the policy at issue in Morash, whereby vacation benefits were paid out of general assets, did not. The distinction, we concluded, was compelled by ERISA’s object and policy:
“In enacting ERISA, Congress’ primary concern was with the mismanagement of funds accumulated to finance employee benefits and the failure to pay employees benefits from accumulated funds. To that end, it established extensive reporting, disclosure, and fiduciary-duty requirements to insure against the possibility that the employee’s expectation of the benefit would be defeated through poor management by the plan administrator.” Id., at 115 (citation and footnote omitted).
Benefits paid out of an employer’s general assets presented risks indistinguishable from “the danger of defeated expectations of wages for services performed,” a hazard with which ERISA is unconcerned. Ibid.
The Secretary has carried this funded/unfunded distinction into areas that are, we think, analogous to that of apprenticeship programs. See, e. g., 29 CFR §2510.3-l(k) (1994) (scholarship programs paid for out of an employer’s general assets are not ERISA plans); §2510.3-l(b)(3)(iv) (training provided on the job with general assets does not constitute ERISA plan); see also ERISA Advisory Op. No. 94-14A (Apr. 20,1994) (apprenticeship programs paid for out of trust funds are ERISA plans); ERISA Advisory Op. No. 83-32A (June 21, 1983) (in-house professional development program financed out of general assets is not an ERISA plan). Although none of these regulations specifically answers the question whether an unfunded apprenticeship program is covered by ERISA, they suggest — as does our decision in Morash — that it is not.
Section 1777.5, then, “functions irrespective of. . . the existence of an ERISA plan.” Ingersoll-Rand Co., 498 U. S., at 139. An apprenticeship program meeting the substantive standards set forth in the Fitzgerald Act regulations can be approved whether or not its funding apparatus is of a kind as to bring it under ERISA. See Southern Cal. ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 429, n. 1, 841 P. 2d, at 1014, n. 1. Section 1777.5 is indifferent to the funding, and attendant ERISA coverage, of apprenticeship programs. Accordingly, California’s prevailing wage statute does not make reference to ERISA plans. We turn now to the question whether it nonetheless has a “connection with” such plans.
B
In Shaw v. Delta Air Lines, Inc., we held that the New York Human Rights Law, which prohibited “employers from structuring their employee benefit plans in a manner that discriminates on the basis of pregnancy,” and New York’s Disability Benefits Law, which required “employers to pay employees specific benefits,” “relate[d] to” ERISA plans. 463 U. S., at 97. Shaw and other of our ERISA pre-emption decisions, see, e. g., FMC Corp. v. Holliday, 498 U. S. 52 (1990); Alessi v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc., 451 U. S. 504 (1981), presented us with state statutes that “mandated employee benefit structures or their administration”; in those cases, we concluded that these requirements amounted to “connection^] with” ERISA plans. See Travelers, 514 U. S., at 658.
The state law at issue in Travelers, our most recent exercise in ERISA pre-emption, stands in considerable contrast. That statute regulated hospital rates, and required hospitals to exact surcharges (ranging from 9% to 24% of the rate set under the statute) from patients whose hospital bills were paid by any of a variety of non-Blue Cross/Blue Shield providers. Because ERISA plans, as might be expected, were predominant among the purchasers of insurance, see Brief for Petitioner in Travelers, O. T. 1994, No. 93-1408, p. 1-2, the statute was asserted to run afoul of ERISA’s preemption provision. The differential rates charged to commercially insured patients and to patients insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield (collectively “the Blues”) made commercial insurance relatively more expensive — and relatively less attractive. The resulting cost variations encouraged insurance purchasers, including ERISA plans, to provide insurance benefits through the Blues. Commercial insurers argued that these cost variations and their resulting economic effects had a “connection with” those ERISA plans, requiring pre-emption of the law that dictated them.
We upheld the statute. The “indirect economic influence” of the surcharge, we noted, did not “bind plan administrators to any particular choice and thus function as a regulation of an ERISA plan itself.” 514 U. S., at 659. Nor did the indirect influence of the surcharge “preclude uniform administrative practice or the provision of a uniform interstate benefit package if a plan wishe[d] to provide one.” Id., at 660. Indeed, if ERISA were concerned with any state action — such as medical-care quality standards or hospital workplace regulations — that increased costs of providing certain benefits, and thereby potentially affected the choices made by ERISA plans, we could scarcely see the end of ERISA’s pre-emptive reach, and the words “relate to” would limit nothing. Id., at 660-661. We also noted that several States regulated hospital charges at the time that ERISA was enacted, and yet neither ERISA’s language nor legislative history made any mention of pre-empting these state efforts.
We think that, in every relevant respect, California’s prevailing wage statute is indistinguishable from New York’s surcharge program. At the outset, we note that apprenticeship standards and the wages paid on state public works have long been regulated by the States. As discussed in Part I-A, supra, California has required that prevailing wages be paid on its public works projects for nearly as long as Congress has required them to be paid on federal projects, and for more than 40 years prior to the enactment of ERISA. Similarly, California has legislated in the apprenticeship area for the better part of this century. See, e. g., The Shelley - Maloney Apprentice Labor Standards Act, 1939 Cal. Stat. 220, codified at Cal. Lab. Code §3070 et seq. Congress, in the Fitzgerald Act, recognized pre-existing state efforts in regulating apprenticeship programs and apparently expected that those efforts would continue. See 29 U. S. C. §50 (directing the Secretary of Labor “to cooperate with State agencies engaged in the formulation and promotion of standards of apprenticeship”); see also H. R. Rep. No. 945, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 (1937).
That the States traditionally regulated these areas would not alone immunize their efforts; ERISA certainly contemplated the pre-emption of substantial areas of traditional state regulation. The wages to be paid on public works projects and the substantive standards to be applied to apprenticeship training programs are, however, quite remote from the areas with which ERISA is expressly concerned— “ ‘reporting, disclosure, fiduciary responsibility, and the like.’ ” Travelers, supra, at 661 (quoting Shaw, 463 U. S., at 98). A reading of § 514(a) resulting in the pre-emption of traditionally state-regulated substantive law in those areas where ERISA has nothing to say would be “unsettling,” Travelers, 514 U. S., at 665. Given the paucity of indication in ERISA and its legislative history of any intent on the part of Congress to pre-empt state apprenticeship training standards, or state prevailing wage laws that incorporate them, we are reluctant to alter our ordinary “assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act.” Rice, 331 U. S., at 230. Accordingly, as in Travelers, we address the substance of the California statute with the presumption that ERISA did not intend to supplant it.
Like New York’s surcharge requirement, the apprenticeship portion of the prevailing wage statute does not bind ERISA plans to anything. No apprenticeship program is required by California law to meet California’s standards. See Southern Cal. ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 428, 841 P. 2d, at 1013. If a contractor chooses to hire apprentices for a public works project, it need not hire them from an approved program (although if it does not, it must pay these apprentices journeyman wages). So, apprenticeship programs that have not gained CAC approval may still supply public works contractors with apprentices. Unapproved apprenticeship programs also may supply apprentices to private contractors. The effect of §1777.5 on ERISA apprenticeship programs, therefore, is merely to provide some measure of economic incentive to comport with the State’s requirements, at least to the extent that those programs seek to provide apprentices who can work on public works projects at a lower wage.
Apprenticeship programs have confronted these differential economic incentives since well before the enactment of ERISA, and would face them today even if California had no prevailing wage statute. To supply apprentices eligible for the apprenticeship wage to federal public works contractors, an apprenticeship program must meet the standards promulgated by California under the Fitzgerald Act. What is more, with or without the possibility of being able to provide apprentices eligible for a lower wage on public projects, apprenticeship programs in California have other incentives to seek CAC approval. See Southern Cal. ABC, supra, at 429, 841 P. 2d, at 1013 (“In California, additional financial incentives exist in the form of direct financial subsidies for training provided by approved programs,” and because “an apprentice who completes an approved training program obtains a certificate of completion naming him or her a skilled journeyman in the chosen trade”). It cannot be gainsaid that §1777.5 has the effect of encouraging apprenticeship programs — including ERISA plans — to meet the standards set out by California, but it has not been demonstrated here that the added inducement created by the wage break available on state public works projects is tantamount to a compulsion upon apprenticeship programs.
The effect of the prevailing wage statute on ERISA-covered apprenticeship programs in California is substantially similar to the effect of New York law on ERISA plans choosing whether to provide health insurance benefits in New York through the Blues, or through a commercial carrier. The prevailing wage statute alters the incentives, but does not dictate the choices, facing ERISA plans. In this regard, it is “no different from myriad state laws in areas traditionally subject to local regulation, which Congress could not possibly have intended to eliminate.” Travelers, 514 U. S., at 668. We could not hold pre-empted a state law in an area of traditional state regulation based on so tenuous a relation without doing grave violence to our presumption that Congress intended nothing of the sort. We thus conclude that California’s prevailing wage laws and apprenticeship standards do not have a “connection with,” and therefore do not “relate to,” ERISA plans.
Ill
For the reasons stated herein, the judgment below is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. ordered.
It is so ordered.
The Fitzgerald Act provides: “The Secretary of Labor is authorized and directed to formulate and promote the furtherance of labor standards necessary to safeguard the welfare of apprentices, to extend the application of such standards by encouraging the inclusion thereof in contracts of apprenticeship, to bring together employers and labor for the formulation of programs of apprenticeship, [and] to cooperate with State agencies engaged in the formulation and promotion of standards of apprenticeship ....” 29U.S. C. §50. ’
Section 3(1) defines an “employee welfare benefit plan” as: “[A]ny plan, fund, or program which was heretofore or is hereafter established or maintained by an employer or by an employee organization, or by both, to the extent that such plan, fund, or program was established or is maintained for the purpose of providing for its participants ... (A) medical, surgical, or hospital care or benefits, or benefits in the event of sickness, accident, disability, death or unemployment, or vacation benefits, apprenticeship or other training programs, or day care centers, scholarship funds or prepaid legal services ....” 29 U. S. C. § 1002(1) (emphasis added). any and
The pre-emption clause provides that ERISA all State laws insofar as they may now or hereafter relate to any employee benefit plan described in section 1003(a) of this title and not exempt under section 1003(b) of this title.” § 1144(a).
ERISA’s saving clause provides that “[n]othing in this subchapter shall be construed to alter, amend, modify, invalidate, impair, or supersede any laws of the United States ... or any rule or regulation issued under any such law.” § 1144(d).
We are told that “[m]ost state-approved apprenticeship programs in the construction industry in California appear to be ERISA plans.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17, n. 8. Between April and June 1994, California had 175 joint apprenticeship programs and 13 “unilateral” ones. Ibid. As noted above, the costs of the joint apprenticeship programs are necessarily defrayed out of separate funds. The Government points out that some of the 13 unilateral programs may also have separate funds. Ibid. No party before us has established that all programs do. Cf. The Travelers Ins. Co. v. Cuomo, 14 F. 3d 708, 711 (CA2 1994) (noting that 88% of “non-elderly Americans have private health care insurance through [ERISA] plans”), rev’d by New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Ins. Co., 514 U. S. 645 (1995).
In fact, the very same Congress that enacted ERISA adopted, a short time later, the National Health Planning and Resources Development Act of 1974 (NHPRDA), Pub. L. 93-641,88 Stat. 2225, §§ 1-3, repealed by Pub. L. 99-660, title VII, § 701(a), 100 Stat. 3799, which “sought to encourage and help fund state responses to growing health care costs and the widely diverging availability of health services.” Travelers, supra, at 665. The NHPRDA had in mind a system akin to New York’s, and we thought it unlikely that the Congress that enacted ERISA would later have sought to encourage a state program that ERISA would pre-empt.
In Travelers, we were convinced that Congress did not intend preemption of New York’s law both by the lack of any positive indication that Congress harbored such an intent, and by indirect evidence — the NHPRDA — that the Congress that enacted ERISA did not intend to supersede state laws like New York’s regulation of hospital charges. 514 U. S., at 664-668. We face here a similar absence of positive indications on the part of Congress that apprenticeship or prevailing wage statutes would be superseded. The United States further argues that the Fitzgerald Act is analogous to the NHPRDA: Were we to hold §1777.5 preempted “[tjhat result ‘would leave States without the authority to do just what Congress was expressly trying to induce them to do by enacting the Fitzgerald Act.’ ” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). In Travelers, we thought it implausible that the Congress that enacted ERISA intended to pre-empt state laws that the same Congress subsequently sought to encourage with the NHPRDA. It is not, however, inconceivable for the ERISA Congress to intend the pre-emption of state statutes resulting from the pre-existing Fitzgerald Act. So, the United States’ analogy is not decisive. It does, however, aid our conclusion that Congress’ silence on the pre-emption of state statutes that Congress previously sought to foster counsels against pre-emption here.
Respondents and two of their amici point to bills introduced in Congress for the purpose, at least in part, of overruling lower court decisions holding prevailing wage statutes like California’s pre-empted. See Brief for Respondent 23, Brief for Signatory Members of the Coalition to Preserve ERISA Pre-emption as Amicus Curiae 11, and Brief for Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc., et al. as Amici Curiae 26-27 (all citing H. R. 1036, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993); S. 1580, 103d Cong., 1st Sess. (1993)). It is argued that Congress’ unwillingness to amend § 514(a) in response to these decisions is evidence that Congress believed that those opinions accurately interpreted ERISA’s pre-emptive scope. We have rejected similar arguments before. See Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U. S. 101, 114 (1989); United States v. Price, 361 U. S. 304, 313 (1960) (“[T]he views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one”). is
In New York, we are told, “approximately half of all construction is not subject to state or federal prevailing wage requirements.” Brief for State of Washington et al. as Amici Curiae 21, n. 14 (citing F. W. Dodge Division, McGraw-Hill Information Systems, Inc. (1996)).
It may also be that, because California’s standards are “substantively similar,” Southern California ABC, 4 Cal. 4th, at 434, 841 P. 2d, at 1017, to the federal standards, multistate apprenticeship programs are not saddled with “the administrative and financial burden of complying with conflicting directives among States or between States and the Federal Government.” Ingersoll-Rand Co. v. McClendon, 498 U. S. 133, 142 (1990). Then again, the area of apprenticeship training may be one where uniformity of substantive standards across States is impossible. See Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20 (“[P]revailing wages in different States — or even in different areas of a single State — may vary substantially, and training requirements for membership in skilled trades may also vary among different trades, different communities, and different States”). We need not resolve this question. Suffice it to say that the federal and state apprenticeship standards are not mandatory, and California’s standards do not result in disuniformities different in kind from those that would exist without them.
It is not conclusive as to California’s apprenticeship programs, but we note that some data support the conclusion that the prevailing wage break for approved apprenticeship programs does not present ERISA plans with a Hobson’s choice. Amici State of Washington et al. inform us that “[w]hile the federal government and twenty-seven of the thirty-one states which have prevailing wage laws have [a wage break], it is estimated that only fifty percent of apprentices in this country are in state or federally ‘approved’ programs.” Brief for State of Washington et al. as Amici Curiae 20, and n. 13.
Because we determine that § 1777.5 does not “relate to” ERISA plans, we need not determine whether ERISA’s saving clause, § 514(d), 29 U. S. C. § 1144(d), nonetheless forestalls pre-emption. 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 KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case addresses the question of the proper remedy when there is a violation of the False Claims Act (FCA) requirement that certain complaints must be sealed for a limited time period. See 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(2). There are two questions presented before this Court. First, do any and all violations of the seal requirement mandate dismissal of a private party's complaint with prejudice? Second, if dismissal is not mandatory, did the District Court here abuse its discretion by declining to dismiss respondents' complaint?
I
A
The FCA imposes civil liability on an individual who, inter alia, "knowingly presents ... a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval" to the Federal Government. § 3729(a)(1)(A). Almost unique to the FCA are its qui tam enforcement provisions, which allow a private party known as a "relator" to bring an FCA action on behalf of the Government. § 3730(b)(1) ; Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S. 765, 768, n. 1, 120 S.Ct. 1858, 146 L.Ed.2d 836 (2000) (listing three other qui tam statutes). The Attorney General retains the authority to intervene in a relator's ongoing action or to bring an FCA suit in the first instance. §§ 3730(a) -(b).
This system is designed to benefit both the relator and the Government. A relator who initiates a meritorious qui tam suit receives a percentage of the ultimate damages award, plus attorney's fees and costs. § 3730(d). In turn, " 'encourag[ing] more private enforcement suits' " serves " 'to strengthen the Government's hand in fighting false claims.' " Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 559 U.S. 280, 298, 130 S.Ct. 1396, 176 L.Ed.2d 225 (2010).
The FCA places a number of restrictions on suits by relators. For example, under the provision known as the "first-to-file bar," a relator may not " 'bring a related action based on the facts underlying [a] pending action.' " Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Carter, 575 U.S. ----, ----, 135 S.Ct. 1970, 1978, 191 L.Ed.2d 899 (2015) (quoting § 3730(b)(5) ; emphasis deleted). Other FCA provisions require compliance with statutory requirements as express conditions on the relators' ability to bring suit. The paragraph known as the "public disclosure bar," for instance, provided at the time this suit was filed that " '[n]o court shall have jurisdiction over an action under this section based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions ... unless the action is brought by the Attorney General or ... an original source of the information.' " Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, supra, at 283, n. 1, 285-286, 130 S.Ct. 1396 (quoting 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) (2006 ed.) ; footnote omitted).
The FCA also establishes specific procedures for the relator to follow when filing the complaint. Among other things, the relator must serve on the Government "[a] copy of the complaint and written disclosure of substantially all material evidence and information the [relator] possesses." § 3730(b)(2). Most relevant here, the FCA provides: "The complaint shall be filed in camera, shall remain under seal for at least 60 days, and shall not be served on the defendant until the court so orders." Ibid.
B
Petitioner State Farm is an insurance company. In the years before Hurricane Katrina, petitioner issued two types of homeowner-insurance policies that are relevant in this case: (1) Federal Government-backed flood insurance policies and (2) petitioner's own general homeowner insurance policies. The practical effect for homeowners who were affected by Hurricane Katrina and who purchased both policies was that petitioner would be responsible for paying for wind damage, while the Government would pay for flood damage. As the Court of Appeals noted, this arrangement created a potential conflict of interest: Petitioner had "an incentive to classify hurricane damage as flood-related to limit its economic exposure." 794 F.3d 457, 462 (C.A.5 2015).
Respondents Cori and Kerri Rigsby are former claims adjusters for one of petitioner's contractors, E.A. Renfroe & Co. Together with other adjusters, they were responsible for visiting the damaged homes of petitioner's customers to determine the extent to which a homeowner was entitled to an insurance payout. According to respondents, petitioner instructed them and other adjusters to misclassify wind damage as flood damage in order to shift petitioner's insurance liability to the Government. See id., at 463-464 (summarizing trial evidence).
In April 2006, respondents filed their qui tam complaint under seal. At the Government's request, the District Court extended the length of the seal a number of times. In January 2007, the court lifted the seal in part, allowing disclosure of the qui tam action to another District Court hearing a suit by E.A. Renfroe against respondents for purported misappropriation of documents related to petitioner's alleged fraud. See E.A. Renfroe & Co. v. Moran, No. 2:06-cv-1752 (ND Ala.). In August 2007, the District Court lifted the seal in full. In January 2008, the Government declined to intervene.
In January 2011, petitioner moved to dismiss respondents' suit on the grounds that they had violated the seal requirement. The parties do not dispute the essential background. In the months before the seal was lifted in part, respondents' then-attorney, one Dickie Scruggs, e-mailed a sealed evidentiary filing that disclosed the complaint's existence to journalists at ABC, the Associated Press, and the New York Times. All three outlets issued stories discussing the fraud allegations, but none revealed the existence of the FCA complaint. Respondents themselves met with Mississippi Congressman Gene Taylor, who later spoke out in public against petitioner's purported fraud, although he did not mention the existence of the FCA suit at that time. After the seal was lifted in part, Scruggs disclosed the existence of the suit to various others, including a public relations firm and CBS News.
At the time of the motion to dismiss in 2011, respondents were represented neither by Scruggs nor by any of the attorneys who had worked with him. In March 2008, Scruggs withdrew from respondents' case after he was indicted for attempting to bribe a state-court judge. Two months later, the District Court removed the remaining Scruggs-affiliated attorneys from the case, based on their alleged involvement in improper payments made from Scruggs to respondents. The District Court did not punish respondents themselves for the payments because they were not made "aware of the ethical implications" and, as laypersons, "are not bound by the rules of professional conduct that apply to" attorneys. App. 21.
In deciding petitioner's motion the District Court considered only the seal violations that occurred before the seal was lifted in part, reasoning the partial lifting in effect had mooted the seal. Applying the test for dismissal set out in United States ex rel. Lujan v. Hughes Aircraft Co., 67 F.3d 242, 245-247 (C.A.9 1995), the District Court balanced three factors: (1) the actual harm to the Government, (2) the severity of the violations, and (3) the evidence of bad faith. The court decided against dismissal. Petitioner did not request some lesser sanction. The case went to trial, resulting in a victory for respondents on what the Court of Appeals referred to as a "bellwether" claim regarding a single damaged home. 794 F.3d, at 462.
The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed the denial of petitioner's motion to dismiss. The court recognized that the case presented two related issues of the first impression under its case law: (1) whether a seal violation requires mandatory dismissal of a relator's complaint and, if not, (2) what standard governs a district court's decision to dismiss. The court noted that the Courts of Appeals for the Second and Ninth Circuits had held that the FCA does not require automatic dismissal for a seal violation, while the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit had held that dismissal is mandatory. See United States ex rel. Pilon v. Martin Marietta Corp., 60 F.3d 995, 998 (C.A.2 1995) ; United States ex rel. Lujan v. Hughes Aircraft Co., supra, at 245; United States ex rel. Summers v. LHC Group Inc., 623 F.3d 287, 296 (C.A.6 2010) ; see also United States ex rel. Smith v. Clark/Smoot/Russell, 796 F.3d 424, 430 (C.A.4 2015) (following Pilon ).
After a careful analysis, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held automatic dismissal is not required by the FCA. 794 F.3d, at 470-471. It then considered the same factors the District Court had weighed and came to a similar conclusion. Id., at 471-472. First, the Court of Appeals held the Government was in all likelihood not harmed by the disclosures because none of them led to the publication of the pendency of the suit before the seal was lifted in part. Second, the Court of Appeals determined the violations were not severe in their repercussions because respondents had complied with the seal requirement when they first filed their suit. Third, the Court of Appeals assumed, without deciding, that the bad behavior of respondents' then-attorney could be imputed to respondents; but it held that, even presuming the attribution of bad faith, the other factors favored respondents.
This Court granted certiorari, 578 U.S. ----, 136 S.Ct. 2386, 195 L.Ed.2d 761 (2016), and now affirms.
II
A
Petitioner's primary contention is that a violation of the seal provision necessarily requires a relator's complaint to be dismissed. The FCA does not enact so harsh a rule.
Section 3730(b)(2)'s text provides that a complaint "shall" be kept under seal. True, this language creates a mandatory rule the relator must follow. See Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 464, 127 S.Ct. 1397, 167 L.Ed.2d 190 (2007) ("As required under the Act, [the relator] filed his complaint under seal ..."); see also Kingdomware Technologies, Inc. v. United States, 579 U.S. ----, ----, 136 S.Ct. 1969, 1977, 195 L.Ed.2d 334 (2016) ("[T]he word 'shall' usually connotes a requirement"). The statute says nothing, however, about the remedy for a violation of that rule. In the absence of congressional guidance regarding a remedy, "[a]lthough the duty is mandatory, the sanction for breach is not loss of all later powers to act." United States v. Montalvo-Murillo, 495 U.S. 711, 718, 110 S.Ct. 2072, 109 L.Ed.2d 720 (1990).
The FCA's structure is itself an indication that violating the seal requirement does not mandate dismissal. This Court adheres to the general principle that Congress' use of "explicit language" in one provision "cautions against inferring" the same limitation in another provision. Marx v. General Revenue Corp., 568 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1166, 1177, 185 L.Ed.2d 242 (2013). And the FCA has a number of provisions that do require, in express terms, the dismissal of a relator's action. Supra, at 440 (citing § 3730(b)(5) ); see also §§ 3730(e)(1)-(2) ("[n]o court shall have jurisdiction" over certain FCA claims by relators against a member of the military or of the judicial, legislative, or executive branches). It is proper to infer that, had Congress intended to require dismissal for a violation of the seal requirement, it would have said so.
The Court's conclusion is consistent with the general purpose of § 3730(b)(2). The seal provision was enacted in the 1980's as part of a set of reforms that were meant to "encourage more private enforcement suits." S. Rep. No. 99-345, pp. 23-24 (1986). At the time, "perhaps the most serious problem plaguing effective enforcement" of the FCA was "a lack of resources on the part of Federal enforcement agencies." Id., at 7. The Senate Committee Report indicates that the seal provision was meant to allay the Government's concern that a relator filing a civil complaint would alert defendants to a pending federal criminal investigation. Id., at 24. Because the seal requirement was intended in main to protect the Government's interests, it would make little sense to adopt a rigid interpretation of the seal provision that prejudices the Government by depriving it of needed assistance from private parties. The Federal Government agrees with this interpretation. It informs the Court that petitioner's test "would undermine the very governmental interests that the seal provision is meant to protect." Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 10.
B
Petitioner's arguments to the contrary are unavailing. First, petitioner urges that because the seal provision appears in the subsection of the FCA creating the relator's private right of action, Congress intended to condition the right to bring suit on compliance with the seal requirement. It is true that, as discussed further below, the Court sometimes has concluded that Congress conditioned the authority to file a private right of action on compliance with a statutory mandate. E.g., Hallstrom v. Tillamook County, 493 U.S. 20, 25-26, 110 S.Ct. 304, 107 L.Ed.2d 237 (1989). There is no textual indication, however, that Congress did so here.
Section 3730(b)(2) does not tie the seal requirement to the right to bring the qui tam suit in conditional terms. As noted above, the statute just provides: "The complaint shall be filed in camera, shall remain under seal for at least 60 days, and shall not be served on the defendant until the court so orders."
The text at issue in Hallstrom, by contrast, was quite different than the statutory language that controls here. The Hallstrom statute, part of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, provided: " 'No action may be commenced ... prior to sixty days after the plaintiff has given notice of the violation' " to the Government. 493 U.S., at 25, 110 S.Ct. 304.
Petitioner cites two additional cases to support its argument, but those decisions concerned statutes that used even clearer conditional words, like "if" and "unless." See United States ex rel. Texas Portland Cement Co. v. McCord, 233 U.S. 157, 161, 34 S.Ct. 550, 58 L.Ed. 893 (1914) (statute allowed creditors of Government contractors to bring suit " 'if no suit should be brought by the United States within six months from the completion and final settlement of said contract' "); McNeil v. United States, 508 U.S. 106, 107, n. 1, 113 S.Ct. 1980, 124 L.Ed.2d 21 (1993) (statute provided that " '[a]n action shall not be instituted upon a claim against the United States for money damages ... unless the claimant shall have first presented the claim to the appropriate Federal agency' ").
Again, the FCA's structure shows that Congress knew how to draft the kind of statutory language that petitioner seeks to read into § 3730(b)(2). The applicable version of the public disclosure bar, for example, requires a district court to dismiss an action when the underlying information has already been made available to the public, " 'unless' " the plaintiff is the Attorney General or an original source. Graham County Soil and Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 559 U.S., at 286, 130 S.Ct. 1396.
Second, petitioner contends that because this Court has described the FCA's qui tam provisions as "effecting a partial assignment of the Government's damages claim," Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, 529 U.S., at 773, 120 S.Ct. 1858 adherence to all of the FCA's mandatory requirements-no matter how small-is a condition of the assignment. This argument fails for the same reason as the one discussed above: Petitioner can show no textual indication in the statute suggesting that the relator's ability to bring suit depends on adherence to the seal requirement.
Third, petitioner points to a few stray sentences in the Senate Committee Report that it claims support the mandatory dismissal rule. As explained above, however, the Report's recitation of the general purpose of the statute is best understood to support respondents. Supra, at 442. And, furthermore, because the meaning of the FCA's text and structure is "plain and unambiguous, we need not accept petitioner['s] invitation to consider the legislative history." Whitfield v. United States, 543 U.S. 209, 215, 125 S.Ct. 687, 160 L.Ed.2d 611 (2005).
III
Petitioner's secondary argument is that the District Court did not consider the proper factors when declining to dismiss respondents' complaint or, at a minimum, that it was plain error not to consider respondents' conduct after the seal was lifted in part. This Court holds the District Court did not abuse its discretion by denying petitioner's motion, much less commit plain error. In light of the questionable conduct of respondents' prior attorney, it well may not have been reversible error had the District Court granted the motion; that possibility, however, need not be considered here.
In general, the question whether dismissal is appropriate should be left to the sound discretion of the district court. While the factors articulated in United States ex rel. Lujan v. Hughes Aircraft Co. appear to be appropriate, it is unnecessary to explore these and other relevant considerations. These standards can be discussed in the course of later cases.
IV
Petitioner and its amici place great emphasis on the reputational harm FCA defendants may suffer when the seal requirement is violated. But even if every seal violation does not mandate dismissal, that sanction remains a possible form of relief. District courts have inherent power, moreover, to impose sanctions short of dismissal for violations of court orders. See Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43-46, 111 S.Ct. 2123, 115 L.Ed.2d 27 (1991). Remedial tools like monetary penalties or attorney discipline remain available to punish and deter seal violations even when dismissal is not appropriate.
Of note in this case, petitioner did not request any sanction other than dismissal. Tr. of Oral Arg. 3-4, 17. Had petitioner sought some lesser sanctions, the District Court might have taken a different course. Yet petitioner failed to do so. On this record, the question whether a lesser sanction is warranted is not preserved.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is
Affirmed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | H | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
When the validity of a state statute, challenged under the United States Constitution, is properly for adjudication before a United States District Court, reference to the state courts for construction of the statute should not automatically be made. The judgment is vacated and the case is remanded to the United States District Court for the ^Eastern District of Arkansas for consideration in light of Harrison v. N. A. A. C. P., ante, p. 167.
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. '
In Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los Angeles, 475 U. S. 608 (1986) (Golden State I), we held that the respondent city-had violated federal law by conditioning the renewal of petitioner’s taxicab franchise on settlement of a pending labor dispute between petitioner and its union. On remand, the District Court enjoined the city to reinstate the franchise but concluded that 42 U. S. C. § 1983 (1982 ed.) did not authorize an award of compensatory damages. The court reasoned that “the supremacy clause does not create individual rights that may be vindicated in an action for damages under Section 1983,” 660 F. Supp. 571, 578 (CD Cal. 1987), and that even though the city’s conduct was pre-empted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V), a § 1983 cause of action did not lie because there had been no “direct violation” of the statute and because the Act’s comprehensive enforcement scheme precluded resort to § 1983. The Court of Appeals affirmed. 857 F. 2d 631 (CA9 1988). We granted certiorari limited to the question whether the NLRA granted petitioner rights enforceable under § 1983. 489 U. S. 1010 (1989).
I
Section 1983 provides a federal remedy for “the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” As the language of the statute plainly indicates, the remedy encompasses violations of federal statutory as well as constitutional rights. We have repeatedly held that the coverage of the statute must be broadly construed. See, e. g., Felder v. Casey, 487 U. S. 131, 139 (1988); Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1, 4 (1980); cf. United States v. Price, 383 U. S. 787, 801 (1966). It provides a remedy “against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.” Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U. S. 658, 700-701 (1978).
A determination that § 1983 is available to remedy a statutory or constitutional violation involves a two-step inquiry. First, the plaintiff must assert the violation of a federal right. See Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1, 19 (1981). Section 1983 speaks in terms of “rights, privileges, or immunities,” not violations of federal law. In deciding whether a federal right has been violated, we have considered whether the provision in question creates obligations binding on the governmental unit or rather “does no more than express a congressional preference for certain kinds of treatment. ” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 451 U. S. 1, 19 (1981). The interest the plaintiff asserts must not be “too vague and amorphous” to be “beyond the competence of the judiciary to enforce.” Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418, 431-432 (1987). We have also asked whether the provision in question was “intended] to benefit” the putative plaintiff. Id., at 430; see also id., at 433 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (citing Cort v. Ash, 422 U. S. 66, 78 (1975)).
Second, even when the plaintiff has asserted a federal right, the defendant may show that Congress “specifically foreclosed a remedy under § 1983,” Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S. 992, 1005, n. 9 (1984), by providing a “comprehensive enforcement mechanis[m] for protection of a federal right,” id., at 1003; see also Middlesex County Sewerage Authority v. National Sea Clammers Assn., 453 U. S. 1 (1981); Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475 (1973). The availability of administrative mechanisms to protect the plaintiff’s interests is not necessarily sufficient to demonstrate that Congress intended to foreclose a § 1983 remedy. See Wright, 479 U. S., at 425-428; cf. Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S. 397, 420 (1970). Rather, the statutory framework must be such that “[allowing a plaintiff” to bring a § 1983 action “would be inconsistent with Congress’ carefully tailored scheme.” Smith, 468 U. S., at 1012. The burden to demonstrate that Congress has expressly withdrawn the remedy is on the defendant. See Wright, 479 U. S., at 423; National Sea Clammers, 453 U. S., at 21, n. 31. <<fWe do not lightly conclude that Congress intended to preclude reliance on § 1983 as a remedy’ for the deprivation of a federally secured right.” Wright, 479 U. S., at 423-424 (quoting Smith v. Robinson, 468 U. S., at 1012).
Respondent argues that the Supremacy Clause, of its own force, does not create rights enforceable under § 1983. We agree. “[T]hat clause is not a source of any federal rights”; it “ ‘seeure[s]’ federal rights by according them priority whenever they come in conflict with state law.” Chapman v. Houston Welfare Rights Organization, 441 U. S. 600, 613 (1979); see also Swift & Co. v. Wickham, 382 U. S. Ill (1965). Given the variety of situations in which preemption claims may be asserted, in state court and in federal court, it would obviously be incorrect to assume that a federal right of action pursuant to § 1983 exists every time a federal rule of law pre-empts state regulatory authority. Conversely, the fact that a federal statute has pre-empted certain state action does not preclude the possibility that the same federal statute may create a federal right for which § 1983 provides a remedy.
In all cases, the availability of the § 1983 remedy turns on whether the statute, by its terms or as interpreted, creates obligations “sufficiently specific and definite” to be within “the competence of the judiciary to enforce,” Wright, 479 U. S., at 432, is intended to benefit the putative plaintiff, and is not foreclosed “by express provision or other specific evidence from the statute itself,” id., at 423.
II
The nub of the controversy between the parties is whether the NLRA creates “rights” in labor and management that are protected against governmental interference. The city does not argue, nor could it, that a § 1983 action is precluded by the existence of a comprehensive enforcement scheme. Although the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB or Board) has exclusive jurisdiction to prevent and remedy unfair labor practices by employers and unions, it has no authority to address conduct protected by the NLRA against governmental interference. There is thus no comprehensive enforcement scheme for preventing state interference with federally protected labor rights that would foreclose the § 1983 remedy. Nor can there be any substantial question that our holding in Golden State I that the city’s conduct was pre-empted was within the competence of the judiciary to enforce. Rather, the city argues that it cannot be held liable under § 1983 because its conduct did not violate any rights secured by the NLRA. On the basis of our previous cases, we reject this argument. We agree with petitioner that it is the intended beneficiary of a statutory scheme that prevents governmental interference with the collective-bargaining process and that the NLRA gives it rights enforceable against governmental interference in an action under § 1983.
In the NLRA, Congress has not just “occupied the field” with legislation that is passed solely with the interests of the general public in mind. In such circumstances, when congressional pre-emption benefits particular parties only as an incident of the federal scheme of regulation, a private damages remedy under § 1983 may not be available. The NLRA, however, creates rights in labor and management both against one another and against the State. By its terms, the Act confers certain rights “generally on employees and not merely as against the employer.” Hill v. Florida ex rel. Watson, 325 U. S. 538, 545 (1945) (Stone, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part); see also Motor Coach Employees v. Missouri, 374 U. S. 74 (1963); Motor Coach Employees v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Bd., 340 U. S. 383 (1951); Automobile Workers v. O’Brien, 339 U. S. 454, 458 (1950). We have thus stated that “[i]f the state law regulates conduct that is actually protected by federal law, . . . pre-emption follows ... as a matter of substantive right.” Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U. S. 491, 503 (1984). The rights protected against state interference, moreover, are not limited to those explicitly set forth in § 7 as protected against private interference. “The NLRA . . . has long been understood to protect a range of conduct against state but not private interference.” Wisconsin Dept. of Industry v. Gould Inc., 475 U. S. 282, 290 (1986). See also New York Telephone Co. v. New York Dept. of Labor, 440 U. S. 519, 552 (1979) (Powell, J., dissenting) (“What Congress left unregulated is as important as the regulations that it imposed. It sought to leave labor and management essentially free to bargain for an agreement to govern their relationship”). And, contrary to the city’s contention, “‘[r]esort to economic weapons should more peaceful measures not avail’ is the right of the employer as well as the employee.” Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132, 147 (1976) (quoting American Ship Building Co. v. NLRB, 380 U. S. 300, 317 (1965)).
Golden State I was based on the doctrine that is identified with our decision in Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, supra. That doctrine is fundamentally different from the rule of San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236 (1959), that state jurisdiction over conduct arguably protected or prohibited by the NLRA is pre-empted in the interest of maintaining uniformity in the administration of the federal regulatory jurisdiction. See Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 382, n. 17 (1969). In Machinists, we reiterated that Congress intended to give parties to a collective-bargaining agreement the right to make use of “economic weapons,” not explicitly set forth in the Act, free of governmental interference. 427 U. S., at 150. “[T]he congressional intent in enacting the comprehensive federal law of labor relations” required that certain types of peaceful conduct “must be free of regulation.” Id., at 155. The Machinists rule creates a free zone from which all regulation, “whether federal or State,” id., at 153, is excluded.
The city’s contrary argument, that the NLRA does not secure rights against the State because the duties of the State are not expressly set forth in the text of the statute, is not persuasive. We have held, based on the language, structure, and history of the NLRA, that the Act protects certain rights of labor and management against governmental interference. While it is true that the rule of the Machinists case is not set forth in the specific text of an enumerated section of the NLRA, that might well also be said with respect to any number of rights or obligations that we have found implicit in a statute’s language. A rule of law that is the product of judicial interpretation of a vague, ambiguous, or incomplete statutory provision is no less binding than a rule that is based on the plain meaning of a statute. The violation of a federal right that has been found to be implicit in a statute’s language and structure is as much a “direct violation” of a right as is the violation of a right that is clearly set forth in the text of the statute.
The Machinists rule is not designed — as is the Garmon rule — to answer the question whether state or federal regulations should apply to certain conduct. Rather, it is more akin to a rule that denies either sovereign the authority to abridge a personal liberty. As much as the welfare benefits in Maine v. Thiboutot, 448 U. S. 1 (1980), and the right to a prescribed portion of rent in Wright v. Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, 479 U. S. 418 (1987), the interest in being free of governmental regulation of the “peaceful methods of putting economic pressure upon one another,” Machinists, 427 U. S., at 154, is a right specifically conferred on employers and employees by the NLRA. Of course, Congress has the authority to retract the statutorily conferred liberty at will, just as the State in Wright and Thiboutot could relieve itself of federal obligations by declining federal funds. Cf. Guardians Assn. v. Civil Service Comm’n of New York City, 463 U. S. 582, 596 (1983) (opinion of White, J.); Rosado v. Wyman, 397 U. S., at 420. But while the rule remains in effect, it is a guarantee of freedom for private conduct that the State may not abridge.
As we held in Golden State I, respondent’s refusal to renew petitioner’s franchise violated petitioner’s right to use permissible economic tactics to withstand the strike. Because the case does not come within any recognized exception from the broad remedial scope of § 1983, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 1983 provides:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
“As the City correctly notes, it did not, and could not, violate the NLRA, or Section 8(d) specifically, since it was not a party to the collective bargaining agreement between Golden State and its Teamster drivers but rather was merely a collateral third party to the collective bargaining process. Section 8(d) of the NLRA does not create rights and obligations with respect to third parties who are not parties to a collective bargaining agreement but who, in some way, come in contact with the collective bargaining process. Rather, Section 8(d) defines the concept of collective bargaining and the obligations of the parties engaged in collective bargaining, and, in the language at issue in this case, states that the failure to make a concession during collective bargaining negotiations is not an unfair labor practice. Thus, while the Supreme Court in this case relied on Section 8(d) in holding that the City’s action was preempted because it would have the effect of forcing a bargaining concession by Golden State, it would strain the language and purpose of the NLRA and misconstrue the import of the Supreme Court opinion to find that the City ‘directly violated’ Section 8(d) solely by virtue of the fact that it took some action preempted by that section.” 660 F. Supp., at 578-579.
Article VI, cl. 2, of the United States Constitution provides:
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Chapman involved the predecessor to 28 U. S. C. § 1343(a)(3) (1982 ed)., the jurisdictional counterpart to § 1983, which provides jurisdiction over civil actions “[t]o redress the deprivation, under color of any State law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any right, privilege or immunity secured by the Constitution of the United States or by any Act of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens or of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.” We observed that if the first prepositional phrase, referring to constitutional claims, included rights secured solely by the Supremacy Clause, the additional language, providing jurisdiction for claims based on Acts of Congress providing for equal rights of citizens, would have been superfluous. See Chapman, 441 U. S., at 615. In order to give meaning to the entire statute, we held that the reference to constitutional claims therefore did not include rights secured solely by the Supremacy Clause. Ibid. The same is true with respect to § 1983. If the Supremacy Clause itself were understood to secure constitutional rights, the reference to “and laws” would have been wholly unnecessary. It follows that a Supremacy Clause claim based on a statutory violation is enforceable under § 1983 only when the statute creates “rights, privileges, or immunities” in the particular plaintiff.
The Court of Appeals was thus mistaken in ruling that because the NLRB has exclusive jurisdiction to redress violations of the NLRA by labor and management, the federal courts do not have jurisdiction to address claims of governmental interference with interests protected by the Act. Our cases have repeatedly stressed the distinctions between the two types of claims, see Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U. S. 491, 503 (1984); Machinists v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Comm’n, 427 U. S. 132, 145, n. 6 (1976); Trainmen v. Jacksonville Terminal Co., 394 U. S. 369, 382, n. 17 (1969).
Section 1(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act, 29 U. S. C. § 141(b) (1982 ed.), states in pertinent part:
“It is the purpose and policy of this chapter ... to prescribe the legitimate rights of both employees and employers in their relations affecting commerce . . .
Garmon pre-emption divests a state court of jurisdiction over actions where the state law prohibits the same conduct that is arguably prohibited by the NLRA, see Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, 436 U. S. 180, 193-198 (1978); Belknap, Inc. v. Hale, 463 U. S. 491, 510 (1983), and actions involving conduct arguably protected under the NLRA provided the injured party has a means of bringing the dispute before the Board, see Longshoremen v. Davis, 476 U. S. 380, 393, n. 10 (1986). This preemption rule “avoids the potential for jurisdictional conflict between state courts or agencies and the NLRB by ensuring that primary responsibility for interpreting and applying this body of labor law remains with the NLRB.” Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U. S., at 502. “Apart from notions of ‘primary jurisdiction,’ there would be no objection to state courts’ and the NLRB’s exercising concurrent jurisdiction over conduct prohibited by the federal Act.” Sears, Roebuck, 436 U. S., at 199 (footnote omitted).
Referring to the substantive aspects of the collective-bargaining process, we wrote:
“Our decisions hold that Congress meant that these activities, whether of employer or employees, were not to be regulable by States any more than by the NLRB, for neither States nor the Board is ‘afforded flexibility in picking and choosing which economic devices of labor and management shall be branded as unlawful.’ [NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 498 (1960).] Rather, both are without authority to attempt to ‘introduce some standard of properly “balanced” bargaining power,’ id., at 497 (footnote omitted), or to define ‘what economic sanctions might be permitted negotiating parties in an “ideal” or “balanced” state of collective bargaining.' Id., at 500." Machinists, 427 U. S., at 149—150.
Cf. Bomar v. Keyes, 162 F. 2d 136 (CA2) (L. Hand, J.) (statutory privilege to sit on federal jury protected against interference by State), cert. denied, 332 U. S. 826 (1947).
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.
A participant in an employee benefit plan covered by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829, as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 1001 et seq., may bring a civil action under § 502(a)(1)(B) to recover benefits due under the terms of the plan. 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B). Courts have generally required participants to exhaust the plan's administrative remedies before filing suit to recover benefits. ERISA does not, however, specify a statute of limitations for filing suit under § 502(a)(1)(B). Filling that gap, the plan at issue here requires participants to bring suit within three years after "proof of loss" is due. Because proof of loss is due before a plan's administrative process can be completed, the administrative exhaustion requirement will, in practice, shorten the contractual limitations period. The question presented is whether the contractual limitations provision is enforceable. We hold that it is.
I
In 2005, petitioner Julie Heimeshoff began to report chronic pain and fatigue that interfered with her duties as a senior public relations manager for Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Her physician later diagnosed her with lupus and fibromyalgia. Heimeshoff stopped working on June 8.
On August 22, 2005, Heimeshoff filed a claim for long-term disability benefits with Hartford Life & Accident Insurance Co., the administrator of Wal-Mart's Group Long Term Disability Plan (Plan). Her claim form, supported by a statement from her rheumatologist, listed her symptoms as " 'extreme fatigue, significant pain, and difficulty in concentration.' " 1 App. to Pet. for Cert. 7. In November 2005, Hartford notified Heimeshoff that it could not determine whether she was disabled because her rheumatologist had never responded to Hartford's request for additional information. Hartford denied the claim the following month for failure to provide satisfactory proof of loss. Hartford instructed Heimeshoff that it would consider an appeal filed within 180 days, but later informed her that it would reopen her claim, without the need for an appeal, if her rheumatologist provided the requested information.
In July 2006, another physician evaluated Heimeshoff and concluded that she was disabled. Heimeshoff submitted that evaluation and additional medical evidence in October 2006. Hartford then retained a physician to review Heimeshoff's records and speak with her rheumatologist. That physician issued a report in November 2006 concluding that Heimeshoff was able to perform the activities required by her sedentary occupation. Hartford denied Heimeshoff's claim later that November.
In May 2007, Heimeshoff requested an extension of the Plan's appeal deadline until September 30, 2007, in order to provide additional evidence. Hartford granted the extension. On September 26, 2007, Heimeshoff submitted her appeal along with additional cardiopulmonary and neuropsychological evaluations. After two additional physicians retained by Hartford reviewed the claim, Hartford issued its final denial on November 26, 2007.
On November 18, 2010, almost three years later (but more than three years after proof of loss was due), Heimeshoff filed suit in District Court seeking review of her denied claim pursuant to ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B). Hartford and Wal-Mart moved to dismiss on the ground that Heimeshoff's complaint was barred by the Plan's limitations provision, which stated: "Legal action cannot be taken against The Hartford... [more than] 3 years after the time written proof of loss is required to be furnished according to the terms of the policy." Id., at 10.
The District Court granted the motion to dismiss. Recognizing that ERISA does not provide a statute of limitations for actions under § 502(a)(1)(B), the court explained that the limitations period provided by the most nearly analogous state statute applies. See North Star Steel Co. v. Thomas, 515 U.S. 29, 33-34, 115 S.Ct. 1927, 132 L.Ed.2d 27 (1995). Under Connecticut law, the Plan was permitted to specify a limitations period expiring "[not] less than one year from the time when the loss insured against occurs." 2Conn. Gen.Stat. § 38a-290 (2012); see App. to Pet. for Cert. 13. The court held that, under Circuit precedent, a 3-year limitations period set to begin when proof of loss is due is enforceable, and Heimeshoff's claim was therefore untimely.3Id., at 13, 15 (citing Burke v. PriceWaterHouseCoopers LLP Long Term Disability Plan, 572 F.3d 76, 79-81 (C.A.2 2009) ( per curiam )).
On appeal, the Second Circuit affirmed. 496 Fed.Appx. 129 (2012). Applying the precedent relied on by the District Court, the Court of Appeals concluded that it did not offend ERISA for the limitations period to commence before the plaintiff could file suit under § 502(a)(1)(B). Because the policy language unambiguously provided that the 3-year limitations period ran from the time that proof of loss was due under the Plan, and because Heimeshoff filed her claim more than three years after that date, her action was time barred.
We granted certiorari to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals on the enforceability of this common contractual limitations provision. 569 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 1802, 185 L.Ed.2d 810 (2013). Compare, e.g.,Burke, supra, at 79-81 (plan provision requiring suit within three years after proof-of-loss deadline is enforceable); and Rice v. Jefferson Pilot Financial Ins. Co., 578 F.3d 450, 455-456 (C.A.6 2009) (same), with White v. Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, 488 F.3d 240, 245-248 (C.A.4 2007) (not enforceable); and Price v. Provident Life & Acc. Ins. Co., 2 F.3d 986, 988 (C.A.9 1993) (same). We now affirm.
II
Statutes of limitations establish the period of time within which a claimant must bring an action. As a general matter, a statute of limitations begins to run when the cause of action " 'accrues' "-that is, when "the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief." Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U.S. 192, 201, 118 S.Ct. 542, 139 L.Ed.2d 553 (1997).
ERISA and its regulations require plans to provide certain presuit procedures for reviewing claims after participants submit proof of loss (internal review). See 29 U.S.C. § 1133; 29 C.F.R. § 2560.503-1 (2012). The courts of appeals have uniformly required that participants exhaust internal review before bringing a claim for judicial review under § 502(a)(1)(B). See LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, Inc., 552 U.S. 248, 258-259, 128 S.Ct. 1020, 169 L.Ed.2d 847 (2008) (ROBERTS, C.J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). A participant's cause of action under ERISA accordingly does not accrue until the plan issues a final denial.
ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B) does not specify a statute of limitations. Instead, the parties in this case have agreed by contract to a 3-year limitations period. The contract specifies that this period begins to run at the time proof of loss is due. Because proof of loss is due before a participant can exhaust internal review, Heimeshoff contends that this limitations provision runs afoul of the general rule that statutes of limitations commence upon accrual of the cause of action.
For the reasons that follow, we reject that argument. Absent a controlling statute to the contrary, a participant and a plan may agree by contract to a particular limitations period, even one that starts to run before the cause of action accrues, as long as the period is reasonable.
A
Recognizing that Congress generally sets statutory limitations periods to begin when their associated causes of action accrue, this Court has often construed statutes of limitations to commence when the plaintiff is permitted to file suit. See, e.g., Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U.S. 409, 418, 125 S.Ct. 2444, 162 L.Ed.2d 390 (2005) (resolving an ambiguity in light of "the'standard rule that the limitations period commences when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action' " (quoting Bay Area Laundry, supra, at 201, 118 S.Ct. 542)); Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U.S. 96, 98, 61 S.Ct. 473, 85 L.Ed. 605 (1941). At the same time, we have recognized that statutes of limitations do not inexorably commence upon accrual. See Reiter v. Cooper, 507 U.S. 258, 267, 113 S.Ct. 1213, 122 L.Ed.2d 604 (1993)
(noting the possibility that a cause of action may "accru[e] at one time for the purpose of calculating when the statute of limitations begins to run, but at another time for the purpose of bringing suit"); see also Dodd v. United States, 545 U.S. 353, 358, 125 S.Ct. 2478, 162 L.Ed.2d 343 (2005) (the statute of limitations in the federal habeas statute runs from " 'the date on which the right asserted was initially recognized by the Supreme Court' " even if the right has not yet been "'made retroactively applicable to cases on collateral review' "); McMahon v. United States, 342 U.S. 25, 26-27, 72 S.Ct. 17, 96 L.Ed. 26 (1951) (the limitations period in the Suits in Admiralty Act runs from the date of injury rather than when plaintiffs may sue).
None of those decisions, however, addresses the critical aspect of this case: the parties have agreed by contract to commence the limitations period at a particular time. For that reason, we find more appropriate guidance in precedent confronting whether to enforce the terms of a contractual limitations provision. Those cases provide a well-established framework suitable for resolving the question in this case:
"[I]n the absence of a controlling statute to the contrary, a provision in a contract may validly limit, between the parties, the time for bringing an action on such contract to a period less than that prescribed in the general statute of limitations, provided that the shorter period itself shall be a reasonable period." Order of United Commercial Travelers of America v. Wolfe, 331 U.S. 586, 608, 67 S.Ct. 1355, 91 L.Ed. 1687 (1947).
We have recognized that some statutes of limitations do not permit parties to choose a shorter period by contract. See, e.g.,Louisiana & Western R. Co. v. Gardiner, 273 U.S. 280, 284, 47 S.Ct. 386, 71 L.Ed. 644 (1927) (contractual provision requiring suit against common carrier within two years and one day after delivery was invalid under a federal statute "declar[ing] unlawful any limitation shorter than two years from the time notice is given of the disallowance of the claim"). The rule set forth in Wolfe recognizes, however, that other statutes of limitations provide only a default rule that permits parties to choose a shorter limitations period. See Riddlesbarger v. Hartford Ins. Co., 7 Wall. 386, 390, 19 L.Ed. 257 (1869) (finding "nothing in th[e] language or object [of statutes of limitations] which inhibits parties from stipulating for a shorter period within which to assert their respective claims"); see also Missouri, K. & T.R. Co. v. Harriman, 227 U.S. 657, 672-673, 33 S.Ct. 397, 57 L.Ed. 690 (1913) (citing examples). If parties are permitted to contract around a default statute of limitations, it follows that the same rule applies where the statute creating the cause of action is silent regarding a limitations period.
The Wolfe rule necessarily allows parties to agree not only to the length of a limitations period but also to its commencement. The duration of a limitations period can be measured only by reference to its start date. Each is therefore an integral part of the limitations provision, and there is no basis for categorically preventing parties from agreeing on one aspect but not the other. See Electrical Workers v. Robbins & Myers, Inc., 429 U.S. 229, 234, 97 S.Ct. 441, 50 L.Ed.2d 427 (1976) (noting that "the parties could conceivably have agreed to a contract" specifying the " 'occurrence' " that commenced the statutory limitations period).
B
The principle that contractual limitations provisions ordinarily should be enforced as written is especially appropriate when enforcing an ERISA plan. "The plan, in short, is at the center of ERISA." US Airways, Inc. v. McCutchen, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1537, 1548, 185 L.Ed.2d 654 (2013). "[E]mployers have large leeway to design disability and other welfare plans as they see fit." Black & Decker Disability Plan v. Nord, 538 U.S. 822, 833, 123 S.Ct. 1965, 155 L.Ed.2d 1034 (2003). And once a plan is established, the administrator's duty is to see that the plan is "maintained pursuant to [that] written instrument." 29 U.S.C. § 1102(a)(1). This focus on the written terms of the plan is the linchpin of "a system that is [not] so complex that administrative costs, or litigation expenses, unduly discourage employers from offering [ERISA] plans in the first place." Varity Corp. v. Howe, 516 U.S. 489, 497, 116 S.Ct. 1065, 134 L.Ed.2d 130 (1996).
Heimeshoff's cause of action for benefits is likewise bound up with the written instrument. ERISA § 502(a)(1)(B) authorizes a plan participant to bring suit "to recover benefits due to him under the terms of his plan, to enforce his rights under the terms of the plan, or to clarify his rights to future benefits under the terms of the plan." 29 U.S.C. § 1132(a)(1)(B) (emphasis added). That "statutory language speaks of'enforc [ing]'the 'terms of the plan,' not of changing them." CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 563 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 1866, 1877, 179 L.Ed.2d 843 (2011). For that reason, we have recognized the particular importance of enforcing plan terms as written in § 502(a)(1)(B) claims. See id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 1876-1877;Conkright v. Frommert, 559 U.S. 506, 512-513, 130 S.Ct. 1640, 176 L.Ed.2d 469 (2010); Kennedy v. Plan Administrator for DuPont Sav. and Investment Plan, 555 U.S. 285, 299-301, 129 S.Ct. 865, 172 L.Ed.2d 662 (2009). Because the rights and duties at issue in this case are no less "built around reliance on the face of written plan documents," Curtiss-Wright Corp. v. Schoonejongen, 514 U.S. 73, 83, 115 S.Ct. 1223, 131 L.Ed.2d 94 (1995), we will not presume from statutory silence that Congress intended a different approach here.
III
We must give effect to the Plan's limitations provision unless we determine either that the period is unreasonably short, or that a "controlling statute" prevents the limitations provision from taking effect. Wolfe, 331 U.S., at 608, 67 S.Ct. 1355. Neither condition is met here.
A
Neither Heimeshoff nor the United States claims that the Plan's 3-year limitations provision is unreasonably short on its face. And with good reason: the United States acknowledges that the regulations governing internal review mean for "mainstream" claims to be resolved in about one year, Tr. of Oral Arg. 22, leaving the participant with two years to file suit.4 Even in this case, where the administrative review process required more time than usual, Heimeshoff was left with approximately one year in which to file suit. Heimeshoff does not dispute that a hypothetical 1-year limitations period commencing at the conclusion of internal review would be reasonable. Id., at 4. We cannot fault a limitations provision that would leave the same amount of time in a case with an unusually long internal review process while providing for a significantly longer period in most cases.
Heimeshoff's reliance on Occidental Life Ins. Co. of Cal. v. EEOC, 432 U.S. 355, 97 S.Ct. 2447, 53 L.Ed.2d 402 (1977), is therefore misplaced. There, we declined to enforce a State's 1-year statute of limitations as applied to Title VII employment discrimination actions where the limitations period commenced before accrual. We concluded that "[i]t would hardly be reasonable" to suppose that Congress intended to enforce state statutes of limitations as short as 12 months where the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission faced a backlog of 18 to 24 months, leaving claimants with little chance of bringing a claim not barred by the State's statute of limitations. Id., at 369-371, 97 S.Ct. 2447. In the absence of any evidence that there are similar obstacles to bringing a timely § 502(a)(1)(B) claim, we conclude that the Plan's limitations provision is reasonable.
B
Heimeshoff and the United States contend that even if the Plan's limitations provision is reasonable, ERISA is a "controlling statute to the contrary." Wolfe, supra, at 608, 67 S.Ct. 1355. But they do not contend that ERISA's statute of limitations for claims of breach of fiduciary duty controls this action to recover benefits. See 29 U.S.C. § 1113. Nor do they claim that ERISA's text or regulations contradict the Plan's limitations provision. Rather, they assert that the limitations provision will "undermine" ERISA's two-tiered remedial scheme. Brief for Petitioner 39; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19. We cannot agree.
1
The first tier of ERISA's remedial scheme is the internal review process required for all ERISA disability-benefit plans. 29 C.F.R. § 2560.503-1. After the participant files a claim for disability benefits, the plan has 45 days to make an "adverse benefit determination." § 2560.503-1(f)(3). Two 30-day extensions are available for "matters beyond the control of the plan," giving the plan a total of up to 105 days to make that determination. Ibid. The plan's time for making a benefit determination may be tolled "due to a claimant's failure to submit information necessary to decide a claim." § 2560.503-1(f)(4).
Following denial, the plan must provide the participant with "at least 180 days... within which to appeal the determination." §§ 2560.503-1(h)(3)(i), (h)(4). The plan has 45 days to resolve that appeal, with one 45-day extension available for "special circumstances (such as the need to hold a hearing)." §§ 2560.503-1(i)(1)(i), (i)(3)(i). The plan's time for resolving an appeal can be tolled again if the participant fails to submit necessary information. § 2560.503-1(i)(4). In the ordinary course, the regulations contemplate an internal review process lasting about one year. Tr. of Oral Arg. 22. If the plan fails to meet its own deadlines under these procedures, the participant "shall be deemed to have exhausted the administrative remedies." § 2560.503-1( l ). Upon exhaustion of the internal review process, the participant is entitled to proceed immediately to judicial review, the second tier of ERISA's remedial scheme.
2
Heimeshoff and the United States first claim that the Plan's limitations provision will undermine the foregoing internal review process. They contend that participants will shortchange their own rights during that process in order to have more time in which to seek judicial review. Their premise-that participants will sacrifice the benefits of internal review to preserve additional time for filing suit-is highly dubious in light of the consequences of that course of action.
First, to the extent participants fail to develop evidence during internal review, they risk forfeiting the use of that evidence in district court. The Courts of Appeals have generally limited the record for judicial review to the administrative record compiled during internal review. See, e.g.,Foster v. PPG Industries, Inc., 693 F.3d 1226, 1231 (C.A.10 2012); Fleisher v. Standard Ins. Co., 679 F.3d 116, 121 (C.A.3 2012);McCartha v. National City Corp., 419 F.3d 437, 441 (C.A.6 2005). Second, participants are not likely to value judicial review of plan determinations over internal review. Many plans (including this Plan) vest discretion over benefits determinations in plan administrators. See Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. v. Bruch, 489 U.S. 101, 111-112, 109 S.Ct. 948, 103 L.Ed.2d 80 (1989) (permitting the vesting of discretion); see also App. in No. 12-651-cv (CA2), p. 34. Courts ordinarily review determinations by such plans only for abuse of discretion. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. v. Glenn, 554 U.S. 105, 115-116, 128 S.Ct. 2343, 171 L.Ed.2d 299 (2008). In short, participants have much to lose and little to gain by giving up the full measure of internal review in favor of marginal extra time to seek judicial review.
3
Heimeshoff and the United States next warn that it will endanger judicial review to allow plans to set limitations periods that begin to run before internal review is complete. The United States suggests that administrators may attempt to prevent judicial review by delaying the resolution of claims in bad faith. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 19; see also White, 488 F.3d, at 247-248. But administrators are required by the regulations governing the internal review process to take prompt action, see supra, at 10-11, and the penalty for failure to meet those deadlines is immediate access to judicial review for the participant. 29 C.F.R. § 2560.503-1( l ). In addition, that sort of dilatory behavior may implicate one of the traditional defenses to a statute of limitations. See infra, at 14-15.
The United States suggests that even good-faith administration of internal review will significantly diminish the availability of judicial review if this limitations provision is enforced. Forty years of ERISA administration suggest otherwise. The limitations provision at issue is quite common; the vast majority of States require certain insurance policies to include 3-year limitations periods that run from the date proof of loss is due.5 But there is no significant evidence that limitations provisions like the one here have similarly thwarted judicial review. As explained above, see supra, at 10-11, ERISA regulations structure internal review to proceed in an expeditious manner. It stands to reason that the cases in which internal review leaves participants with less than one year to file suit are rare. Heimeshoff identifies only a handful of cases in which § 502(a)(1)(B) plaintiffs are actually time barred as a result of this 3-year limitations provision. See Abena v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 544 F.3d 880 (C.A.7 2008); Touqan v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 2012 WL 3465493 (E.D.Mich., Aug. 14, 2012); Smith v. Unum Provident, 2012 WL 1436458 (W.D.Ky., Apr. 24, 2012); Fry v. Hartford Ins. Co., 2011 WL 1672474 (W.D.N.Y., May 3, 2011); Rotondi v. Hartford Life & Acc. Group, 2010 WL 3720830 (S.D.N.Y., Sept. 22, 2010). Those cases suggest that this barrier falls on participants who have not diligently pursued their rights. See Abena, supra, at 884 (by his own admission, there was "no reason" plaintiff could not have filed suit during the remaining seven months of limitations period); Smith,supra, at *2 (plaintiff filed suit four years after the limitations period expired, and six years after final denial); Rotondi, supra, at *8 ("Application of the... limitations period works no unfairness here"); see also Rice, 578 F.3d, at 457 (the participant "has not established that he has been diligently pursuing his rights" and "has given no reason for his late filing"); Burke, 572 F.3d, at 81 (following exhaustion, "two years and five months of the limitations period remained"); Salerno v. Prudential Ins. Co. of America, 2009 WL 2412732, at *6 (N.D.N.Y., Aug. 3, 2009) ("Plaintiff's proof of loss was untimely by over ten years"). The evidence that this 3-year limitations provision harms diligent participants is far too insubstantial to set aside the plain terms of the contract.
Moreover, even in the rare cases where internal review prevents participants from bringing § 502(a)(1)(B) actions within the contractual period, courts are well equipped to apply traditional doctrines that may nevertheless allow participants to proceed. If the administrator's conduct causes a participant to miss the deadline for judicial review, waiver or estoppel may prevent the administrator from invoking the limitations provision as a defense. See, e.g., Thompson v. Phenix Ins. Co., 136 U.S. 287, 298-299, 10 S.Ct. 1019, 34 L.Ed. 408 (1890); LaMantia v. Voluntary Plan Adm'rs, Inc., 401 F.3d 1114, 1119 (C.A.9 2005). To the extent the participant has diligently pursued both internal review and judicial review but was prevented from filing suit by extraordinary circumstances, equitable tolling may apply. Irwin v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 498 U.S. 89, 95, 111 S.Ct. 453, 112 L.Ed.2d 435 (1990) (limitations defenses "in lawsuits between private litigants are customarily subject to 'equitable tolling' "). 6 Finally, in addition to those traditional remedies, plans that offer appeals or dispute resolution beyond what is contemplated in the internal review regulations must agree to toll the limitations provision during that time. 29 C.F.R. § 2560.503-1(c)(3)(ii). Thus, we are not persuaded that the Plan's limitations provision is inconsistent with ERISA.
C
Two additional arguments warrant mention. First, Heimeshoff argues-for the first time in this litigation-that the limitations period should be tolled as a matter of course during internal review. By effectively delaying the commencement of the limitations period until the conclusion of internal review, however, this approach reconstitutes the contractual revision we declined to make. As we explained, the parties' agreement should be enforced unless the limitations period is unreasonably short or foreclosed by ERISA. The limitations period here is neither. See supra, at 612 - 613, 613 - 615, and this page.
Nor do the ERISA regulations require tolling during internal review. A plan must agree to toll the limitations provision only in one particular circumstance: when a plan offers voluntary internal appeals beyond what is permitted by regulation. § 2560.503-1(c)(3)(ii). Even then, the limitations period is tolled only during that specific portion of internal review. This limited tolling requirement would be superfluous if the regulations contemplated tolling throughout the process.
Finally, relying on our decision in Hardin v. Straub, 490 U.S. 536, 109 S.Ct. 1998, 104 L.Ed.2d 582 (1989), Heimeshoff contends that we must inquire whether state law would toll the limitations period throughout the exhaustion process. In Hardin, we interpreted 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to borrow a State's statutory limitations period. We recognized that when a federal statute is deemed to borrow a State's limitations period, the State's tolling rules are ordinarily borrowed as well because " '[i]n virtually all statutes of limitations the chronological length of the limitation period is interrelated with provisions regarding tolling....' " 490 U.S., at 539, 109 S.Ct. 1998 (quoting Johnson v. Railway Express Agency, Inc., 421 U.S. 454, 464, 95 S.Ct. 1716, 44 L.Ed.2d 295 (1975)); see also Board of Regents of Univ. of State of N.Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478, 484, 100 S.Ct. 1790, 64 L.Ed.2d 440 (1980) (in § 1983 actions "a state statute of limitations and the coordinate tolling rules" are "binding rules of law"). But here, unlike in Hardin, the parties have adopted a limitations period by contract. Under these circumstances, where there is no need to borrow a state statute of limitations there is no need to borrow concomitant state tolling rules.
IV
We hold that the Plan's limitations provision is enforceable. The judgment is, accordingly, affirmed.
It is so ordered.
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 insurance policy provides: " 'Written proof of loss must be sent to The Hartford within 90 days after the start of the period for which The Hartford owes payment. After that, The Hartford may require further written proof that you are still Disabled.' " App. to Pet. for Cert. 10.
The parties do not dispute that Connecticut provides the relevant state law governing the limitations period in this case.
Heimeshoff also argued before the District Court that even if the Plan's limitations provision were enforceable, her suit was still timely because Hartford had granted her request for an extension until September 30, 2007. Even crediting the contention that proof of loss was not due until that date, the court held that the Plan's limitations provision barred her from bringing legal action any later than September 30, 2010. Heimeshoff did not file suit until November 18, 2010.
Heimeshoff, drawing on a study by the American Council of Life Insurers of recent § 502(a)(1)(B) cases where timeliness was at issue, states that exhaustion can take 15 to 16 months in a typical case. Reply Brief 17-18, n. 3 (citing Brief for American Council of Life Insurers et al. as Amici Curiae 29). In our view, that still leaves ample time for filing suit.
See Ala.Code §§ 27-19-14, 27-20-5(7) (2007); Alaska Stat. § 21.54.030(7) (2012); Ark.Code Ann. §§ 23-85-116, 23-86-102(c)(7) (2004); Cal. Ins.Code Ann. § 10350.11 (West 2013); Colo.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 10-16-202(12) (2013); Conn. Gen.Stat. § 38a-483(a)(11) (2012); Del.Code Ann., Tit. 18, §§ 3315, 3541(7) (1999); Ga.Code Ann. § 33-29-3(b)(11) (2013); Haw.Rev.Stat. § 431:10A-105(11) (Cum.Supp.2012); Idaho Code §§ 41-2115, 41-2207(7) (Lexis 2010); Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 215, § 5/357.12 (West 2012); Ind.Code § 27-8-5-3(a)(11) (2004); Iowa Code § 514A.3(1)( k ) (2008); Ky.Rev.Stat. Ann. §§ 304.17-150, 304.18-070(7) (West 2012); Me.Rev.Stat. Ann., Tit. 24-A, § 2715 (2000); Mass. Gen. Laws, ch. 175, § 108(3)(a)(11) (West 2011); Mich. Comp. Laws § 500.3422 (2002); Minn.Stat. § 62A.04(2)(11) (2012); Miss.Code Ann. § 83-9-5(1)(k) (2011); Mo.Rev.Stat. § 376.777(1)(11) (2000); Mont.Code Ann. § 33-22-602(7) (2013); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 44-710.03(11) (2010); Nev.Rev.Stat. §§ 689A.150, 689B.080(9) (2011); N.H.Rev.Stat. Ann. § 415:6(I)(11) (West Supp.2012); N.J. Stat. Ann. § 17B:26-14 (West 2006); N.M. Stat. Ann. § 59A-22-14 (2013); N.Y. Ins. Law § 3216(d)(1)(K) (West Supp.2013); N.C. Gen.Stat. Ann. § 58-51-15(a)(11) (Lexis 2011); N.D. Cent.Code Ann. § 26.1-36-05(14) (Lex
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This Court has struggled for nearly a decade to define the proper accommodation between the law of defamation and the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment. With this decision we return to that effort. We granted certiorari to reconsider the extent of a publisher’s constitutional privilege against liability for defamation of a private citizen. 410 U. S. 925 (1973).
I
In 1968 a Chicago policeman named Nuccio shot and killed a youth named Nelson. The state authorities prosecuted Nuccio for the homicide and ultimately obtained a conviction for murder in the second degree. The Nelson family retained petitioner Elmer Gertz, a reputable attorney, to represent them in civil litigation against Nuccio.
Respondent publishes American Opinion, a monthly outlet for the views of the John Birch Society. Early in the 1960’s the magazine began to warn of a nationwide conspiracy to discredit local law enforcement agencies and create in their stead a national police force capable of supporting a Communist dictatorship. As part of the continuing effort to alert the public to this assumed danger, the managing editor of American Opinion commissioned an article on the murder trial of Officer Nuccio. For this purpose he engaged a regular contributor to the magazine. In March 1969 respondent published the resulting article under the title “FRAME-UP: Richard Nuccio And The War On Police.” The article purports to demonstrate that the testimony against Nuccio at his criminal trial was false and that his prosecution was part of the Communist campaign against the police.
In his capacity as counsel for the Nelson family in the civil litigation, petitioner attended the coroner’s inquest into the boy’s death and initiated actions for damages,'but he neither discussed Officer Nuccio with the press nor played any part in the criminal proceeding. Notwithstanding petitioner’s remote connection with the prosecution of Nuccio, respondent’s magazine portrayed him as an architect of the “frame-up.” According to the article, the police file on petitioner took “a big, Irish cop to lift.” The article stated that petitioner had been an official of the “Marxist League for Industrial Democracy, originally known as the Intercollegiate Socialist Society, which has advocated the violent seizure of our government.” It labeled Gertz a “Leninist” and a “Communist-fronter.” It also stated that Gertz had been an officer of the National Lawyers Guild, described as a Communist organization that “probably did more than any other outfit to plan the Communist attack on the Chicago police during the 1968 Democratic Convention.”
These statements contained serious inaccuracies. The implication that petitioner had a criminal record was false. Petitioner had been a member and officer of the National Lawyers Guild some 15 years earlier, but there was no evidence that he or that organization had taken any part in planning the 1968 demonstrations in Chicago. There was also no basis for the charge that petitioner was a “Leninist” or a “Communist-fronter.” And he had never been a member of the “Marxist League for Industrial Democracy” or the “Intercollegiate Socialist Society.”
The managing editor of American Opinion made no effort to verify or substantiate the charges against petitioner. Instead, he appended an editorial introduction stating that the author had “conducted extensive research into the Richard Nuccio Case.” And he included in the article a photograph of petitioner and wrote the caption that appeared under it: “Elmer Gertz of Red Guild harrasses Nuccio.” Respondent placed the issue of American Opinion containing the article on sale at newsstands throughout the country and distributed reprints of the article on the streets of Chicago.
Petitioner filed a diversity action for libel in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. He claimed that the falsehoods published by respondent injured his reputation as a lawyer and a citizen. Before filing an answer, respondent moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, apparently on the ground that petitioner failed to allege special damages. But the court ruled that statements contained in the article constituted libel per se under Illinois law and that consequently petitioner need not plead special damages. 306 F. Supp. 310 (1969).
After answering the complaint, respondent filed a pretrial motion for summary judgment, claiming a constitutional privilege against liability for defamation. It asserted that petitioner was a public official or a public figure and that the article concerned an issue of public interest and concern. For these reasons, respondent argued, it was entitled to invoke the privilege enunciated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964). Under this rule respondent would escape liability unless petitioner could prove publication of defamatory falsehood “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. Respondent claimed that petitioner could not make such a showing and submitted a supporting affidavit by the magazine’s managing editor. The editor denied any knowledge of the falsity of the statements concerning petitioner and stated that he had relied on the author’s reputation and on his prior experience with the accuracy and authenticity of the author’s contributions to American Opinion.
The District Court denied respondent’s motion for summary judgment in a memorandum opinion of September 16, 1970. The court did not dispute respondent’s claim to the protection of the New York Times standard. Rather, it concluded that petitioner might overcome the constitutional privilege by making a factual showing sufficient to prove publication of defamatory falsehood in reckless disregard of the truth. During the course of the trial, however, it became clear that the trial court had not accepted all of respondent’s asserted grounds for applying the New York Times rule to this case. It thought that respondent’s claim to the protection of the constitutional privilege depended on the contention that petitioner was either a public official under the New York Times decision or a public figure under Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U. S. 130 (1967), apparently discounting the argument that a privilege would arise from the presence of a public issue. After all the evidence had been presented but before submission of the case to the jury, the court ruled in effect that petitioner was neither a public official nor a public figure. It added that, if he were, the resulting application of the New York Times standard would require a directed verdict for respondent. Because some statements in the article constituted libel per se under Illinois law, the court submitted the case to the jury under instructions that withdrew from its consideration all issues save the measure of damages. The jury awarded $50,000 to petitioner.
Following the jury verdict and on further reflection, the District Court concluded that the New York Times standard should govern this case even though petitioner was not a public official or public figure. It accepted respondent’s contention that that privilege protected discussion of any public issue without regard to the status of a person defamed therein. Accordingly, the court entered judgment for respondent notwithstanding the jury’s verdict. This conclusion anticipated the reasoning of a plurality of this Court in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29 (1971).
Petitioner appealed to contest the applicability of the New York Times standard to this case. Although the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit doubted the correctness of the District Court’s determination that petitioner was not a public figure, it did not overturn that finding. It agreed with the District Court that respondent could assert the constitutional privilege because the article concerned a matter of public interest, citing this Court’s intervening decision in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., supra. The Court of Appeals read Rosenbloom to require application of the New York Times standard to any publication or broadcast about an issue of significant public interest, without regard to the position, fame, or anonymity of the person defamed, and it concluded that respondent’s statements concerned such an issue. After reviewing the record, the Court of Appeals endorsed the District Court’s conclusion that petitioner had failed to show by clear and convincing evidence that respondent had acted with “actual malice” as defined by New York Times. There was no evidence that the managing editor of American Opinion knew of the falsity of the accusations made in the article. In fact, he knew nothing about petitioner except what he learned from the article. The court correctly noted that mere proof of failure to investigate, without more, cannot establish reckless disregard for the truth. Rather, the publisher must act with a “ 'high degree of awareness of . . . probable falsity.’ ” St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727, 731 (1968); accord, Beck-ley Newspapers Corp. v. Hanks, 389 U. S. 81, 84-85 (1967); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 75-76 (1964). The evidence in this case did not reveal that respondent had cause for such an awareness. The Court of Appeals therefore affirmed, 471 F. 2d 801 (1972). For the reasons stated below, we reverse.
II
The principal issue in this case is whether a newspaper or broadcaster that publishes defamatory falsehoods about an individual who is neither a public official nor a public figure may claim a constitutional privilege against liability for the injury inflicted by those statements. The Court considered this question on the rather different set of facts presented in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29 (1971). Rosenbloom, a distributor of nudist magazines, was arrested for selling allegedly obscene material while making a delivery to a retail dealer. The police obtained a warrant and seized his entire inventory of 3,000 books and magazines. He sought and obtained an injunction prohibiting further police interference with his business. He then sued a local radio station for failing to note in two of its newscasts that the 3,000 items seized were only “reportedly” or “allegedly” obscene and for broadcasting references to “the smut literature racket” and to “girlie-book peddlers” in its coverage of the court proceeding for injunctive relief. He obtained a judgment against the radio station, but the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held the New York Times privilege applicable to the broadcast and reversed. 415 F. 2d 892 (1969).
This Court affirmed the decision below, but no majority could agree on a controlling rationale. The eight Justices who participated in Rosenbloom announced their views in five separate opinions, none of which commanded more than three votes. The several statements not only reveal disagreement about the appropriate result in that case, they also reflect divergent traditions of thought about the general problem of reconciling the law of defamation with the First Amendment. One approach has been to extend the New York Times test to an expanding variety of situations. Another has been to vary the level of constitutional privilege for defamatory falsehood with the status of the person defamed. And a third view would grant to the press and broadcast media absolute immunity from liability for defamation. To place our holding in the proper context, we preface our discussion of this case with a review of the several Rosenbloom opinions and their antecedents.
In affirming the trial court’s judgment in the instant case, the Court of Appeals relied on Mr. Justice Brennan’s conclusion for the Rosenbloom plurality that “all discussion and communication involving matters of public or general concern,” 403 U. S., at 44, warrant the protection from liability for defamation accorded by the rule originally enunciated in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254 (1964). There this Court defined a constitutional privilege intended to free criticism of public officials from the restraints imposed by the common law of defamation. The Times ran a political advertisement endorsing civil rights demonstrations by black students in Alabama and impliedly condemning the performance of local law-enforcement officials. A police commissioner established in state court that certain misstatements in the advertisement referred to him and that they constituted libel per se under Alabama law. This showing left the Times with the single defense of truth, for under Alabama law neither good faith nor reasonable care would protect the newspaper from liability. This Court concluded that a “rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions” would deter protected speech, id., at 279, and announced the constitutional privilege designed to counter that effect:
“The constitutional guarantees require, we think, a federal rule that prohibits a public official from recovering damages for a defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless he proves that the statement was made with ‘actual malice’ — that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id., at 279-280.
Three years after New York Times, a majority of the Court agreed to extend the constitutional privilege to defamatory criticism of “public figures.” This extension was announced in Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts and its companion, Associated Press v. Walker, 388 U. S. 130, 162 (1967). The first case involved the Saturday Evening Post’s charge that Coach Wally Butts of the University of Georgia had conspired with Coach “Bear” Bryant of the University of Alabama to fix a football game between their respective schools. Walker involved an erroneous' Associated Press account of former Major General Edwin Walker’s participation in a University of Mississippi campus riot. Because Butts was paid by a private alumni association and Walker had resigned from the Army, neither could be classified as a “public official” under New York Times. Although Mr. Justice Harlan announced the result in both cases, a majority of the Court agreed with Mr. Chief Justice Warren’s conclusion that the New York Times test should apply to criticism of “public figures” as well as “public officials.” The Court extended the constitutional privilege announced in that case to protect defamatory criticism of nonpublic persons who “are nevertheless intimately involved in the resolution of important public questions or, by reason of their fame, shape events in areas of concern to society at large.” Id., at 164 (Warren, C. J., concurring in result).
In his opinion for the plurality in Rosenbloom v. Metromedia, Inc., 403 U. S. 29 (1971), Mr. Justice Brennan took the New York Times privilege one step further. He concluded that its protection should extend to defamatory falsehoods relating to private persons if the statements concerned matters of general or public interest. He abjured the suggested distinction between public officials and public figures on the one hand and private individuals on the other. He focused instead on society's interest in learning about certain issues: “If a matter is a subject of public or general interest, it cannot suddenly become less so merely because a private individual is involved, or because in some sense the individual did not ‘voluntarily’ choose to become involved.” Id., at 43. Thus, under the plurality opinion, a private citizen involuntarily associated with a matter of general interest has no recourse for injury to his reputation unless he can satisfy the demanding requirements of the New York Times test.
Two Members of the Court concurred in the result in Rosenbloom but departed from the reasoning of the plurality. Mr. Justice Black restated his view, long shared by Mr. Justice Douglas, that the First Amendment cloaks the news media with an absolute and indefeasible immunity from liability for defamation. Id., at 67. Mr Justice White concurred on a narrower ground. Ibid. He concluded that “the First Amendment gives the press and the broadcast media a privilege to report and comment upon the official actions of public servants in full detail, with no requirement that the reputation or the privacy of an individual involved in or affected by the official action be spared from public view.” Id., at 62. He therefore declined to reach the broader questions addressed by the other Justices.
Mr. Justice Harlan dissented. Although he had joined the opinion of the Court in New York Times, in Curtis Publishing Co. he had contested the extension of the privilege to public figures. There he had argued that a public figure who held no governmental office should be allowed to recover damages for defamation “on a showing of highly unreasonable conduct constituting an extreme departure from the standards of investigation and reporting ordinarily adhered to by responsible publishers.” 388 U. S., at 155. In his Curtis Publishing Co. opinion Mr. Justice Harlan had distinguished New York Times primarily on the ground that defamation actions by public officials “lay close to seditious libel . . . .” Id., at 153. Recovery of damages by one who held no public office, however, could not “be viewed as a vindication of governmental policy.” Id., at 154. Additionally, he had intimated that, because most public officials enjoyed absolute immunity from liability for their own defamatory utterances under Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564 (1959), they lacked a strong claim to the protection of the courts.
In Rosenbloom Mr. Justice Harlan modified these views. He acquiesced in the application of the privilege to defamation of public figures but argued that a different rule should obtain where defamatory falsehood harmed a private individual. He noted that a' private person has less likelihood “of securing access to channels of communication sufficient to rebut falsehoods concerning him” than do public officials and public figures, 403 U. S., at 70, and has not voluntarily placed himself in the public spotlight. Mr. Justice Harlan concluded that the States could constitutionally allow private individuals to recover damages for defamation on the basis of any standard of care except liability without fault.
Petitioner filed a cross-motion for summary judgment on grounds not specified in the record. The court denied petitioner’s cross-motion without discussion in a memorandum opinion of September 16, 1970.
322 F. Supp. 997 (1970). .Petitioner asserts that the entry of judgment n. o. v. on the basis of his failure to show-knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth constituted unfair surprise and deprived him of a full and fair opportunity to prove “actual malice” on the part of respondent. This contention is not supported by the record. It is clear that the trial court gave petitioner no reason to assume that the New York Times privilege would not be available to respondent. The court’s memorandum opinion denying respondent’s pretrial motion for summary judgment does not state that the New York Times standard was inapplicable to this case. Rather, it reveals that the trial judge thought it possible for petitioner to make a factual showing sufficient to overcome respondent’s claim of constitutional privilege. It states in part:
“When there is a factual dispute as to the existence of actual malice, summary judgment is improper.
“In the instant case a jury might infer from the evidence that [respondent’s] failure to investigate the truth of the allegations, coupled with its receipt of communications challenging the factual accuracy of this author in the past, amounted to actual malice, that is, ‘reckless disregard’ of whether the allegations were true or not. New York Times [Co.] v. Sullivan, [376 U. S. 264,] 279-280 [(1964)].” Mem. Op., Sept. 16, 1970.
Thus, petitioner knew or should have known that the outcome of the trial might hinge on his ability to show by clear and convincing evidence that respondent acted with reckless disregard for the truth. And this question remained open throughout the trial. Although the court initially concluded that the applicability of the New York Times rule depended on petitioner’s status as a public figure, the court did not decide that petitioner was not a public figure until all the evidence had been presented. Thus petitioner had every opportunity, indeed incentive, to prove “reckless disregard” if he could, and he in fact attempted to do so. The record supports the observation by the Court of Appeals that petitioner “did present evidence of malice (both the 'constitutional’ and the ‘ill will’ type) to support his damage claim and no such evidence was excluded ... .” 471 F. 2d 801, 807 n. 15 (1972).
The court stated:
“[Petitioner’s] considerable stature as a lawyer, author, lecturer, and participant in matters of public import undermine[s] the validity of the assumption that he is not a ‘public figure’ as that term has been used by the progeny of New York Times. Nevertheless, for purposes of decision we make that assumption and test the availability of the claim of privilege by the subject matter of the article.” Id., at 805.
In the Court of Appeals petitioner made an ingenious but unavailing attempt to show that respondent’s defamatory charge against him concerned no issue of public or general interest. He asserted that the subject matter of the article was the murder trial of Officer Nuccio and that he did not participate in that proceeding. Therefore, he argued, even if the subject matter of the article generally were protected by the New York Times privilege, under the opinion of the Bosenbloom plurality, the defamatory statements about him were not. The Court of Appeals rejected this argument. It noted that the accusations against petitioner played an integral part in respondent’s general thesis of a nationwide conspiracy to harass the police:
“[W]e may also assume that the article’s basic thesis is false. Nevertheless, under the reasoning of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, even a false statement of fact' made in support of a false thesis is protected unless made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. It would undermine the rule of that case to permit the actual falsity of a statement to determine whether or not its publisher is entitled to the benefit of the rule.
“If, therefore, we put to one side the false character of the article and treat it as though its contents were entirely true, it cannot be denied that the comments about [petitioner] were integral to its central thesis. They must be tested under the New York Times standard.” 471 F. 2d, at 806.
We think that the Court of Appeals correctly rejected petitioner’s argument. Its acceptance might lead to arbitrary imposition of liability on the basis of an unwise differentiation among kinds of factual misstatements. The present case illustrates the point. Respondent falsely portrayed petitioner as an architect of the criminal prosecution against Nuccio. On its face this inaccuracy does not appear defamatory. Respondent also falsely labeled petitioner a “Leninist” and a “Communist-fronter.” These accusations are generally considered defamatory. Under petitioner’s interpretation of the “public or general interest” test, respondent would have enjoyed a constitutional privilege to publish defamatory falsehood if petitioner had in fact been associated with the criminal prosecution. But this would mean that the seemingly innocuous mistake of confusing petitioner's role in the litigation against Officer Nuccio would destroy the privilege otherwise available for calling petitioner a Communist-fronter. Thus respondent’s privilege to publish statements whose content should have alerted it to the danger of injury to reputation would hinge on the accuracy of statements that carried with them no such warning. Assuming that none of these statements was published with knowledge of falsity or with reckless disregard for the truth, we see no reason to distinguish among the inaccuracies.
Mr. Justice Douglas did not parteipate in the consideration or decision of Rosenbloom.
New York Times and later cases explicated the meaning of the new standard. In New York Times the Court held that under the circumstances the newspaper’s failure to check the accuracy of the advertisement against news stories in its own files did not establish reckless disregard for the truth. 376 U. S., at 287-288. In St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727, 731 (1968), the Court equated reckless disregard of the truth with subjective awareness of probable falsity: “There must be sufficient evidence to permit the conclusion that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication.” In Beckley Newspapers Corp. v. Hanks, 389 U. S. 81 (1967), the Court emphasized the distinction between the New York Times test of knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of the truth and “actual malice” in the traditional sense of ill-will. Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64 (1964), made plain that the new standard applied to criminal libel laws as well as to civil actions and that it governed criticism directed at “anything which might touch on an official’s fitness for office.” Id., at 77. Finally, in Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, 85 (1966), the Court stated that “the ‘public official’ designation applies at the very least to those among the hierarchy of government employees who have, or appear to the public to have, substantial responsibility for or control over the conduct of governmental affairs.”
In Time, Inc. v. Hill, 385 U. S. 374 (1967), the Court applied the New York Times standard to actions under an unusual state statute. The statute did not create a cause of action for libel. Rather, it provided a remedy for unwanted publicity. Although the law allowed recovery of damages for harm caused by exposure to public attention rather than by factual inaccuracies, it recognized truth as a complete defense. Thus, nondefamatory factual errors could render a publisher liable for something akin to invasion of privacy. The Court ruled that the defendant in such an action could invoke the New York Times privilege regardless of the fame or anonymity of the plaintiff. Speaking for the Court, Me. Justice BREnnan declared that this holding was not an extension of New York Times but rather a parallel fine of reasoning applying that standard to this discrete context:
“This is neither a libel action by a private individual nor a statutory action by a public official. Therefore, although the First Amendment principles pronounced in New York Times guide our conclusion, we reach that conclusion only by applying these principles in this discrete context. It therefore serves no purpose to distinguish the facts here from those in New York Times. Were this a libel action, the distinction which has been suggested between the relative opportunities of the public official and the private individual to rebut defamatory charges might be germane. And the additional state interest in the protection of the individual against damage to his reputation would be involved. Cf. Rosenblatt v. Baer, 383 U. S. 75, 91 (Stewart, J., concurring).” 385 U. S., at 390-391.
Professor Kalven once introduced a discussion of these eases with the apt heading, “You Can’t Tell the Players without a Score Card.” Kalven, The Reasonable Man and the First Amendment: Iiill, Butts, and Walker, 1967 Sup. Ct. Rev. 267, 275. Only three other Justices joined Mr. Justice Harlan’s analysis of the issues involved. In his concurring opinion, Mr. Chief Justice Warren stated the principle for which these cases stand — that the New York Times test reaches both public figures and public officials. Mr. Justice Brennan and Mr. Justice White agreed with the Chief Justice on that question. Mr. Justice Black and Mr. Justice Douglas reiterated their view that publishers should have an absolute immunity from liability for defamation, but they acquiesced in the Chief Justice’s reasoning in order to enable a majority of the Justices to agree on the question of the appropriate constitutional privilege for defamation of public figures.
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case concerns a standard form franchise agreement for the operation of a Subway sandwich shop in Montana. When a dispute arose between parties to the agreement, franchisee Paul Casarotto sued franchisor Doctor’s Associates, Inc. (DAI), and DAI’s Montana development agent, Nick Lombardi, in a Montana state court. DAI and Lombardi sought to stop the litigation pending arbitration pursuant to the arbitration clause set out on page nine of the franchise agreement.
The Federal Arbitration Act (FAA or Act) declares written provisions for arbitration “valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9 U. S. C. § 2. Montana law, however, declares an arbitration clause unenforceable unless “[n]otice that [the] contract is subject to arbitration” is “typed in underlined capital letters on the first page of the contract.” Mont. Code Ann. §27-5-114(4) (1995). The question here presented is whether Montana’s law is compatible with the federal Act. We hold that Montana’s first-page notice requirement, which governs not “any contract,” but specifically and solely contracts “subject to arbitration,” conflicts with the FAA and is therefore displaced by the federal measure.
I
Petitioner DAI is the national franchisor of Subway sandwich shops. In April 1988, DAI entered a franchise agreement with respondent Paul Casarotto, which permitted Casarotto to open a Subway shop in Great Falls, Montana. The franchise agreement stated, on page nine and in ordinary type: “Any controversy or claim arising out of or relating to this contract or the breach thereof shall be settled by Arbitration . . . .” App. 75.
In October 1992, Casarotto sued DAI and its agent, Nick Lombardi, in Montana state court, alleging state-law contract and tort claims relating to the franchise agreement. DAI demanded arbitration of those claims, and successfully moved in the Montana trial court to stay the lawsuit pending arbitration. Id., at 10-11.
The Montana Supreme Court reversed. Casarotto v. Lombardi, 268 Mont. 369, 886 P. 2d 931 (1994). That court left undisturbed the trial court’s findings that the franchise agreement fell within the scope of the FAA and covered the claims Casarotto stated against DAI and Lombardi. The Montana Supreme Court held, however, that Mont. Code Ann. §27-5-114(4) rendered the agreement’s arbitration clause unenforceable. The Montana statute provides:
“Notice that a contract is subject to arbitration . . . shall be typed in underlined capital letters on the first page of the contract; and unless such notice is displayed thereon, the contract may not be subject to arbitration.”
Notice of the arbitration clause in the franchise agreement did not appear on the first page of the contract. Nor was anything relating to the clause typed in underlined capital letters. Because the State’s statutory notice requirement had not been met, the Montana Supreme Court declared the parties’ dispute “not subject to arbitration.” 268 Mont., at 382, 886 P. 2d, at 939.
DAI and Lombardi unsuccessfully argued before the Montana Supreme Court that §27-5-114(4) was preempted by §2 of the FAA. DAI and Lombardi dominantly relied on our decisions in Southland Corp. v. Keating, 465 U. S. 1 (1984), and Perry v. Thomas, 482 U. S. 483 (1987). In Southland, we held that § 2 of the FAA applies in state as well as federal courts, see 465 U. S., at 12, and “withdraws] the power of the states to require a judicial forum for the resolution of claims which the contracting parties agreed to resolve by arbitration,” id., at 10. We noted in the pathmarking South- land, decision that the FAA established a “broad principle of enforceability,” id., at 11, and that §2 of the federal Act provided for revocation of arbitration agreements only upon “grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” In Perry, we reiterated: “[S]tate law, whether of legislative or judicial origin, is applicable i/that law arose to govern issues concerning the validity, revocability, and enforceability of contracts generally. A state-law principle that takes its meaning precisely from the fact that a contract to arbitrate is at issue does not comport with [the text of §2].” 482 U. S., at 493, n. 9.
The Montana Supreme Court, however, read our decision in Volt Information Sciences, Inc. v. Board of Trustees of Leland Stanford Junior Univ., 489 U. S. 468 (1989), as limiting the preemptive force of § 2 and correspondingly qualifying Southland and Perry. 268 Mont., at 378-381, 886 P. 2d, at 937-939. As the Montana Supreme Court comprehended Volt, the proper inquiry here should focus not on the bare words of §2, but on this question: Would the application of Montana’s notice requirement, contained in §27-5-114(4), “undermine the goals and policies of the FAA.” 268 Mont., at 381, 886 P. 2d, at 938 (internal quotation marks omitted). Section 27-5-114(4), in the Montana court’s judgment, did not undermine the goals and policies of the FAA, for the notice requirement did not preclude arbitration agreements altogether; it simply prescribed “that before arbitration agreements are enforceable, they be entered knowingly.” Id., at 381, 886 P. 2d, at 939.
DAI and Lombardi petitioned for certiorari. Last Term, we granted their petition, vacated the judgment of the Montana Supreme Court, and remanded for further consideration in light of Allied-Bruce Terminix Cos. v. Dobson, 513 U. S. 265 (1995). See 515 U. S. 1129 (1995). In Allied-Bruce, we restated what our decisions in Southland and Perry had established:
“States may regulate contracts, including arbitration clauses, under general contract law principles and they may invalidate an arbitration clause 'upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.’ 9 U. S. C. §2 (emphasis added). What States may not do is decide that a contract is fair enough to enforce all its basic terms (price, service, credit), but not fair enough to enforce its arbitration clause. The Act makes any such state policy unlawful, for that kind of policy would place arbitration clauses on an unequal ‘footing,’ directly contrary to the Act’s language and Congress’s intent.” 513 U. S., at 281.
On remand, without inviting or permitting further briefing or oral argument, the Montana Supreme Court adhered to its original ruling. The court stated: “After careful review, we can find nothing in the [Allied-BruceJ decision which relates to the issues presented to this Court in this case.” Casarotto v. Lombardi, 274 Mont. 3, 7, 901 R 2d 596, 598 (1995). Elaborating, the Montana court said it found “no suggestion in [Allied-Bruce] that the principles from Volt on which we relied [to uphold §27-5-114(4)] have been modified in any way.” Id., at 8, 901 P. 2d, at 598-599. We again granted certiorari, 516 U. S. 1036 (1996), and now reverse.
H-H HH
Section 2 of the FAA provides that written arbitration agreements “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9 U. S. C. §2 (emphasis added). Repeating our observation in Perry, the text of § 2 declares that state law may be applied “if that law arose to govern issues concerning the validity, revocability, and enforceability of contracts generally.” 482 U. S., at 498, n. 9. Thus, generally applicable contract defenses, such as fraud, duress, or unconscionability, may be applied to invalidate arbitration agreements without contravening §2. See Allied-Bruce, 513 U. S., at 281; Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 490 U. S. 477, 483-484 (1989); Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, 482 U. S. 220, 226 (1987).
Courts may not, however, invalidate arbitration agreements under state laws applicable only to arbitration provisions. See Allied-Bruce, 513 U. S., at 281; Perry, 482 U. S., at 493, n. 9. By enacting §2, we have several times said, Congress precluded States from singling out arbitration provisions for suspect status, requiring instead that such provisions be placed “upon the same footing as other contracts.” Scherk v. Alberto-Culver Co., 417 U. S. 506, 511 (1974) (internal quotation marks omitted). Montana’s §27-5-114(4) directly conflicts with § 2 of the FAA because the State’s law conditions the enforceability of arbitration agreements on compliance with a special notice requirement not applicable to contracts generally. The FAA thus displaces the Montana statute with respect to arbitration agreements covered by the Act. See 2 I. Macneil, R. Speidel, T. Stipanowich, & G. Shell, Federal Arbitration Law §19.1.1, pp. 19:4-19:5 (1995) (under Southland and Perry, “state legislation requiring greater information or choice in the making of agreements to arbitrate than in other contracts is preempted”).
The Montana Supreme Court misread our Volt decision and therefore reached a conclusion in this case at odds with our rulings. Volt involved an arbitration agreement that incorporated state procedural rules, one of which, on the facts of that case, called for arbitration to be stayed pending the resolution of a related judicial proceeding. The state rule examined in Volt determined only the efficient order of proceedings; it did not affect the enforceability of the arbitration agreement itself. We held that applying the state rule would not “undermine the goals and policies of the FA A,” 489 U. S., at 478, because the very purpose of the Act was to “ensur[e] that private agreements to arbitrate are enforced according to their terms,” id., at 479.
Applying §27-5-114(4) here, in contrast, would not enforce the arbitration clause in the contract between DAI and Casarotto; instead, Montana’s first-page notice requirement would invalidate the clause. The “goals and policies” of the FA A, this Court’s precedent indicates, are antithetical to threshold limitations placed specifically and solely on arbitration provisions. Section 2 “mandate[s] the enforcement of arbitration agreements,” Southland, 465 U. S., at 10, “save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract,” 9 U. S. C. §2. Section 27-5-114(4) of Montana’s law places arbitration agreements in a class apart from “any contract,” and singularly limits their validity. The State’s prescription is thus inconsonant with, and is therefore preempted by, the federal law.
* * *
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Montana is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 2 provides, in relevant part:
“A written provision in ... a contract evidencing a transaction involving commerce to settle by arbitration a controversy thereafter arising out of such contract or transaction, or the refusal to perform the whole or any part thereof, . . . shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable, save upon such grounds as exist at law or in equity for the revocation of any contract.” 9U.S.C. §2.
Dissenting Justice Gray thought it “cavalier” of her colleagues to ignore the defendants’ request for an “opportunity to brief the issues raised by the . . . remand and to present oral argument.” Casarotto v. Lombardi, 274 Mont. 3, 9-10, 901 P. 2d 596, 599-600 (1995).
At oral argument, counsel for Casarotto urged a broader view, under which §27-5-114(4) might be regarded as harmless surplus. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-32. Montana could have invalidated the arbitration clause in the franchise agreement under general, informed consent principles, counsel suggested. She asked us to regard §27-5-114(4) as but one illustration of a cross-the-board rule: Unexpected provisions in adhesion contracts must be conspicuous. See also Brief for Respondents 21-24. But the Montana Supreme Court announced no such sweeping rule. The court did not assert as a basis for its decision a generally applicable principle of “reasonable expectations” governing any standard form contract term. Cf. Transamerica Ins. Co. v. Royle, 202 Mont. 173, 180, 656 P. 2d 820, 824 (1983) (invalidating provision in auto insurance policy that did not “honor the reasonable expectations” of the insured). Montana’s decision trains on and upholds a particular statute, one setting out a precise, arbitration-specific limitation. We review that disposition, and no other. It bears reiteration, however, that a court may not “rely on the uniqueness of an agreement to arbitrate as a basis for a state-law holding that enforcement would be unconscionable, for this would enable the court to effect what. . . the state legislature cannot.” Perry v. Thomas, 482 U. S. 483, 493, n. 9 (1987).
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case, involving four consolidated appeals from a three-judge District Court judgment setting aside an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission to the extent that it rejected certain proposed railroad rate decreases, brings before us important questions relating to the role of the Commission in its task of overseeing competition among different modes of transportation. The case is the first in which this Court has considered the interpretation and application of § 15a (3) of the Interstate Commerce Act, added by Congress in the Transportation Act of 1958.
I.
The two corporate appellants here, Sea-Land Service, Inc. (formerly Pan-Atlantic Steamship Corporation), and Seatrain Lines, Inc., are common carriers by water engaged in the Atlantic-Gulf coastwise trade; they are the only two companies now performing this service. Sea-Land, which had operated as a “break-bulk” carrier for many years, in 1957 suspended that service and converted four ships into crane-equipped trailerships, each capable of holding 226 demountable truck trailers. With these ships, freight could be moved by highway trailers to the port of origin, the trailers lifted onto the ships, and the process reversed at the port of destination. As a result, Sea-Lañd was able to provide a motor-water-motor service which afforded door-to-door delivery of goods from and to all shippers and consignees, even if not situated on a railroad siding, in containers that would not have to be opened in transit. Traditionally water rates, including water-rail and water-motor rates, have been lower than the corresponding all-rail rates, and when Sea-Land inaugurated its new trailership service in 1957, it published reduced rates which were generally 5% to 7%% lower than the corresponding all-rail boxcar rates. Some 700 of these reduced rates were placed under investigation by the Commission.
In Seatrain’s service, freight is transported to the company’s dock in railroad cars, the cars and their contents are then lifted onto Seatrain’s vessels, and at destination the cars are unloaded and delivered by rail to the consignee. This rail-water-rail service is similar to railroad boxcar service, in that it permits carriage from shipper to consignee without breaking bulk when both shipper and consignee are located on railroad sidings.
Railroad “piggy-back,” or trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC), service is like that provided by Sea-Land. A motor carrier trailer is hauled by road to a railhead, loaded onto a flatcar, and demounted at destination for delivery by motor carrier to the consignee.
Before 1957, railroad TOFC rates were generally higher than all-rail boxcar, water, and land-water rates. But in 1957, primarily in answer to the new improved service and lower rates offered by Sea-Land, the appellee railroads proposed to establish, on an experimental basis, reduced rates on 66 commodity movements between certain eastern points on the one hand and Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, on the other. These rates, which were substantially on a parity with Sea-Land and Seatrain rates on the same traffic, were suspended and placed under investigation by the Commission. In December 1960 the Commission disposed of 43 docket proceedings by issuing a consolidated report embracing the railroad TOFC rates involved here as well as a number of Sea-Land and Seatrain rates not now before us. 313 I. C. C. 23.
The Commission found that the proposed TOFC rates were compensatory, that is, they equaled or exceeded out-of-pocket costs; for all of the listed movements by railroad-leased flatcars capable of carrying two trailers (TTX cars), and for all but six of the listed movements by railroad-owned single trailer cars. The Commission further found that the proposed rates equaled or exceeded fully distributed costs for 43 of the 66 movements by TTX cars and 14 of 66 movements by railroad-owned cars.
Having made these findings, the Commission addressed itself to what it considered the “most important” question — “whether these [TOFC] rates constitute destructive competition.” 313 I. C. C., at 44. It noted at the outset that, apart from the question of rates, most shippers prefer rail service to Sea-Land and Seatrain service and that, in order to attract trafile, the latter carriers must therefore establish rates somewhat below those of the railroads. As to relative costs, the Commission stated that Sea-Land costs, both out-of-pocket and fully distributed, were below railroad TOFC costs for all 66 movements using railroad-owned flatcars and for all but 2 of the 66 movements using TTX cars. But the Commission explicitly refrained from relying on these findings. Instead it concluded that because of a number of factors:
“[W]e cannot determine on these records where the inherent advantages may lie as to any of the rates in issue. We must recognize, also, that cost is only one of the elements which may appropriately be considered in passing upon the lawfulness of rates. In the exceptional circumstances here presented, other considerations, herein discussed, appear to us determinative of the issues.” 313 I. C. C., at 46. (Emphasis added.)
The Commission acknowledged that the recently enacted § 15a (3) prohibited it from holding rail rates up to a particular level merely to protect the traffic of another mode but emphasized that the prohibition was qualified by the phrase “giving due consideration to the objectives of the national transportation policy declared in this Act.” In this case, the Commission stated, the reduced TOFC rates were an initial step in a program of rate reductions that could “fairly be said to threaten the continued operation, and thus the continued existence, of the coastwise water-carrier industry generally.” 313 I. C. C., at 47. Since in the Commission’s view the coastwise shipping so threatened was important to the national defense, to the shipping public, and to the economy of ports and coastal areas, it concluded that the objectives of the National Transportation Policy required the establishment and maintenance of a differential between rail rates and those of Sea-Land and Seatrain which would enable the coastwise carriers to continue their service. The Commission decided that an appropriate differential to accomplish this purpose would be 6% over Sea-Land rates for TOFC service and somewhat less than 6% for boxcar service. Accordingly, the proposed TOFC rates were ordered to be canceled, without prejudice to the filing of new schedules in conformity with the Commission’s views.
The appellee railroads then brought this action before a three-judge District Court seeking to have the Corn-mission’s order set aside to the extent that it required cancellation of the proposed TOFC rates. In November 1961, the court handed down its opinion, setting aside the Commission’s order in part and enjoining the Commission from canceling TOFC rates which return at least fully-distributed costs, except on the basis of certain specified findings. 199 F. Supp. 635. The court held that “at least on this record,” § 15a (3) prohibited the imposition of a rate differential to protect the water carriers. The reference to the National Transportation Policy in § 15a (3), the court said, was intended to qualify the prohibition of mandatory differentials
“. . . only when factors other than the normal incidents of fair competition intervened, such as a practice which would destroy a competing mode of transportation by setting rates so low as to be hurtful to the proponent as well as his competitor or so low as to deprive the competitor of the 'inherent advantage’ of being the low-cost carrier.” 199 F. Supp., at 642.
The court went on to discuss in some detail its understanding of the way in which costs of service for the different transportation modes were determined, the possible reasons why the Commission had been reluctant to accept relative costs as critical, and the precise circumstances under which the Commission could properly require cancellation of certain TOFC rates. Finally, in rejecting the argument that a differential was required in the interests of the national defense, the court stated that the reference to the national defense in the National Transportation Policy was merely a “hoped-for 'end,’ ” not an operative policy, and that in any event the Commission’s conclusion with respect to the national defense was not supported by adequate evidence.
We noted probable jurisdiction, 371 U. S. 808, because of the importance of the questions presented in effectuating the congressional design embodied in the Interstate Commerce Act.
II.
The significance of § 15a (3) to the determination of these appeals can best be understood after consideration of the legislative history of this provision.
Section 15a (3) was the result of several years of congressional consideration of the problems of the transportation industry as a whole and of the railroads in particular. Concerned with their declining share in an expanding market, and with what they regarded as improper administrative interference with their efforts to compete, the railroads vigorously supported legislation introduced in 1955 on the basis of a proposal by the Secretary of Commerce. H. R. 6141, 84th Cong., 1st Sess. This bill, which became known as “the three shall-nots,” would have amended § 15a (1) of the Act to provide that in determining whether a rate is less than a reasonable minimum, the Commission
. . shall not consider the effect of such charge on the traffic of any other mode of transportation; or the relation of such charge to the charge of any other mode of transportation; or whether such charge is lower than necessary to meet the competition of any other mode of transportation . . .
This bill was strongly opposed by the Commission and by other carriers, and died in committee. A substantially similar bill, however, was introduced in the next Congress, H. R. 5523, 85th Cong., 1st Sess., and the Commission renewed its opposition. When, after hearings, a Senate subcommittee recommended a bill to its parent committee, it explicitly rejected the three “shall-nots.” But at the same time it expressed its concern with “over-regulation” and emphasized that its own proposal to add a new § 15a (3) was designed to encourage competition among the different modes and to permit each mode to assert its inherent advantages. S. Rep. No. 1647, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 10,18-19. The bill at this stage provided that in a proceeding involving competition with another mode
“. . . the Commission, in determining whether a rail rate is lower than a reasonable minimum rate, shall consider the facts and circumstances attending the movement of the traffic by railroad and not by such other mode.” Id., at 18. (Emphasis added.)
At hearings before the full Senate Commerce Committee, the Commission opposed the bill as drafted, not because it disagreed with the principles set out in the subcommittee report but because it feared that the language used, particularly the italicized portion, was inconsistent with those principles and was substantially equivalent to the three “shall-nots.” Hearings on S. 3778 before the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 165-185. In particular Commissioner (then Chairman) Freas expressed concern that if the Commission were foreclosed from considering the effect of a rate on a competing mode, it would be powerless to reject a railroad rate which covered the railroad’s out-of-pocket costs, even if that rate had the effect of destroying the inherent advantages of a lower-cost carrier. He stated:
“Whenever conditions permit, given transportation should return the full cost of performing carrier service. ... In many instances, however, the full cost of the low-cost form of transportation exceeds the out-of-pocket cost of another. If, then, we are required to accept the rates of the high cost carrier merely because they exceed its out-of-pocket costs, we see no way of preserving the inherent advantages of the low cost carrier.” Id., at 168.
Commissioner Freas made it clear that the Commission believed the railroads should be permitted to assert their inherent advantages too, id., at 172, and suggested that any proposal specifically authorize the Commission to give “due consideration to the inherent cost and service advantages of the respective carriers,” id., at 169. In further discussion, it was indicated that it would be inconsistent with the National Transportation Policy to permit destruction of the inherent advantages of any mode of transportation, id., at 170-171, 177, and when Senator Potter suggested the deletion of the phrase “and not by such other mode” and the addition of a reference to the National Transportation Policy, Chairman Freas answered: “We will buy Senator Potter’s suggestion.” Id., at 177-178. Senator Potter’s suggestion was adopted in the final version of the bill.
Other testimony of particular interest here is that of John L. Weller, President of Seatrain, who testified on behalf of Seatrain and Pan-Atlantic (now Sea-Land). In opposing the bill recommended by the subcommittee, Mr. Weller emphasized that he did not seek any more than to make it possible for the Commission to preserve the inherent advantages of the water carriers he represented:
“As I explained, our kind of operation can only exist with a differential under the railroad rates; that is No. 1. We are not entitled to have such a differential, nor do I urge one, except in the case where cost is lower than the railroad cost. We have no right to ask for anything more than that.” Id., at 30. (Emphasis added.)
The proposal reported out by the Senate Commerce Committee was in the form ultimately adopted by Congress and contained the key provision that rates “shall not be held up to a particular level to protect the traffic of any other mode of transportation, giving due consideration to the objectives of the national transportation policy declared in this Act.” The Committee, quoting with approval the subcommittee’s report, made it clear that the purpose of the proposal was to permit each mode of transportation to assert its “inherent advantages, whether they be of service or of cost.” S. Rep. No. 1647,85th Cong., 2d Sess. 3. The new subsection, the Committee stated, was designed to reaffirm the intent of the 1940 Act, an intent that had been correctly construed by the Commission in 1945 in New Automobiles in Interstate Commerce, 259 I. C. C. 475, but which, in the Committee’s view, had not been consistently followed. The particular passage in the New Automobiles decision which the Committee endorsed contained the statement:
“[T]here appears no warrant for believing that rail rates, for example, should be held up to a particular level to preserve a motor-rate structure, or vice versa.” 259 I. C. C., at 538.
This theme — that Congress was firmly opposed to rates maintained by the Commission at an artificially high level merely to protect competing modes — :was repeated in the House Commerce Committee report, H. R. Rep. No. 1922, 85th Cong., 2d Sess., and in the debates on the floor of both Houses. 104 Cong. Rec. 10822, 10841-10843, 10858-10859, 12524, 12531, 15528. As stated by Representative Harris, Chairman of the House Commerce Committee, if a carrier could provide a rate that was “fully compensatory,” the Commission could not force it up to a higher level “just because it is necessary"to keep another mode of transportation in business.” Id., at 12531. The mood of Congress was perhaps best summarized by Senator Smathers when he said:
“[W]e are going to eliminate some of the paternalism which has heretofore existed in the minds of the Interstate Commerce Commission. I think we will breathe into our whole system of transportation some new competition, which of course is needed, because the public and the consumer will benefit therefrom.” Id., at 15528.
This revealing legislative history fills out the contours of § 15a (3). There can be no doubt that the purpose of this provision was to permit the railroads to respond to competition by asserting whatever inherent advantages of cost and service they possessed. The Commission, in the view of the proponents of the bill, had thwarted effective competition by insisting that each form of transportation subject to its jurisdiction must remain viable at all costs and must therefore receive a significant share of the traffic. It had, in the words of one Congressman, become a “giant handicapper.”
Moreover, it is clear that Congress did not consciously or inadvertently defeat this purpose when it included in § 15a (3) a reference to the National Transportation Policy. The principal reason for this reference, as the hearings show, was to emphasize the power of the Commission to prevent the railroads from destroying or impairing the inherent advantages of other modes. And the precise example given to the Senate Committee, which led to the language adopted, was a case in which the railroads, by establishing on a part of their operations a compensatory rate below their fully distributed cost, forced a smaller competing lower cost mode to go below its own fully distributed cost and thus perhaps to go out of business.
III.
We agree with the District Court that “at least on this record,” the Commission’s rejection of the TOFC rates here at issue and the requirement of a differential over the rates of the coastwise carriers were not consistent with the mandate of § 15a (3). In light of the findings and conclusions underlying the Commission’s decision, and more particularly its putting aside the question of “inherent advantages,” its insistence that TOFC rates, in the words of the prohibition in § 15a (3), “be held up to a particular level to protect the traffic” of the coastwise carriers cannot be justified on the basis of the objectives of the National Transportation Policy. Since the Commission appears to have relied principally on two aspects of that policy — (i) the prohibition of “unfair or destructive competitive practices,” and (ii) the objective of preserving a transportation system “adequate to meet the needs of the commerce of the United States . . . and of the national defense” (note 6, supra)- — -we shall consider each of these aspects separately.
1. Unfair or Destructive Competitive Practices. — If there is one fact that stands out in bold relief in the legislative history of § 15a (3), it is that Congress did not regard the setting of a rate at a particular level as constituting an unfair or destructive competitive practice simply because that rate would divert some or all of the traffic from a competing mode. Moreover, neither the Commission representative nor the witness who testified on behalf of the appellant carriers (supra, pp. 754-756) took this position, since they too recognized that such an interpretation would be inconsistent with the mandate of the National Transportation Policy to “preserve the inherent advantages of each” mode of transportation. If a carrier is prohibited from establishing a reduced rate that is not detrimental to its own revenue requirements merely because the rate will divert traffic from others, then the carrier is thwarted from asserting its own inherent, advantages of cost and service. Nor should the selective character of such a rate reduction, made in response to a particular competitive situation, be permitted, without more, to furnish a basis for rejecting the rate. Section 15a (3), in other words, made it clear that something more than even hard competition must be shown before a particular rate can be deemed unfair or destructive. The principal purpose of the reference to the National Transportation Policy, as we have seen, was to prevent a carrier from setting a rate which would impair or destroy the inherent advantages of a competing carrier, for example, by setting a rate, below its own fully distributed costs, which would force a competitor with a cost advantage on particular transportation to establish an unprofitable rate in order to attract traffic.
It is true that in the present case the Commission found that with respect to virtually all of the TOFC movements involved, Sea-Land’s out-of-pocket and fully distributed costs were below those of the railroads. But the Commission at the same time explicitly stated that “we cannot determine on these records where the inherent advantages may lie as to any of the rates in issue.” 313 I. C. C., at 46. (Emphasis added.) It is not for us to make this determination at this stage, or to decide in advance precisely how either carrier’s inherent advantages should be measured or protected. It may be, for example, that neither a comparison of “out-of-pocket” nor a comparison of “fully distributed” costs, as those terms are defined by the Commission, is the appropriate method of deciding which of two competing modes has the cost advantage on a given movement. And even if the cost advantage on each movement were determined to lie with the coast-wise carriers, it may be that some or all of the TOFC rates at issue here should be allowed to stand because they would not unduly impair that advantage. These and other similar questions should be left for initial resolution to the Commission’s informed judgment.
The court below set out at some length its understanding of the Commission’s methods of arriving at carrier costs, its analysis of the role of “value-of-service” concepts in rate making, and its views of the precise circumstances under which the Commission could lawfully disallow the TOFC rates at issue. We find it unnecessary to consider that discussion in this instance, since we hold only that on the present record, the disallowance of the rates in question was not adequately supported. Cf. Securities & Exchange Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 87.
2. The Needs of the Commerce of the United States and of the National Defense. — The Commission gave considerable weight to the factor of “national defense” and perhaps of “commerce” in arriving at its decision. But the District Court discounted these factors, concluding that the reference in the National Transportation Policy to the national defense (and presumably to commerce as well) represented merely a “hoped-for 'end,’ ” not an operative policy. We disagree with this conclusion, but hold that the Commission’s reliance on these factors was not supported by adequate findings or substantial evidence.
The primary reason for the reference to the National Transportation Policy in § 15a (3) was to confirm the Commission’s power to protect the inherent advantages of all carriers from destructive competition. But we cannot conclude that this was the only reason, especially in view of the choice not to accept the Commission’s proposal, which would have expressed the qualification in terms of the inherent advantage element alone. See p. 755, supra. Nor can we conclude that the statutory references to such vital considerations as national defense are mere window dressing, without any practical significance in terms of the Commission’s function. "Congress unequivocally reserved to the Commission power to regulate reasonableness of interstate rates in the light of the needs of national defense.” United States v. Capital Transit Co., 325 U. S. 357, 362.
On the other hand, by recognizing the relevance of such considerations as national defense, we do not imply that these broad policy factors may be applied so freely as to nullify either the more particularized mandates of the National Transportation Policy or the clear congressional design embodied in § 15a (3). Normally, it is these more specific considerations that should govern the lawfulness of proposed rates in a case involving intermodal competition. Only under extraordinary circumstances may the Commission properly permit them to be outweighed. To justify such a result, we believe it must be demonstrated that the proposed rates in themselves genuinely threaten the continued existence of a transportation service that is uniquely capable of filling a transcendent national defense or other public need.
Measured against this standard, the Commission’s conclusions cannot be sustained. The Commission did state that the proposed rates were an "initial step” in a program of rate reductions that “can fairly be said to threaten” the existence of the coastwise carriers, but it made no findings, and referred to no supporting evidence, to the effect that these particular TOFC rates would drive the corresponding water carrier rates below a profitable level or otherwise endanger the carriers’ survival. Cf. Burlington Truck Lines, Inc., v. United States, 371 U. S. 156, 167-168; Gilbertville Trucking Co. v. United States, 371 U. S. 115, 130-131. It is not enough to rely on the possible effect of other rate reductions not here in issue, a situation with which the Commission has ample power to deal if occasion arises.
Nor did the Commission present an adequate basis for concluding that either the national defense or any significant segment of the country’s commerce depends upon the operation of Sea-Land or Seatrain. We need not consider the question whether reliance on other additional sources might have been sufficient, for we believe that the question is one for initial determination by the Commission, and that all parties should have an opportunity to adduce relevant evidence, including any evidence tending to indicate that disallowance of the proposed TOFC rates might adversely affect the commerce or the national defense of the country. Once raised, these considerations (like the factor of inherent advantage) do not exist solely for the benefit of protesting carriers.
In conclusion: We agree with the District Court that the Commission’s order, insofar as it related to the TOFC rates at issue, must be set aside. We disagree, however, with that court’s determination that the needs of the national defense are not an operative part of the National Transportation Policy, and we deem it inappropriate to approve or disapprove of other aspects of the court’s opinion. Accordingly, we decide that the judgment below should be vacated, the order of the Commission set aside to the extent that it related to certain railroad TOFC rates described herein, and the cause remanded to the Commission for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Section 15a (3) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 72 Stat. 572, 49 U. S. C. § 15a (3), provides:
“In a proceeding involving competition between carriers of different modes of transportation subject to this Act, the Commission, in determining whether a rate is lower than a reasonable minimum rate, shall consider the facts, and circumstances attending the movement of the traffic by the carrier or carriers to which the rate is applicable. Rates of a carrier shall not be held up to a particular level to protect the traffic of any other mode of transportation, giving due consideration to the objectives of the national transportation policy declared in this Act.”
This break-bulk service involved the physical unloading of freight from rail car or truck and the loading of the cargo into the ships, with the operation reversed at the port of destination.
Since the establishment of these reduced rates would leave higher rates in effect to and from certain intermediate points involving shorter hauls, thus violating the long- and short-haul provisions of § 4 (1) of the Act, 49 U. S. C. § 4 (1), the railroads also applied to the Commission for the relief from these provisions which §4 (1) permits the Commission to grant. This fourth-section application was denied by the Commission because, for reasons summarized in the text of this opinion, the Commission found the proposed TOFC rates not shown to be just and reasonable. With respect to the fourth-section application itself, the Commission noted that “[n]o shippers or receivers located at the intermediate points oppose the granting of fourth-section relief.” 313 I. C. C., at 33. Indeed, no individual shippers came forward to urge that the selective character of the reduced TOFC rates here involved in any way discriminated against them, and in this Court the National Industrial Traffic League, a nationwide organization of shippers, has filed a brief as amicus curiae urging affirmance of the decision below.
The rates for these six movements were withdrawn and are not at issue. (The Commission had stated that it had no way of knowing the percentages of TOFC traffic that would move in TTX cars and the percentage that would move in railroad-owned cars and had thus concluded that the rates for the six movements in question had not been shown to be compensatory.)
The Commission has stated, in discussing railroad costs, that: “Fully distributed costs based on the out-of-pocket costs plus a revénue-ton and revenue ton-mile distribution of the constant costs, including deficits, indicate the revenue necessary to a fair return on the traffic, disregarding ability to pay.” New Automobiles in Interstate Commerce, 259 I. C. C. 475, 513 (1945).
The National Transportation Policy, 54 Stat. 899, 49 U. S. C. preceding § 1, was added to the Interstate Commerce Act in 1940. It provides:
“It is hereby declared to be the national transportation policy of the Congress to provide for fair and impartial regulation of all modes of transportation subject to the provisions of this Act, so administered as to recognize and preserve the inherent advantages of each; to promote safe, adequate, economical, and efficient service and foster sound economic conditions in transportation and among the several carriers; to encourage the establishment and maintenance of reasonable charges for transportation services, without unjust discrimina-tions, undue preferences or advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices; to cooperate with the several States and the duly authorized officials thereof; and to encourage fair wages and equitable working conditions; — -all to the end of developing, coordinating, and preserving a national transportation system by water, highway, and rail, as well as other means, adequate to meet the needs of the commerce of the United States, of the Postal Service, and of the national defense. All of the provisions of this Act shall be administered and enforced with a view to carrying out the above declaration of policy.”
In support of these conclusions, the Commission quoted with approval passages from a 1955 report of the United States Maritime Administration, “A Review of the Coastwise and Intercoastal Shipping Trades,” which emphasized the national defense importance of break-bulk cargo ships; from a 1950 congressional report, S. Rep. No. 2494, 81st Cong., 2d Sess. 17, which referred to “the importance to national defense of having domestic tonnage readily available”; and from a 1945 Commission decision, War Shipping Admin. T. A. Application, 260 I. C. C. 589, 591, which spoke of the “dependency of ports and coastal areas upon the existence of water transportation.”
Five of the 10 Commissioners then in office joined in the entire report. A sixth, Commissioner Hutchinson, concurred, stating that he was “in general agreement with the majority report,” 313 I. C. C., at 50, adding his own view that “the ultimate effect of approval of the [TOFC] schedules would be to allow rates of the high-cost carrier [TOFC] to gravitate to a level whereby the low-cost carrier [sea-land] will be forced to go below its full costs in order to participate in the traffic.” Id., at 51. He also expressed some doubt as to whether a 6% differential was warranted. Commissioner McPherson, concurring in part, would have approved all compensatory rates but would have imposed no differential. Three Commissioners (Commissioner Freas, joined by Chairman Winchell and Commissioner Webb) dissented on the ground that the Act neither required nor permitted “blanket protection” for water carriers or for any mode of transportation. Id., at 51-52.
In view of our disposition of this case, it is not necessary to consider whether, in light of Commissioner Hutchinson’s concurrence, the “majority report” in fact represented the views of a majority of the Commission and, if not, whether the Commission’s decision could be sustained in the absence of any rationale commanding the support of a majority of the agency. Cf. Securities & Exchange Comm’n v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80.
There is some question as to precisely what rates are in issue here; the United States and the Commission suggest that these appeals relate only to the TOFC rates which are equal to or exceed fully distributed costs, since the court below did not enjoin the Commission from canceling compensatory TOFC rates under that level. As we read the opinion and judgment below, however, the Commission’s order was set aside insofar as it canceled all of the proposed TOFC before the court, and thus any order entered by the Commission in the future with respect to those rates would be subject to full judicial review. Accordingly, we reject as too narrow the position that the relevance of the present appeals is limited to TOFC rates that return at least the fully distributed costs of carriage.
During the hearings, Senator Smathers had referred to several Commission decisions, e. g., Petroleum Products in III. Territory, 280 I. C. C. 681, 691 (1951); Petroleum Products from Los Angeles to Arizona and New Mexico, 280 I. C. C. 509 (1951), which were believed to have substantially departed from the principles laid down in New Automobiles. Hearings on S. 3778 before the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 85th Cong., 2d Sess. 174-175.
Hearings, supra, note 10, at 82.
It was argued below, and at least intimated here, that the railroads had failed to sustain the burden of proving that they had the relative cost advantage. But we agree with the court below that if a carrier shows a proposed rate to be just and reasonable from the standpoint of its own revenue requirements, it is for a protesting carrier who relies on a claim of inherent cost advantage to bear the burden of persuading the Commission of the existence of that advantage. Of course, when such an issue is raised, each carrier should bring forward the data relating to its own costs that are required for resolution of the issue. See Various Commodities from or to Ark. & Tex., 314 I. C. C. 215.
The utility of the concepts of fully distributed and out-of-pocket costs may be limited to the area in which they have traditionally been used — that of determining the reasonableness of a rate from the standpoint of a carrier’s own revenue requirements. If so, some different measure may be preferred for comparing the costs of two or more modes of transportation.
Even though carrier A may have lower costs than carrier B, the overall advantage may rest with-B, for example, if the difference in cost is very slight but the service of B is so superior as to outweigh any such marginal cost difference. In this event a rate established by B may be lawful even if it has the effect of diverting some or all of A’s traffic.
Conversely, the cost advantage of A over B may be so great that even if B were to reduce its rate to the level of its out-of-pocket costs, A might be able to continue to compete effectively and still charge a profitable rate. In this event B’s reduced rate would not appear to impair A’s inherent cost advantage.
The materials relied upon by the Commission are referred to in note 7, supra. These materials were general in nature, and the most recent dated back to 1955. Further, they were not sufficiently related to the specific service rendered by Sea-Land and Seatrain, which, we were informed by Sea-Land’s counsel at oral argument, have a combined total of only eight ships currently in operation.
The Commission in its brief has cited the 1960 testimony of Vice Admiral Wilson and of the Mayor of Savannah, Georgia, in Decline of Coastwise and Intercoastal Shipping Industry, Hearings before the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, 86th Cong., 2d Sess. 83-86, 105-106, and has also cited a 1961 letter from Vice Admiral Sylvester to Senator Butler, reproduced at 107 Cong. Rec. 7299-7302.
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.
Respondent was charged with sexual battery. At the time of his arrest, police officers searched his automobile and seized several items. The vehicle was then towed to Sunny’s Wrecker, where it was impounded in a locked, secure area. Approximately eight hours later, a police officer went to the compound and, without obtaining a warrant, searched the car for a second time. Additional evidence was seized. At the subsequent trial, the court denied respondent’s motion to suppress the evidence seized during the second search, and respondent was convicted.
On appeal, the Florida District Court of Appeal for the Fourth District reversed the conviction, holding that even though respondent conceded that the initial search of the automobile was valid, the second search violated the Fourth Amendment. 432 So. 2d 97 (1983). The court concluded that Chambers v. Maroney, 399 U. S. 42 (1970), in which this Court held that police officers who have probable cause to believe there is contraband inside an automobile that has been stopped on the road may search it without obtaining a warrant, was distinguishable, stating that “in this case the element of mobility was removed because [respondent’s] vehicle had been impounded.” 432 So. 2d, at 99. The Florida Supreme Court denied the State’s petition for discretionary review, and the State filed the present petition for certiorari. We reverse.
The District Court of Appeal either misunderstood or ignored our prior rulings with respect to the constitutionality of the warrantless search of an impounded automobile. In Michigan v. Thomas, 458 U. S. 259 (1982), we upheld a war-rantless search of an automobile even though the automobile was in police custody and even though a prior inventory search had already been made. That ruling controls the disposition of this case. In Thomas, we expressly rejected the argument accepted by the District Court of Appeal in the present case, noting that the search upheld in Chambers was conducted “after [the automobile was] impounded and [was] in police custody” and emphasizing that “the justification to conduct such a warrantless search does not vanish once the car has been immobilized.” 458 U. S., at 261. The District Court of Appeal’s ruling that the subsequent search in this case was invalid because the car had been impounded is clearly inconsistent with Thomas and Chambers. The petition for certiorari is therefore granted, the judgment of the District Court of Appeal is reversed, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Even though the District Court of Appeal remanded the case for a new trial, its decision on the federal constitutional issue is reviewable at this time because if the State prevails at the trial, the issue will be mooted; and if the State loses, governing state law, Fla. Stat. § 924.07 (1981); State v. Brown, 330 So. 2d 535, 536 (Fla. App. 1976), will prohibit it from presenting the federal claim for review. In such circumstances, we have consistently held that “the decision below constitute^ a final judgment under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(3).” California v. Stewart, decided with Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U. S. 436, 497, 498, n. 71 (1966). See South Dakota v. Neville, 459 U. S. 553, 558, n. 6 (1983); North Dakota Pharmacy Board v. Snyder’s Stores, 414 U. S. 156, 159-164 (1973). See also Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 481 (1975).
Respondent contends that we should not review the issue raised by petitioner because “the appellate court reversed [respondent’s] conviction on two independent grounds, one of which (restricted cross-examination) petitioner does not contest.” Brief in Opposition 2. To the extent that this is an argument that the lower court’s judgment is unreviewable because it rests on adequate and independent state grounds, we reject it. First, it is highly questionable whether the District Court of Appeal would have reversed the conviction had it not reversed the trial court’s ruling on the suppression motion. The court did state that respondent’s cross-examination of the victim had been unduly restricted by the trial court. However, the court’s short discussion of this issue was introduced by the observation that “[s]ince the case must be remanded for a new trial we briefly mention another appellate point.” 432 So. 2d, at 99. This is hardly a clear indication that the cross-examination ruling provided an independent and adequate basis for reversal of the conviction. See Michigan v. Long, 463 U. S. 1032, 1040-1041 (1983).
Moreover, even if the cross-examination ruling did provide an independent state ground for reversal, we would still be empowered to review the constitutional issue raised by petitioner. The reason we cannot review a state-court judgment resting on adequate and independent state grounds is that “[w]e are not permitted to render an advisory opinion, and if the same judgment would be rendered by the state court after we corrected its views of federal laws, our review could amount to nothing more than an advisory opinion.” Herb v. Pitcairn, 324 U. S. 117, 126 (1946). In the present case, there is no possibility that our opinion will be merely advisory. Even if the District Court of Appeal were to order a new trial solely on the basis of its cross-examination ruling, the admissibility of critical evidence at that trial hinges on the constitutional issue presented for review by petitioner. Thus, our resolution of that issue will affect the proceedings below regardless of how the District Court of Appeal rules on remand. In such circumstances there is no jurisdictional reason why we cannot address the issue presented to us.
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.
Respondent is a probationary employee in the Public Buildings Service of the General Services Administration (GSA). In May 1971, approximately four months after her employment with GSA began, she was advised in writing by the Acting Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service, W. H. Sanders, that she would be discharged from her position on May 29, 1971. She then filed this action in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking to temporarily enjoin her dismissal pending her pursuit of an administrative appeal to the Civil Service Commission. The District Court granted a temporary restraining order, and after an adversary hearing extended the interim injunc-tive relief in favor of respondent until the Acting Commissioner of the Public Buildings Service testified about the reasons for respondent’s dismissal.
A divided Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed, rejecting the Government’s contention that the District Court had no authority whatever to grant temporary injunctive relief in this class of cases, and holding that the relief granted by the District Court in this particular case was within the permissible bounds of its discretion. We granted certiorari, sub nom. Kunzig v. Murray, 410 U. S. 981 (1973). We agree with the Court of Appeals that the District Court is not totally without authority to grant interim injunctive relief to a discharged Government employee, but conclude that, judged by the standards which we hold must govern the issuance of such relief, the issuance of the temporary injunctive relief by the District Court in this case cannot be sustained.
I
Respondent was hired as a program analyst by the Public Buildings Service after previous employment in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Under the regulations of the Civil Service Commission, this career conditional appointment was subject to a one-year probationary period. Applicable regulations provided that respondent, during this initial term of probation, could be dismissed without being afforded the greater procedural advantages available to permanent employees in'the competitive service. The underlying dispute between the parties arises over whether the more limited procedural requirements applicable to probationary employees were satisfied by petitioners in this case.
The procedural protections which the regulations accord to most dismissed probationary employees are limited. Commonly a Government agency may dismiss a probationary employee found unqualified for continued employment simply “by notifying him in writing as to why he is being separated and the effective date of the action.” More elaborate procedures are specified when the ground for terminating a probationary employee is “for conditions arising before appointment.” In such cases the regulations require that the employee receive “an advance written notice stating the reasons, specifically and in detail, for the proposed action”; that the employee be given an opportunity to respond in writing and to furnish affidavits in support of his response; that the agency “consider” any answer filed by the employee in reaching its decision; and that the employee be notified of the agency’s decision at the earliest practicable date. Respondent contends that her termination was based in part on her activities while in the course of her previous employment in the Defense Intelligence Agency, and that therefore she was entitled to an opportunity to file an answer under this latter provision.
The letter which respondent received from the Acting Commissioner, notifying her of the date of her discharge, stated that the reason for her discharge was her “complete unwillingness to follow office procedure and to accept direction from [her] supervisors.” After receipt of the letter, respondent's counsel met with a GSA personnel officer to discuss her situation and, in the course of the meeting, was shown a memorandum prepared by an officer of the Public Buildings Service upon which Sanders apparently based his decision to terminate respondent's employment. The memorandum contained both a discussion of respondent's conduct in her job with the Public Buildings Service and a discussion of her conduct during her previous employment at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Relying upon the inclusion of the information concerning her previous employment, respondent’s counsel requested that she be given a detailed statement of the charges against her and an opportunity to reply — the procedures to which she would be entitled under the regulations if in fact the basis of her discharge had been conduct during her previous employment. This request was denied:
Respondent then filed an administrative appeal with the Civil Service Commission pursuant to the provisions of 5 CFR § 315.806 (c), alleging that her termination was subject to § 315.805 and was not effected in accordance with the procedural requirements of that section. While her administrative appeal was pending undecided, she filed this action. Her complaint alleged that the agency had failed to follow the appropriate Civil Service regulations, alleged that her prospective discharge would deprive her of income and cause her to suffer the embarrassment of being wrongfully discharged, and requested a temporary restraining order and interim injunctive relief against her removal from employment pending agency determination of her appeal. The District Court granted the temporary restraining order at the time of the filing of respondent’s complaint, and set a hearing on the application for a temporary injunction for the following week.
At the hearing on the temporary injunction, the District Court expressed its desire to hear the testimony of Sanders in person, and refused to resolve the controversy on the basis of his affidavit which the Government offered to furnish. When the Government declined to produce Sanders, the court ordered the temporary-injunctive relief continued, stating that “Plaintiff may suffer immediate and irreparable injury, loss and damage before the Civil Service Commission can consider Plaintiff’s claim.” The Government, desiring to test the authority of the District Court to enter such an order, has not produced Sanders, and the interim relief awarded respondent continues in effect at this time.
On the Government’s appeal to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the order of the District Court was affirmed. Although recognizing that “Congress presumably could remove the jurisdiction of the District Courts to grant such equitable interim relief, in light of the remedies available,” the court found that the District Court had the power to grant relief in the absence of an explicit prohibition from Congress. The Court of Appeals decided that the District Court acted within the bounds of permissible discretion in requiring Sanders to appear and testify, and in continuing the temporary injunctive relief until he was produced as a witness by the Government.
II
While it would doubtless be intellectually neater to completely separate the question whether a District Court has authority to issue any temporary injunctive relief at the behest, of a discharged Government employee from the question whether the relief granted in this case was proper, we do not believe the questions may be thus bifurcated into two watertight compartments. We believe the basis for our decision can best be illuminated by taking up the various arguments which the parties urge upon us.
Petitioners point out, and the Court of Appeals below apparently recognized, that Congress has given the District Courts no express statutory authorization to issue temporary “stays” in Civil Service cases. Although Congress has often specifically conferred such authority when it so desired — for example, in the enabling statutes establishing the NLRB, the FTC, the FPC, and the SEC — the statutes governing the Civil Service Commission are silent on the question. The rules and regulations promulgated pursuant to a broad grant of statutory authority likewise make no provision for interlocutory judicial intervention.
The Court of Appeals nevertheless found that the district courts had traditional power to grant stays in such personnel cases. Commenting upon the Government’s arguments for reversal below, the court stated:
“It is asserted that the Civil Service Commission has been given exclusive review jurisdiction. But, as noted initially, there is no statutory power in the Civil Service Commission to grant a temporary stay of discharge. Prior to the Civil Service Act a United States District Court would certainly have had jurisdiction and power to grant such temporary relief. The statute did not explicitly take it away, nor implicitly by conferring such jurisdiction and power on the CSC; we hold the District Court still has jurisdiction and may exercise the power under established standards in appropriate circumstances.”
If the issue were to turn solely on the earlier decisions of this Court examining the authority of federal courts to intervene in disputes about governmental employment, we think this assumption of the Court of Appeals is wrong. In Keim v. United States, 177 U. S. 290 (1900), this Court held that the Court of Claims had no authority to award damages to an employee who claimed he had.been wrongfully discharged by his federal employer. In White v. Berry, 171 U. S. 366 (1898), a Government employee had sought to enjoin his employer from dismissing him from office, alleging that the removal would violate both the Civil Service Act and the applicable regulations. The Circuit Court assumed jurisdiction and issued an order prohibiting the defendant from interfering with the plaintiff’s discharge of his duty “ 'until he shall be removed therefrom by proper proceedings had under the Civil Service Act and the rules and regulations made thereunder or by judicial proceedings at law This Court reversed. Discussing the apparently well-established principle that “ 'a court of equity will not, by injunction, restrain an executive officer from making a wrongful removal of a subordinate appointee,’ ” the Court held that “the Circuit Court, sitting in equity, was without jurisdiction to grant the relief asked.”
Respondent’s case, then, must succeed, if at all, despite earlier established principles regarding equitable intervention in disputes over tenure of governmental employees, and not because of them. Much water has flowed over the dam since 1898, and cases such as Service v. Dulles, 354 U. S. 363 (1957), cited by the District Court in its memorandum opinion in this case, establish that federal courts do have authority to review the claim of a discharged governmental employee that the agency effectuating the discharge has not followed administrative regulations. In that case, however, judicial proceedings were not commenced until the administrative remedy had been unsuccessfully pursued. The fact that Government personnel decisions are now ultimately subject to the type of judicial review sought in Service v. Dulles, supra, does not, without more, create the authority to issue interim injunctive relief which was held lacking in cases such as White v. Berry, supra.
The Court of Appeals found support for its affirmance of the District Court's grant of injunctive relief in Scripps-Howard Radio v. FCC, 316 U. S. 4 (1942). In Scripps-Howard the licensee of a Cincinnati radio station petitioned the FCC to vacate an order permitting a Columbus radio station to change its frequency and to increase its broadcasting power. The licensee also requested a hearing. When the Commission denied the petition, the licensee filed a statutory appeal in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and, in conjunction with the docketing of the appeal, asked the court to stay the FCC order pending its decision. The Court of Appeals, apparently departing from a longstanding policy of issuing such stays, declined to do so in this case and ultimately certified the question of its power to this Court.
This Court held that the Court of Appeals had power to issue the stay, analogizing it to the traditional stay granted by an appellate court pending review of an inferior court's decision:
“It has always been held, therefore, that as part of its traditional equipment for the administration of justice/'"’- a federal court can stay the enforcement of a judgment pending the outcome of an appeal.”
But in Scripps-Howard, the losing party before the agency sought an interim stay of final agency action pending statutory judicial review. A long progression of cases in this Court had established the authority of a court, empowered by statute to exercise appellate jurisdiction, to issue appropriate writs in aid of that jurisdiction. The All Writs Act, first enacted as a part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, provided statutory confirmation of this authority. This Court in Scripps-Howard held that the same principles governed the authority of courts charged by statute with judicial review of agency decisions, and that the authority to grant a stay exists in such a court even though not expressly conferred by the statute which confers appellate jurisdiction.
Scripps-Howard, supra, of course, is not the instant case. The authority of the District Court to review agency action under Service v. Dulles, supra, does not come into play until it may be authoritatively said that the administrative decision to discharge an employee does in fact fail to conform to applicable regulations. Until administrative action has become final, no court is in a position to say that such action did or did not conform to applicable regulations. Here respondent had obtained no administrative determination of her appeal at the time she brought the action in the District Court. She was in effect asking that court to grant her, on an interim basis, relief which the administrative agency charged with review of her employer’s action could grant her only after it had made a determination on the merits.
While both the District Court and the Court of Appeals characterized the District Court’s intervention as a “stay,” the mandatory retention of respondent in the position from which she was dismissed actually served to provide the most extensive relief which she might conceivably obtain from the agency after its review on the merits. It may well be that the Civil Service Commission, should it have agreed with respondent’s version of the basis for her dismissal, would prohibit the final separation of respondent unless and until proper procedures had been followed. But this is not to say that it would hold respondent to be entitled to full reinstatement with the attendant tension with her superiors that the agency intended to avoid by dismissing her. Congress has provided that a wrongfully dismissed employee shall receive full payment and benefits for any time during which the employee was wrongfully discharged from employment. The Civil Service Commission could conceivably accommodate the conflicting claims in this case by directing respondent’s superiors to provide her with an opportunity to reply by affidavit, and by ordering that she receive backpay for any period of her dismissal prior to the completion of the type of dismissal procedure required by the regulations.
The Court in Scripps-Howard recognized that certain forms of equitable relief could not properly be granted by federal courts. The Court specifically contrasted the stay of' a license grant and the stay of a license denial, finding that the latter would have no effect:
“Of course, no court can grant an applicant an authorization which the Commission has refused. No order that the Court of Appeals could make would enable an applicant to go on the air when the Commission has denied him a license to do so. A stay of an order denying an application would in the nature of things stay nothing. It could not operate as an affirmative authorization of that which the Commission has refused to authorize.”
Surely that conclusion would not vary depending upon whether the radio station had started broadcasting on its own initiative and sought to stay a Commission order directing it to cease. Yet here the District Court did authorize, on an interim basis, relief which the Civil Service Commission had neither considered nor authorized — the mandatory reinstatement of respondent in her Government position. We are satisfied that Scripps-Howard, involving as it did the traditional authority of reviewing courts to grant stays, provides scant support for the injunction issued here.
The Court of Appeals also relied upon FTC v. Dean Foods Co., 384 U. S. 597 (1966), in reaching its decision. There a closely divided Court held that a Court of Appeals having ultimate jurisdiction to review orders of the Federal Trade Commission might, upon the Commission’s application, grant a temporary injunction to preserve the controversy before the agency. The Commission’s application alleged, and the court accepted, that refusal to grant the injunction would result in the practical disappearance of one of the entities whose merger the Commission sought to challenge. The disappearance, in turn, would mean that the agency, and the court entrusted by statute with authority to review the agency’s decision, would be incapable of implementing their statutory duties by fashioning effective relief. Thus invocation of the All Writs Act, as a preservative of jurisdiction, was considered appropriate.
Neither the reviewing jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission nor that of the District Court would be similarly frustrated by a decision of the District Court remitting respondent to her administrative remedy. Certainly the Civil Service Commission will be able to weigh respondent’s contentions and to order necessary relief without the aid of the District Court injunction. In direct contrast to the claim of the FTC in Dean Foods that its jurisdiction would be effectively defeated by denial of relief, the Commission here has argued that judicial action interferes with.the normal agency processes. And we see nothing in the record to suggest that any judicial review available under the doctrine of Service v. Dulles would be defeated in the same manner as review in Dean Foods.
We are therefore unpersuaded that the temporary injunction granted by the District Court in this case was justified either by our prior decisions dealing with the availability of injunctive relief to discharged federal employees, or by those dealing with the authority of reviewing courts to grant temporary stays or injunctions pending full appellate review. If the order of the District Court in this case is to be upheld, the authority must be found elsewhere.
Ill
This Court observed in Scripps-Howard that “[t]he search for significance in the silence of Congress is too often the pursuit of a mirage,” 316 U. S., at 11, and this observation carries particular force when a statutory scheme grants broad regulatory latitude to an administrative agency. In Scripps-Howard a careful review of the relevant statutory provisions and legislative history persuaded this Court that Congress had not intended to nullify the power of an appellate court, having assumed jurisdiction after an agency decision, to issue stays in aid of its jurisdiction. The Court noted, in particular, that stays were allowed in other cases processed through the FCC and that the Court of Appeals had routinely issued stays in similar cases before undertaking an unexpected shift in policy. But, at the other end of the spectrum, in Arrow Transportation Co. v. Southern R. Co., 372 U. S. 658 (1963), this Court held that a specific congressional grant of power to the ICC to suspend proposed rate modifications precluded the District Court from extending the suspension by temporary injunction. This was true despite arguments that district courts traditionally had such power and that Congress did not explicitly revoke the power by statute. The Court there said:
“The more plausible inference is that Congress meant to foreclose a judicial power to interfere with the timing of rate changes which would be out of harmony with the uniformity of rate levels fostered by the doctrine of primary jurisdiction.”
The overall scheme governing employees of the Federal Government falls neatly within neither of these precedents. Unlike Scripps-Howard, traditional stay practice lends little support to the sort of relief which the District Court granted respondent here, and the precedents dealing with the availability of equitable relief to discharged Government employees are quite unfavorable to respondent. Unlike Arrow Transportation, supra, the administrative structure is far more a creature of agency regulations than of statute. We are thus not prepared to conclude that Congress in this class of cases has wholly divested the district courts of their customary authority to grant temporary injunctive relief, and to that extent we agree with the Court of Appeals. But merely because the factors Relied upon by the Government do not establish that the district courts are wholly bereft of the authority claimed for them here does not mean, as the Court of Appeals appeared to believe, that temporary injunctive relief in this class of cases is to be dispensed without regard to those factors. While considerations similar to those found sufficient in Arrow Transportation to totally deprive the district courts of equitable authority do not have that force here, they nonetheless are entitled to great weight in the equitable balancing process which attends the grant of injunctive relief.
We are dealing in this case not with a permanent Government employee, a class for which Congress has specified certain substantive and procedural protections, but with a probationary employee, a class which Congress has specifically recognized as entitled to less comprehensive procedures. Title 5 U. S. C. § 3321, derived from the original Pendleton Act, requires the creation of this classification:
“The President may prescribe rules, which shall provide, as nearly as conditions of good administration warrant, that there shall be a period of probation before an appointment in the competitive service becomes absolute.”
It is also clear from other provisions in the Civil Service statutory framework that Congress expected probationary employees to have fewer procedural rights than permanent employees in the competitive service. For example, preference eligibles, commonly veterans, are entitled to hearing procedures extended to persons in the competitive service only after they have completed “a probationary or trial period.” Persons suspended for national security reasons are given expanded protection provided they have completed a trial or probationary period.
The Civil Service regulations are consistent with these statutes. These regulations are promulgated by the Civil Service Commission as authorized by Congress in 5 U. S. C. §§ 1301-1302. Part 752, the regulations governing adverse agency actions, provides certain procedural safeguards for employees but, as did the statutes cited above, exempts “employee [s] currently serving a probationary or trial period.” Such employees are remitted to the procedures specified in subpart H of Part 315, the procedures at issue here. Under § 752.202 of the regulations permanent competitive service employees are to be retained in an active-duty status only during the required 30-day-notice period, and the Commission is given no authority to issue additional stays. It cannot prevent the dismissal of an employee or order his reinstatement prior to hearing and determining his appeal on the merits. Reasonably, a probationary employee could be entitled to no more than retention on active duty for the period preceding the effective date of his discharge.
Congress has also provided a broad remedy for cases of improper suspension or dismissal. The Back Pay Act of 1948 supplemented the basic Lloyd-LaFollette Act of 1912 and provided that any person in the competitive Civil Service who was unjustifiably discharged and later restored to his position was entitled to full backpay for the time he was out of work. The benefits of this Act were extended to additional employees, including probationary employees, in 1966. Respondent was eligible for full compensation for any period of improper discharge under this section.
As we have noted, respondent’s only substantive claim, either before the District Court or in her administrative appeal, was that petitioners had violated the regulations promulgated by the Civil Service Commission. Those same regulations provided for an appeal to the agency which promulgated the regulations and further provided that until that appeal had been heard on the merits, the employer’s discharge of the employee was to remain in effect. Respondent, however, sought judicial intervention before fully utilizing the administrative scheme.
The District Court, exercising its equitable powers, is bound to give serious weight to the obviously disruptive effect which the grant of the temporary relief awarded here was likely to have on the administrative process. When we couple with this consideration the historical denial of all equitable relief by the federal courts in cases such as White v. Berry, 171 U. S. 366 (1898), the well-established rule that the Government has traditionally been granted the widest latitude in the “dispatch of its own internal affairs,” Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 896 (1961), and the traditional unwillingness of courts of equity to enforce contracts for personal service either at the behest of the employer or of the employee, 5A A. Corbin, Contracts § 1204 (1964), we think that the Court of Appeals was quite wrong in routinely applying to this case the traditional standards governing more orthodox “stays.” See Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Assn. v. FPC, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 106, 259 F. 2d 921 (1958). Although we do not hold that Congress has wholly foreclosed the granting of preliminary injunctive relief in such cases, we do believe that respondent at the very least must make a showing of irreparable injury sufficient in kind and degree to override these factors cutting against the general availability of preliminary injunctions in Government personnel cases. We now turn to the showing made to the District Court on that issue, and to the Court of Appeals’ treatment of it.
IY
The Court of Appeals said in its opinion:
“Without passing on the merits of Mrs. Murray’s contention that she will suffer irreparable harm if the sought-for-relief is not granted (a task for the District Court here), we note that there was a determination that such a loss of employment could be 'irreparable harm’ in Reeber v. Rossell (1950), a case quite similar to that at bar. We agree with the Reeber court that such a loss of employment can amount to irreparable harm, and that injunctive relief may be a proper remedy pending the final administrative determination of the validity of the discharge by the Civil Service Commission.”
At another point in its opinion, the Court of Appeals said:
“As the District Court here felt that the hearing on the motion for the preliminary injunction could not be completed until Mr. Sanders was produced to testify, it was proper for him to continue the stay, in order to preserve the status quo pending the completion of the hearing.”
The court in its supplemental opinion filed after the Government's petition for rehearing further expanded its view of this aspect of the case:
“The court’s opinion does not hold, and the trial judge has not yet held, that interim relief is -proper in Mrs. Murray’s case, but we do hold that the trial judge may consider granting such relief, as this is inherent in his historical equitable role.”
In form the order entered by the District Court now before us is a continuation of the temporary restraining order originally issued by that court. It is clear from the Court of Appeals’ opinion that that court so construed it. But since the order finally settled upon by the District Court was in no way limited in time, the provisions of Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 65 come into play. That Rule states, in part:
“(b) A temporary restraining order may be granted without written or oral notice to the adverse party or his attorney only if (1) it clearly appears from specific facts shown by affidavit or by the verified complaint that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the applicant before the adverse party or his attorney can be heard in opposition.... Every temporary restraining order granted without notice... shall define the injury and state why it is irreparable and why the order was granted without notice; and shall expire by its terms within such time after entry, not to exceed 10 days, as the court fixes, unless within the time so fixed the order, for good cause shown, is extended for a like period or unless the party against whom the order is directed consents that it may be extended for a longer period.”
The Court of Appeals whose judgment we are reviewing has held that a temporary restraining order continued beyond the time permissible under Rule 65 must be treated as a preliminary injunction, and must conform to the standards applicable to preliminary injunctions. National Mediation Board v. Airline Pilots Assn., 116 U. S. App. D. C. 300, 323 F. 2d 305 (1963). We believe that this analysis is correct, at least in the type of situation presented here, and comports with general principles imposing strict limitations on the scope of temporary restraining orders. A district court, if it were able to shield its orders from appellate review merely by designating them as temporary restraining orders, rather than as preliminary injunctions, would have virtually unlimited authority over the parties in an injunctive proceeding. In this case, where an adversary hearing has been held, and the court’s basis for issuing the order strongly challenged, classification of the potentially unlimited order as a temporary restraining order seems particularly unjustified. Therefore we view the order at issue here as a preliminary injunction.
We believe that the Court of Appeals was quite wrong in suggesting that at this stage of the proceeding the District Court need not have concluded that there was actually irreparable injury. This Court has stated that “[t]he basis of injunctive relief in the federal courts has always been irreparable harm and inadequacy of legal remedies,” Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500, 506-507 (1959), and the Court of Appeals itself in Virginia Petroleum Jobbers Assn. v. FPC, 104 U. S. App. D. C. 106, 259 F. 2d 921 (1958), has recognized as much. Yet the record before us indicates that no witnesses were heard on the issue of irreparable injury, that respondent’s complaint was not verified, and that the affidavit she submitted to the District Court did not touch in any way upon considerations relevant to irreparable injury. We are therefore somewhat puzzled about the basis for the District Court’s conclusion that respondent “may suffer immediate and irreparable injury.” The Government has not specifically urged this procedural issue here, however, and the Court of Appeals in its opinion discussed the elements upon which it held that the District Court might base a conclusion of irreparable injury. Respondent’s unverified complaint alleged that she might be deprived of her income for an indefinite period of time, that spurious and unrebutted charges against her might remain on the record, and that she would suffer the embarrassment of being wrongfully discharged in the presence of her coworkers. The Court of Appeals intimated that either loss of earnings or damage to reputation might afford a basis for a finding of irreparable injury and provide a basis for temporary injunctive relief. We disagree.
Even under the traditional standards of Virginia Petroleum Jobbers, supra, it seems clear that the temporary-loss of income, ultimately to be recovered, does not usually constitute irreparable injury. In that case the court stated:
“The key word in this consideration is irreparable. Mere injuries, however substantial, in terms of money, time and energy necessarily expended in the absence of a stay, are not enough. The possibility that adequate compensatory or other corrective relief will be available at a later date, in the ordinary course of litigation, weighs heavily against a claim of irreparable harm.”
This premise is fortified by the Back Pay Act discussed above. This Act not only affords monetary relief which will prevent the loss of earnings on a periodic basis from being “irreparable injury” in this type of case, but its legislative history suggests that Congress contemplated that it would be the usual, if not the exclusive, remedy for wrongful discharge. The manager of the bill on the floor of the Senate, Senator Langer, commented on the bill at the time of its passage:
“[It]... provides that an agency or department of the Government may remove any employee at any time, but that the employee shall then have a right of appeal. When he is removed, he is of course off the pay roll. If he wins the appeal, it is provided that he shall be paid for the time during which he was suspended.”
Respondent’s complaint also alleges, as a basis for relief, the humiliation and damage to her reputation which may ensue. As a matter of first impression it would seem that no significant loss of reputation would be inflicted by procedural irregularities in effectuating respondent’s discharge, and that whatever damage might occur would be fully corrected by an administrative determination requiring the agency to conform to the applicable regulations. Respondent’s claim here is not that she could not as a matter of statutory or administrative right be discharged, but only that she was entitled to additional procedural safeguards in effectuating the discharge.
Assuming for the purpose of discussion that respondent had made a satisfactory showing of loss of income and had supported the claim that her reputation would be damaged as a result of the challenged agency action, we think the showing falls far short of the type of irreparable injury which is a necessary predicate to the issuance of a temporary injunction in this type of case. We therefore reverse the decision of the Court of Appeals which approved the action of the District Court.
It is so ordered.
Murray v. Kunzig, 149 U. S. App. D. C. 256, 462 F. 2d 871 (1972). For a discussion of the Court of Appeals’ jurisdiction, and the jurisdiction of this Court, see infra, at 86-88.
5 CFR § 315.801.
Compare 5 CFR §§ 315.801-315.807 with 5 CFR § 752.101 et seq.
5 CFR § 315.804.
5 CFR § 315.805.
Section 315.805 reads in full:
Ҥ 315.805 Termination of probationers for conditions arising before appointment.
“When an agency proposes to terminate an employee serving a probationary or trial period for reasons based in whole or in part on conditions arising before his appointment, the employee is entitled to the following:
“(a) Notice oj •proposed, adverse action. The employee is entitled to an advance written notice stating the reasons, specifically and in detail, for the proposed action.
“(b) Employee’s answer. The employee is entitled to a reasonable time for filing a written answer to the notice of proposed adverse action and for furnishing affidavits in support of his answer. If the employee answers, the agency shall consider the answer in reaching its decision.
“(c) Notice oj adverse decision. The employee is entitled to be notified of the agency’s decision at the earliest practicable date. The agency shall deliver the decision to the employee at or before the time the action will be made effective. The notice shall be in writing, inform the employee of the reasons for the action, inform the employee of his right of appeal to the appropriate office of the Commission, and inform him of the time limit within which the appeal must be submitted as provided in §315.806 (d).”
Section 315.806 (c) reads:
“A probationer whose termination is subject to § 315.805 may appeal on the ground that his termination was not effected in accordance with the -procedural requirements of that section.”
The order of the District Court stated in full:
“It appearing to the Court from the affidavits and accompanying exhibits that a Temporary Restraining Order, pending the appearance before this Court of Mr. W. H. Sanders, Acting Commissioner, Public Buildings Service, should issue because, unless Defendants are restrained from terminating Plaintiff's employment, Plaintiff may suffer immediate and irreparable injury, loss and damage before the Civil Service Commission can consider Plaintiff’s claim,
“NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED, that the Temporary Restraining Order issued by this Court at twelve o’clock p. m., May 28, 1971, is continued until the appearance of the aforesaid W. H. Sanders.
“IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that a copy of this Order be served by the United States Marshal on Defendants forthwith.”
149 U. S. App. D. C., at 262 n. 21, 462 F. 2d, at 877 n. 21.
Id., at 263-264, 462 F. 2d, at 878-879.
29 U. S. C. §§ 160 (j), (l).
15 U. S. C. §53 (a).
16 U. S. C. § 825m (a).
15 U. S. C. §§ 77t (b), 78u (e).
Respondent does suggest that 5. U. S. C. § 705 may confer authority to grant relief in this case. That section reads:
“When an agency finds that justice so requires, it may postpone the effective date of action taken by it, pending judicial review. On such conditions as may be required and to the extent necessary to prevent irreparable injury, the reviewing court, including the court to which a case may be taken on appeal from or on application for certiorari or other writ to a reviewing court, may issue all necessary and appropriate process to postpone the effective date of an agency action or to preserve status or rights pending conclusion of the review proceedings.”
The relevant legislative history of that section, however, indicates that it was primarily intended to reflect existing law under the Scripps-Howard doctrine, discussed infra, and not to fashion new rules of intervention for District Courts. See S. Rep. No. 752, 79th Cong., 1st Sess., 27, 44 (1945). Thus respondent’s various contentions may be grouped under her primary theory discussed in the text.
149 U. S. App. D. C., at 265, 462 F. 2d, at 880 (footnotes omitted).
The Court there expressed the traditional judicial deference to administrative processes in the following terms:
“The appointment to an official position in the Government, even if it be simply a clerical position, is not a mere ministerial act, but one involving the exercise of judgment. The appointing power must determine the fitness of the applicant; whether or not he is the proper one to discharge the duties of the position. Therefore it is one of those acts over which the courts have no general supervising power.
“In the absence of
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.
With respect to respondents Joe Isaacson and Phyllis Lisa Isaacson, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further consideration in light of Syngenta Crop Protection, Inc. v. Henson, 537 U. S. 28 (2002).
With respect to respondents Daniel Raymond Stephenson, Susan Stephenson, Daniel Anthony Stephenson, and Emily Elizabeth Stephenson, the judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.
Justice Stevens 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: | 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 Stewart
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This litigation concerns the relationship between two important provisions of the Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (LMRA). Section 8 (b)(1)(B) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by § 101 of the LMRA, 61 Stat. 141, makes it an unfair labor practice for a union “to restrain or coerce ... an employer in the selection of his representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances . ...” Section 302 (c) (5) of the LMRA, 61 Stat. 157, permits employers and unions to create employer-financed trust funds for the benefit of employees, so long as employees and employers are equally represented by the trustees of the funds. The question at issue is whether the employer-selected trustees of a trust fund created under § 302 (c)(5) are “representatives” of the employer “for the purposes of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances” within the meaning of § 8 (b)(1)(B).
I
The Amax Coal Co. owns several deep-shaft bituminous coal mines, most of them in the Midwestern United States. The United Mine Workers of America (the union) represents Amax’s employees, and, with respect to the midwestern mines, Amax is a member of the Bituminous Coal Operators Association (BCOA), a national multiemployer group that bargains with the union. Through its collective-bargaining contract with the union, Amax, along with the other members of the BCOA, agreed to contribute to the union’s national pension and welfare trust funds. These funds, established under § 302 (c) (5) of the Act, provide comprehensive health and retirement benefits to coal miners and their families. In accord with § 302 (c) (5) (B), the trust funds are administered by three trustees, one selected by the union, one by the members of BOCA, and one by the other two.
In 1972, Amax opened the Belle Ayr Mine in Wyoming, the company’s first sub-bituminous surface mine. Although Amax did not join the BCOA with respect to that mine, Amax and the union negotiated a collective-bargaining contract for Belle Ayr which resembled the BCOA national contract, and under which Amax contributed specified amounts of money to the national trust funds to benefit the employees at Belle Ayr. In January 1975, when the collectively bargained contract covering the Belle Ayr Mine ended, the union struck Belle Ayr and other western mines, attempting to compel the mine owners to establish a multiemployer bargaining unit and to agree to a new collective contract proposed by the union, under which the members of the new employer unit would contribute to the national trust funds. Amax resisted, and the union, threatened with a complaint from the National Labor Relations Board Regional Counsel for illegally attempting to coerce the employer into a multiemployer bargaining unit, soon began separate negotiations with Amax. Those negotiations came to an impasse, and the union continued its strike at the Belle Ayr Mine. Amax then filed with the Board unfair labor practice charges against the union.
The matter of pension and welfare benefits had been a major barrier to agreement between Amax and the union, and formed an important part of Amax’s charges before the Board. Amax had proposed its own benefit and pension trust plan, outside the purview of § 302 (c)(5), but the union, claiming that such a plan would not be sufficiently portable to or reciprocal with the national trust funds, had rejected this proposal. Rather, the union had insisted that Amax, even as a separately bargaining employer, continue to contribute to the national trust funds for the Belle Ayr employees. Amax, of course, as a member of BCOA, had participated in selecting the management-appointed trustee of the national trust funds, but it now wanted to appoint its own trustee for any trust fund covering the employees of the Belle Ayr Mine. Amax took the view that any management-appointed trustee of a § 302 (c)(5) trust fund was a collective-bargaining “representative” of the employer within the meaning of § 8 (b)(1)(B); therefore, since the management trustee of the national trust fund had already been selected by BCOA, Amax contended that the union’s insistence that it participate in the national trust funds with regard to Belle Ayr employees constituted illegal coercion under §8 (b)(1)(B) of the Act. Amax also charged the union with refusing to bargain in good faith in violation of § 8 (b) (3) of the Act.
The National Labor Relations Board unanimously concluded that the union had acted legally in bargaining to impasse and striking to obtain Amax’s participation in the national trust funds for the Belle Ayr employees. The Board noted that the purpose of § 8 (b)(1) (B) was to ensure that an employer can bargain through a freely chosen representative completely faithful to his interests under the principles of agency law, while the trustee of a joint trust fund, though he may appropriately consider the recommendations of the party who appoints him, is a fiduciary owing undivided loyalty to the interest of the beneficiaries in administering the trust. Accordingly, the Board concluded that the union had not violated § 8 (b)(1)(B).
On cross-petitions by the parties, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, relying on its earlier decision in Associated Contractors of Essex County, Inc. v. Laborers International Union, 559 F. 2d 222, 227-228, held that management-appointed trustees of a § 302 (c) (5) trust fund act as both fiduciaries of the employee-beneficiaries and as agents of the appointing employers, and, insofar as is consistent with their fiduciary obligations, are expected to administer the trusts in such a way as to advance the employer’s interests. 614 F. 2d 872, 881-882. The court therefore concluded that the union had acted in violation of §8 (b)(1)(B) in exerting its economic power to induce Amax to participate in the national trust funds with respect to employees of the Belle Ayr Mine, and reversed the Board’s ruling to the contrary. We granted certiorari to consider the important question of federal labor law these cases present. 449 U. S. 1110.
II
Although § 302 (a) of the Act generally prohibits an employer from making payments to any representative of his employees, § 302 (c)(5) allows an employer to contribute to an employee benefit trust fund that satisfies certain statutory requirements. To ensure that the funds in such a trust are not used as a union “war chest,” Arroyo v. United States, 359 U. S. 419, 426, the Act provides that the funds may be used only for specified benefits for employees and their dependents, and that the basis for these payments be laid out in a detailed written agreement between the union and the employer. The fund must be subject to an annual audit, and the results of the audit must be made available to all interested persons. Furthermore, pension or annuity funds must be kept in a trust separate from other union welfare funds. Finally, § 302 (c) (5) (B) requires that “employees and employers [be] equally represented in the administration of such fund, together with such neutral persons as the representatives of the employers and the representatives of the employees may agree upon . . .
Congress directed that union welfare funds be established as written formal trusts, and that the assets of the funds be “held in trust,” and be administered “for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees . . . and their families and dependents . . . .” 29 U. S. C. § 186 (c)(5). Where Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under either equity or the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms. See Perrin v. United States, 444 U. S. 37, 42-43. Under principles of equity, a trustee bears an unwavering duty of complete loyalty to the beneficiary of the trust, to the exclusion of the interests of all other parties. Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 170 (1) (1957); 2 A. Scott, Law of Trusts § 170 (1967). To deter the trustee from all temptation and to prevent any possible injury to the beneficiary, the rule against a trustee dividing his loyalties must be enforced with "uncompromising rigidity.” Meinhard v. Salmon, 249 N. Y. 458, 464, 164 N. E. 545, 546 (Cardozo, C. J.). A fiduciary cannot contend “that, although he had conflicting interests, he served his masters equally well or that his primary loyalty was not weakened by the pull of his secondary one.” Woods v. City National Bank & Trust Co., 312 U. S. 262, 269.
Given this established rule against dual loyalties and Congress’ use of terms long established in the courts of chancery, we must infer that Congress intended to impose on trustees traditional fiduciary duties unless Congress has unequivocally expressed an intent to the contrary. See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 637. However, although § 302 (c)(5)(B) requires an equal balance between trustees appointed by the union and those appointed by the employer, nothing in the language of § 302 (c) (5) reveals any congressional intent that a trustee should or may administer a trust fund in the interest of the party that appointed him, or that an employer may direct or supervise the decisions of a trustee he has appointed. And the legislative history of the LMRA confirms that § 302 (c) (5) was designed to reinforce, not to alter, the long-established duties of a trustee.
As explained by Senator Ball, one of the two sponsors of the provision, the “sole purpose” of § 302 (c) (5) is to ensure that employee benefit trust funds “are legitimate trust funds, used actually for the specified benefits to the employees of the employers who contribute to them . . . .” 93 Cong. Rec. 4678 (1947). Senator Ball stated that “all we seek to do by [§ 302 (c)(5)] is to make sure that the employees whose labor builds this fund and are really entitled to benefits under it shall receive the benefits; that it is a trust fund, and that, if necessary, they can go into court and obtain the benefits to which they are entitled.” Id., at 4753; see H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 66-67 (1947), 1 NLRB, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Relations Act, 1947, p. 570 (1948) (Leg. Hist. LMRA). The debates on § 302 (c) (5) further reveal Congress’ intent to cast employee benefit plans in traditional trust form precisely because fiduciary standards long established in equity would best protect employee beneficiaries. For example, one opponent of the bill suggested that § 305 (c) (5) was unnecessary because even without that provision, the “officials who administer [the fund] thereby become trustees, subject to all of the common law and State safeguards against misuse of funds bv trustees.” 93 Cong. Rec. 4751 (1947) (Sen. Morse). Senator Taft, the primary author of the entire Act, answered that many existing funds were not created expressly as trusts, and that § 302 (c) (5)’s requirement that each fund be an express and enforceable trust would ensure that the future operations of all such funds would be subject to supervision by a court of chancery. 93 Cong. Rec. 4753 (1947). See also id., at 4678 (Sen. Ball) ; id., at 3564-3565 (Rep. Case, author of House bill on which § 302 (c)(5) was patterned). In sum, the duty of the management-appointed trustee of an employee benefit fund under § 302 (c)(5) is directly antithetical to that of an agent of the appointing party.
Whatever may have remained implicit in Congress' view of the employee benefit fund trustee under the Act became explicit when Congress passed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 88 Stat. 829. ERISA essentially codified the strict fiduciary standards that a § 302 (c)(5) trustee must meet. See 29 U. S. C. §§ 1002 (1) and (2); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1280, pp. 296, 307 (1974). Section 404(a)(1) of ERISA requires a trustee to “discharge his duties . . . solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries . . . 29 U. S. C. § 1104 (a)(1). Section 406 (b) (2) declares that a trustee may not “act in any transaction involving the plan on behalf of a party (or represent a party) whose interests are adverse to the interests of the plan or the interests of its participants or beneficiaries.” 29 IT. S. C. §1106 (b)(2). Section 405 (a) imposes on each trustee an affirmative duty to prevent every other trustee of the same fund from breaching fiduciary duties, including the duty to act solely on behalf of the beneficiaries. 29 U. S. C. § 1105 (a).
Moreover, the fiduciary requirements of ERISA specifically insulate the trust from the employer’s interest. Except in circumstances involving excess contributions or termination of the trust, “the assets of a plan shall never inure to the. benefit of any employer and shall be held for the exclusive purposes of providing benefits to participants in the plan and their beneficiaries and defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan.” § 403 (c)(1), 29 IT. S. C. § 1103 (c) (1). Finally, §406 (a)(1)(E) prohibits any transaction between the trust and a “party in interest,” including an employer, and § 407 carefully limits the amount and types of employer-owned property and securities that the trustees may obtain for the trust. 29 IT. S. C. §§ 1106 (a)(1)(E), 1107. In sum, ERISA vests the “exclusive authority and discretion to manage and control the assets of the plan” in the trustees alone, and not the employer or the union. 29 IT. S. C. § 1103 (a).
The legislative history of ERISA confirms that Congress intended in particular to prevent trustees “from engaging in actions where there would be a conflict of interest with the fund, such as representing any party dealing with the fund.” S. Rep. No. 93-383, pp. 31, 32 (1973). In short, the fiduciary provisions of ERISA were designed to prevent a trustee “from being put into a position where he has dual loyalties, and, therefore, he cannot act exclusively for the benefit of a plan’s participants and beneficiaries.” H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 93-1280, supra, at 309.
Ill
The language and legislative history of § 302 (c)(5) and ERISA therefore demonstrate that an employee benefit fund trustee is a fiduciary whose duty to the trust beneficiaries must overcome any loyalty to the interest of the party that appointed him. Thus, the statutes defining the duties of a management-appointed trustee make it virtually self-evident that welfare fund trustees are not “representatives for the purposes of collective bargaining or the adjustment of grievances” within the meaning of § 8 (b)(1)(B). But close examination of the latter provision makes it even clearer that it does not limit the freedom of a union to try to induce an employer to select a particular § 302 (c) (5) trustee.
Congress enacted §8 (b)(1)(B) largely to prevent unions from forcing employers to join multiemployer bargaining units, or to dictate the identity of those who would represent employers in collective-bargaining negotiations or the settlement of employee grievances. See American Broadcasting Cos. v. Writers Guild, 437 U. S. 411, 422-423, 429-431, 435-436; Florida Power & Light Co. v. Electrical Workers, 417 U. S. 790, 803; S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 21, (1947), 1 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 427; 93 Cong. Rec. 4143 (1947) (Sen. Ellender). The legislative history reveals the concern of some Senators that if unions could strike or bargain to impasse to compel employers to join industrywide bargaining units, the large unions might exercise monopoly power over wages or call strikes threatening large portions of the national economy. S. Rep. No. 105, pt. 1, supra, at 51, 1 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 457; 93 Cong. Rec. 4582-4588 (1947) (Sen. Taft). However, the power of a union to strike or bargain to impasse to induce an employer to contribute to a multiemployer trust fund does not pose the danger Congress sought to prevent. Congress treated the issues of multiem-ployer bargaining units and multiemployer trust funds quite distinctly. It is permissible under the law, and may be in the interest of the public, for an employer to bargain separately with a union, independently of any industrywide employer association, while the union exerts economic pressure to obtain protection for the employees through the medium of a multiemployer benefit fund.
Moreover, union pressure to force an employer to contribute to an established employee trust fund does not amount to dictating to an employer who shall represent him in collective bargaining and the adjustment of grievances, because the trustees of a § 302 (c) (5) trust fund simply do not, as such, engage in these activities. The term “collective bargaining” in § 8 (b) (1) (B) of the Act is defined by § 8 (d):
“[T]he 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, but such obligation does not compel either party to agree to a proposal or require the making of a concession 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d).
Under this definition, the collective-bargaining representatives of an employer and a union attempt to reach an agreement by negotiation, and, failing agreement, are free to settle their differences by resort to such economic weapons as strikes and lockouts, without any compulsion to reach agreement. See Carbon Fuel Co. v. Mine Workers, 444 U. S. 212, 219; NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 495.
The atmosphere in which employee benefit trust fund fiduciaries must operate, as mandated by § 302 (c) (5) and ERISA, is wholly inconsistent with this process of compromise and economic pressure. The management-appointed and union-appointed trustees do not bargain with each other to set the terms of the employer-employee contract; they can neither require employer contributions not required by the original collectively bargained contract, nor compromise the claims of the union or the employer with regard to the latter’s contributions. Rather, the trustees operate under a detailed written agreement, 29 U. S. C. § 186 (c) (5) (B), which is itself the product of bargaining between the representatives of the employees and those of the employer. Indeed, the trustees have an obligation to enforce the terms of the collective-bargaining agreement regarding employee fund contributions against the employer “for the sole benefit of the beneficiaries of the fund.” United States v. Carter, 353 U. S. 210, 220. Finally, disputes between benefit fund trustees over the administration of the trust cannot, as can disputes between parties in collective bargaining, lead to strikes, lockouts, or other exercises of economic power. Rather, whereas Congress has expressly rejected compulsory arbitration as a means of resolving collective-bargaining disputes, § 302 (c) (5) explicitly provides for the compulsory resolution of any deadlocks among welfare fund trustees by a neutral umpire. Compare 29 U. S. C. § 158 (d) with 29 U. S. C. § 186 (c) (5); see. n. 12, supra.
Like collective bargaining, the adjustment of grievances concerns the relationship between employer and employee. See 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a). The trustees’ concern, however, is the relationship between the beneficiaries and the fund. The only “grievances” it may adjust are those concerning the eligibility of employees or their dependents for participation in the benefits of the fund. See Chemical Workers v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U. S. 157, 164-171. And whereas Congress has adopted the principle of voluntary settlement, free of governmental compulsion, in the adjustment of employee grievances against the employer, § 203 (d) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 173 (d), a trustee deadlock over eligibility matters, like any other deadlock, must be submitted to the compulsory resolution procedure established by § 302 (c)(5).
“Both the language and the legislative history of § 8 (b) (1)(B) reflect a clearly focused congressional concern with the protection of employers in the selection of representatives to engage in two particular and explicitly stated activities, namely collective bargaining and the adjustment of grievances.” Florida Power & Light Co. v. Electrical Workers, 417 U. S., at 803. The duties of an employer-appointed trustee of an employee benefit trust fund, under § 302 (c) (5) of the Act, under principles long ago developed in the courts of chancery, and under the specific provisions of ERISA, are totally alien to both of these activities. The Court of Appeals, therefore, was mistaken in believing that the conduct of the union in this case violated the provisions of §8 (b)(1)(B).
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cases are remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
29 U. S. C. § 141 et seq.
29 U. S. C. §158 (b)(1)(B).
29 U. S. C. §186 (c)(5).
The trust agreement sets out the health and retirement benefits provided to employees and their dependents, defines the terms and the responsibilities of the trustees, describes the method of administration of the trust, and provides for periodic audits, reports, and notices. The agree-inent also fixes the employers’ contributions to the trust, requiring a specified number of cents per ton of coal produced, with the one exception that the trustees themselves retain the power to fix the rate for coal salvaged from slurry, sludge, or other refuse.
29 U. S. C. §158 (b)(3).
On other claims by Amax, the Board found that the union had not bargained in bad faith in violation of § 8 (b) (3), but that the union had acted illegally in attempting to coerce Amax to join the multiemployer bargaining unit for the western mines, in failing to notify the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service of its dispute with Amax before striking, and by insisting to impasse on certain contract proposals that would have violated § 8 (e) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 158(e). The Court of Appeals affirmed all these rulings, and they are not before this Court.
The Board relied on its earlier resolution of this same issue in Sheet Metal Workers’ International Assn. and Edward J. Carlough (Central Florida Sheetmetal Contractors Assn., Inc.), 234 N. L. R. B. 1238 (1978).
29 U. S. C. §186 (a).
Trust funds may pay only “for medical or hospital care, pensions on retirement or death of employees, compensation for injuries or illness resulting from occupational activity or insurance to provide any of the foregoing, or unemployment benefits or life insurance, disability and sickness insurance, or accident insurance.” 29 U. S. C. § 186 (c)(5)(A).
29 U. S. C. §186 (e)(5)(B).
29 U. S. C. §186 (c)(5)(C).
If the trustees deadlock over a matter of trust administration, the statute further provides that the trustees may select a neutral arbiter, or “in event of their failure to agree within a reasonable length of time, an impartial umpire to decide such dispute shall, on petition of either group, be appointed by the district court of the United States for the district where the trust fund has its principal office . . . .” 29 U. S. C. §186 (c)(5)(B).
The use of the word “representatives” in §302 (c)(5)(B) in no way suggests that Congress did not intend to incorporate the equitable principles of fiduciary duty. The requirement that employer and employee be equally represented among the trustees of an employee benefit fund prevents any misuse of those funds by union officers who would otherwise have sole control of vast amounts of money contributed by the employer. See Arroyo v. United States, 359 U. S. 419, 425-426. The management-appointed trustee “represents” the employer only in the sense that he ensures that the union-appointed trustee does not abuse his trust with respect to the funds contributed by the employer. Nowhere in the debates over § 302 (c) (5) did any Member of either House of Congress suggest that the employer “representative” as a trustee of a benefit fund created under this statute could or should advance the interest of the employer in administering the fund. In fact, some opponents of the provision objected that the requirement of equal management-union representation imposed onerous administrative duties on the employers. E. g., 93 Cong. Rec. 4749 (1947) (Sen. Murray).
The legislative history of § 302 (c) (5) also bears directly on the actual question underlying the statutory issue in this litigation: whether Congress intended to prohibit union demands for employer participation in established multiemployer trust funds. One of the events that greatly influenced the legislative efforts culminating in the Act was the demand of John L. Lewis, then head of the United Mine Workers, that all mine owners contribute 10 cents per ton of coal produced into a central welfare fund established by the union itself. United States v. Ryan, 350 U. S. 299, 304-305; S. Rep. No. 105, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 1, p. 52 (1947), 1 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 458. The debates and Reports reveal that despite considerable congressional opposition to Lewis’ demands, ibid.; 93 Cong. Rec. 3423, 3516-3517, 3564-3565 (1947) (remarks of Reps. Hartley, Fisher, and Case) ; id., at 4678, 4746-4748 (Sens. Byrd and Taft), Congress specifically rejected proposals that would have rendered those demands illegal either by providing that union proposals concerning pension welfare benefits were not mandatory subjects of bargaining, or by prohibiting all such funds even indirectly established or managed by a union. See H. R. 3020, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., §§2(11), 8 (a) (2) (C) (ii) (1947), 1 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 39-40, 51; H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 14-17 (1947), 2 Leg. Hist. LMRA, at 305-308.
A “participant” is “any employee or former employee . . . who is or may become eligible to receive a benefit of any type from an employee benefit plan ... , or whose beneficiaries may be eligible to receive any such benefit.” 29 U. S. C. § 1002 (7). A “beneficiary” is “a person designated by a participant, or by the terms of an employee benefit plan, who is or may become entitled to a benefit thereunder.” 29 U. S. C. § 1002 (8).
Although § 408 (c) (3) of ERISA permits a trustee of an employee benefit fund to serve as an agent or representative of the union or employer, that provision in no way limits the duty of such a person to follow the law’s fiduciary standards while he is performing his responsibilities as trustee.
In 1980, Congress amended ERISA to impose new responsibilities upon the trustees of multiemployer trust funds, passing the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-364, 94 Stat. 1209, which reaffirmed that the trustees must act solely in the interest of the trust beneficiaries, see H. R. Rep. No. 96-869, pt. 1, p. 67 (1980).
Neither statutory provision refers to the other, and though the same congressional Committees considered the issues of employee benefit trust funds and multiemployer bargaining, the legislative history nowhere suggests that Congress intended that the restrictions on union activity created by § 8 (b) (1) (B) were relevant to the selection of § 302 (c) (5) trustees. Indeed, though faced with a United Mine Workers demand that owners contribute a fixed percentage of their coal receipts to a multiemployer trust fund created by the union, Congress rejected several proposals that would have denied the union the power to make such demands. See n. 14, swpra.
Another concern of § 8 (b)(1)(B), of no relevance here, was to prevent a union from striking to force an employer to fire a supervisor who, in the union’s view, was too stern in his treatment of employees. 93 Cong. Rec. 3837-3838 (1947) (Sen. Taft).
The sole and minor exception under the agreement governing the national trust funds in this litigation is the authority of the trustees to fix the number of cents per ton of salvage coal produced which a mine operator must contribute to the funds. See n. 4, supra.
If the administration of § 302 (c) (5) trust funds were “collective bargaining” within the meaning of federal labor law, as it would be under the Court of Appeals’ view, the NLRB would have to review the discretionary-actions of the trustees according to the statutory duty of good-faith bargaining. 29 U. S. C. §§158 (a) (5), (b)(3), (d). The Board would thereby be thrust “into a new area of regulation which Congress [has] not committed to it,” NLRB v. Insurance Agents, 361 U. S. 477, 499. Moreover, under the Court of Appeals’ view, a trustee would be subject to simultaneous regulation by the Board, the Secretary of Labor, and the courts, and might be tom between conflicting duties imposed by the National Labor Relations Act and ERISA. For example, ERISA requires a trustee to prevent any other trustee from breaching his fiduciary responsibilities to the trust beneficiaries. 29 U. S. C. §§ 1105 (a) (3), (b) (1) (A). On the other hand, § 8 (b) (1) (B) bars a union representative from interfering with the employer’s collective-bargaining agent’s performance of his duties in accordance with the employer’s instructions. American Broadcasting Cos. v. Writers Guild, 437 U. S. 411, 436. Therefore, if trust fund administration is collective bargaining, a trustee could be charged with an unfair labor practice by carrying out his duties under ERISA.
The view of the Court of Appeals that the union could not seek to compel the employer to join an established employee trust fund conflicts with recent legislation concerning multiemployer pension plans. In this litigation, Amax claimed complete power under §8 (b)(1)(B), unaffected by union economic pressure, to select the sole trustee, or all the trustees, of the trust fund benefiting the Belle Ayr Mine employees. Since, by definition, it is impossible for every employer participating in a multi-employer trust fund to exercise such power, the Court of Appeals’ decision upholding Amax’s claim would effectively preclude a union from resorting to economic pressure to cause an employer to participate in a multiemployer trust fund. Congress amended ERISA in 1980 to strengthen the funding requirements and enhance the financial stability of multiemployer pension plans. In these amendments, Congress sought to foster “the maintenance and growth of multiemployer pension plans . . . [and] to provide reasonable protection for the interests of the participants and beneficiaries of financially distressed multiemployer pension plans.” §§ 3 (c) (2) and (c) (3) of the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-364, 94 Stat. 1209-1210. Section 3(a)(4)(A) of the 1980 Act states that “withdrawals of contributing employers from a multiemployer pension . . . adversely [affect] the plan, its participants and beneficiaries, and labor-management relations. . . .” 94 Stat. 1209. The Court of Appeals’ decision therefore runs afoul of express congressional policy favoring multiemployer trusts.
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 Burton
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The questions here are: (1) whether the Interstate Commerce Commission, in prescribing intrastate freight rates for railroads under § 13 (4) of the Interstate Commerce Act, may give weight to deficits in passenger revenue; and (2) whether the findings of the Commission which are involved in this proceeding are sufficient to sustain the rates it has prescribed. Our answer to each question is in the affirmative.
This is an action against the United States brought in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, under 28 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 1336, by appellants “as and Constituting the Florida Railroad and Public Utilities Commission.” They ask the court to enjoin, set aside and annul an order of the Interstate Commerce Commission requiring Florida railroads to establish intrastate freight rates which will reflect the same increases as have been authorized by it for comparable interstate traffic.
The underlying proceedings originated in 1940. The Interstate Commerce Commission then undertook a nationwide investigation of interstate railroad freight rates, under §§13 (2) and 15a (2) of the Interstate Commerce Act, in conformity with the National Transportation Policy stated in § 1 of the Transportation Act of 1940. The investigation dealt with past and future freight and passenger operations, intrastate as well as interstate. A Committee of Cooperating State Commissioners sat with the Commission and took part in its deliberations. Mounting railroad operating costs and declining passenger revenue led the Commission, in 1946, to authorize a nationwide increase of 20% in basic interstate freight rates. Ex Parte No. 162, Increased Railway Rates, Fares, and Charges, 1946, 264 I. C. C. 695, 266 I. C. C. 537.
In 1947, the Commission found such further increases in operating costs and decreases in passenger revenue that it authorized an additional nationwide interim increase of 10% in interstate freight rates. Soon it raised this to 20%. In a third report it varied the percentage in different areas, with the result that in the southern territory, including Florida, the increase was 25%. The 1948 final report confirmed this 25% increase. Ex Parte No. 166, Increased Freight Rates, 1947, 269 I. C. C. 33, 270 I. C. C. 81, 93, and 403. The Commission’s estimates of revenue contemplated the application of the increased rates to intrastate, as well as to interstate, transportation. The report concludes with the statement that the “Committee of Cooperating State Commissioners... authorize us to state that they concur in the foregoing report.” 270 I. C. C. 403, 463.
Upon publication of these reports, the railroads asked their respective state authorities to authorize comparable increases in intrastate rates. The Florida Commission approved most of the increases but declined to approve the final increase from 20% to 25%.
On petition of the Florida railroads, the Interstate Commerce Commission undertook its own investigation of Florida intrastate railroad rates under § 13 (3) and (4) of the Interstate Commerce Act, 41 Stat. 484, 49 U. S. C. § 13 (3) and (4). A full hearing was had before a Commissioner and an examiner, followed by a hearing upon exceptions to the examiner’s report. The Commission recommended that intrastate freight rates be established “between points in Florida which will reflect the same increases as are, and for the future may be, maintained by respondents [railroads] on like interstate traffic to and from Florida, and within Florida under our authorizations in Ex Parte No. 162 and Ex Parte No. 166....” Finding No. 8, 2781. C. C. 41, 73.
The Interstate Commerce Commission then gave the Florida Commission a final opportunity to permit the increased rates to be applied to intrastate transportation. Upon the latter’s failure to act, the Interstate Commerce Commission ordered the railroads “thereafter to maintain and apply for the intrastate transportation of freight from and to points in the State of Florida freight rates and charges which shall be no lower than the approved rates and charges, or on the approved rate bases, as provided in said report.”
Before that order took effect, this action was filed. A three-judge District Court was convened. 28 U. S. C. (Supp. V) § 2325. Two short line railroads and numerous shippers intervened as plaintiffs. The Interstate Commerce Commission and all Class I railroads operating in Florida intervened as defendants. The entire record of the proceeding before the Commission, under § 13 (4), was introduced. The court sustained the Commission and dismissed the complaint. 101 F. Supp. 941. That judgment is here on appeal. 28 U. S. C. (Supp. V) §§ 1253, 2101 (b).
I. The Interstate Commerce Commission in prescribing intrastate freight rates for railroads under % 13 (4) of the Interstate Commerce Act may give weight to deficits in passenger revenue.
In Ex Parte No. 168, Increased Freight Rates, 1948, 272 I. C. C. 695, 276 I. C. C. 9, the Commission reviewed the changing attitudes it has adopted concerning the role of passenger deficits and freight rates. In such cases as the Five Per Cent Case, 31 I. C. C. 351, the Commission in 1914 concluded that each class of service should completely and independently provide its own proportionate share of expenses and profits. In 1949 the Commission says:
“However, because of changed theories adopted by Congress in the Transportation Act, 1920, and because as a practical matter the increasing degree of unprofitableness of the passenger traffic menaced the continuity of an adequate national system of transportation, we were forced to a more comprehensive view of this question. We observe, also, that at the time of those decisions the railroads enjoyed a practical monopoly in supplying transportation, but that situation no longer exists.” 276 I. C. C. at 34.
Citing with approval its similar views in Ex Parte No. 103, Fifteen Per Cent Case, 1931, 178 I. C. C. 539, and Ex Parte No. 123, Fifteen Per Cent Case, 1937-1938, 226 I. C. C. 41, the Commission summarizes its present position as follows:
“These cases are typical of our more recent holdings upon this question. While we regard it as 'trite to say that each particular service, coach, sleeper, parlor car, and head end, should as nearly as may be pay its own way and return a profit’ (Eastern Passenger Fares in Coaches, 227 I. C. C. 17, 25), and we have accepted the contention that there may be traffic that should not be burdened with a shortage of passenger service return (Livestock, Western District Rates, 190 I. C. C. 611, 629), yet, if passenger service inevitably and inescapably cannot bear its direct costs and its share of joint or indirect costs, we have felt compelled in a general rate case to take the passenger deficit into account in adjustment of freight rates and charges. Both the freight and passenger services are essential, and revenue losses or deficits on the one necessarily must be compensated by earnings on the other if the carriers are to continue operations. Both may be subjected to reasonable rates and charges to produce the fair aggregate return, even though thereby a higher rate of return may be exacted from the one than from the other. (Property Owners’ Committee v. Chesapeake & O. Ry. Co., 237 I. C. C. 549, 565.)” Id., at 35. See also, Ex Parte 87, Revenues in Western District, 113 I. C. C. 3, 23.
This change of policy was the inevitable consequence of steadily increasing passenger operating costs, together with the growth of vigorous competition from automobiles and other forms of transportation which made it futile to compensate for the passenger deficits by increasing passenger rates. The railroads were forced to abandon passenger mileage, reduce service and improve their facilities, while fixing passenger rates at a level as adequate as competition permitted.
In recent years, a nationwide passenger deficit has been obvious except during the peak of wartime passenger traffic. The ratio between passenger operating expense and revenue has varied in different areas but has been uniformly unfavorable to the railroads.
Section 15a (2) of the Interstate Commerce Act and the National Transportation Policy of 1940 reflect this broad concept of the unity of the Nation’s transportation system. They direct the Commission to consider, among other things, the need, in the public interest, of adequate and efficient railway transportation service and the need of revenues sufficient to sustain such service. It permeates such general revenue proceedings as Ex Parte Nos. 162 and 166, supra. It leaves no ground for a claim that the Commission may not give weight to passenger revenue deficits in prescribing interstate freight rates to meet over-all revenue needs. See United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70.
The question remains whether that Commission may give weight to deficits in passenger revenue (either interstate or intrastate) when prescribing intrastate freight rates under § 13 (4). It is conceivable that some considerations properly given weight by the Commission in prescribing interstate freight rates in a general revenue proceeding might not be applicable equally to transportation within a particular state.
In the instant case, however, there is no showing that the character of operating conditions in Florida intrastate passenger traffic differs substantially from that of interstate passenger operations in the southern territory generally. On the contrary, the Commission observes that—
“Increased passenger deficits, by reason of the continuing rise in operating expenses and the growing use of other forms of transportation, is a condition bearing alike upon intrastate and interstate rates. There is here no claim or showing that the passenger deficits of the respondents do not result from intrastate as well as interstate operations, and the passenger deficit of the East Coast, which operates entirely within Florida, would appear to indicate to the contrary.
“The record affords no justification for a difference in treatment in this respect [passenger deficits] between Florida intrastate traffic, on the one hand, and interstate traffic to and from Florida, on the other hand. The question of passenger deficits is a serious one for both carriers and shippers, and would become even more serious for interstate shippers if this burden were imposed entirely upon them [rather than being shared on a like basis with intrastate shippers on the same lines].” 278 I. C. C. at 67-68. See opinion below, 101 F. Supp. at 944.
It appears from the report in Ex Parte No. 168, 276 I. C. C. at 40, that, in 1948, the passenger service operating ratio for the southern territory was 127.3% while the operating ratios of the three principal Florida railroads in that year were 120%, 127% and 128%. In Florida, moreover, the discontinuance of railroad passenger service would not permit the discontinuance of high-speed tracks and equipment because of the need for fast freight schedules to transport perishable fruits and vegetables from Florida. The Commission dealt with the freight and passenger revenues and properties of the Florida roads as a whole when determining the need for increases in interstate freight rates. Nothing has been demonstrated which would demand different treatment of these properties in relation to the intrastate activities.
The Commission also finds that “the Florida intrastate rates [without the 5% increase]... are abnormally low and are not contributing their fair share to the revenues required by respondents [Florida railroads] to enable them to render adequate and efficient service and to operate profitably, and thereby accomplish the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Act... Finding No. 5, 278 I. C. C. at 72.
In the instant case there is no evidence which would require the Commission to treat Florida intrastate rates differently from interstate rates in southern territory. Instead, there are findings that it would cause unjust discrimination against interstate commerce in Florida if the intrastate freight rates are not increased so as to reflect the same increase as is applied by the Commission to like interstate traffic in the southern territory. See note 13, infra.
The same National Transportation Policy applies to § 13 (4) as to § 15a (2). Whichever section is used, the same economic considerations underlie the relation between freight rates and passenger deficits, whether interstate or intrastate. This was well considered throughout the opinion of the Court in United States v. Louisiana, supra. It was there said:
“This Court has consistently held that this section [§ 13 (4)] is to be construed in the light of § 15a (2) and as supplementing it, so that the forbidden discrimination against interstate commerce by intrastate rates includes those cases in which disparity of the latter rates operates to thwart the broad purpose of § 15a to maintain an efficient transportation system by enabling the carriers to earn a fair return. So construed, § 13 (4) confers on the Commission the power to raise intrastate rates so that the intrastate traffic may produce its fair share of the earnings required to meet maintenance and operating costs and to yield a fair return on the value of property devoted to the transportation service, both interstate and intrastate.” Pp. 74-75.
This was confirmed in Florida v. United States, 292 U. S. 1, 5-6.
We conclude that there is no reason why the Commission may not give weight to passenger deficits in prescribing the intrastate freight rates in Florida, as it does in prescribing interstate freight rates for the southern territory.
II. The Commission’s findings involved in this proceeding are sufficient to sustain the rates prescribed.
Several of the Commission’s findings which lend support to its order are printed in the margin. Its authority to prescribe the rates now before us rests on the provision, in § 13 (4), that when it finds that an intrastate rate causes “any undue, unreasonable, or unjust discrimination against interstate or foreign commerce...” it shall prescribe such rate as, in its judgment, will remove the discrimination. Note 1, supra. The Commission’s finding No. 7 meets this requirement. The Commission there finds that the maintenance of the existing intrastate rates within Florida “on bases lower than those herein approved causes, and in the future will cause, (1) in all instances, unjust discrimination against interstate commerce....” 278 I. C. C. at 73. If supported by adequate subsidiary findings, this ultimate finding thus sustains the authority of the Commission and the validity of its order. North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507, 514; Florida v. United States, 292 U. S. 1; 282 U. S. 194; United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70. The court below adds that it is “clear from the evidence in the case that it [the existing intrastate rate] did result in undue, unreasonable and unjust discrimination against interstate commerce....” 101 F. Supp. 941, 945.
The nature and adequacy of the findings necessary to support an ultimate finding of “unjust discrimination against interstate commerce” were considered in North Carolina v. United States, supra. In that case this Court held that the Commission’s findings were not adequate to support the Commission’s order to raise state-wide intrastate passenger rates from 1.65 cents per mile to 2.2 cents per mile, although the latter rate was prescribed by the Commission as a minimum rate for comparable interstate passenger service on the same lines and trains. The finding which was primarily needed, and was there found lacking, was one that the intrastate service at 1.65 cents per mile did not contribute its fair share of the earnings required to meet maintenance and operating costs and to yield a fair return on the value of the property directed to the transportation service, both interstate and intrastate.
This Court held that the mere disparity between the rates for comparable intrastate and interstate service was not enough per se to establish the requisite unjust discrimination. Confronted with evidence that the interstate rate of 2.2 cents per mile was above a reasonable rate level for comparable intrastate passenger service, a finding supported by evidence was held to be necessary to show the contrary. Such a finding, lacking in the North Carolina case, is supplied here by finding No. 3, which states that the “intrastate rates... herein approved will not exceed a just and reasonable level.” 278 I. C. C. at 72.
In the North Carolina case there was no finding that the existing intrastate rate was inadequate. In fact, its ample adequacy was indicated by evidence of an extraordinarily large volume of available traffic and profits. In contrast, the Commission, in the instant case, has found that the existing "Florida intrastate rates... which are below the [proposed] level herein authorized, are abnormally low and are not contributing their fair share to the revenues... and that the burden thus cast upon interstate commerce is undue to the extent that these intrastate rates... are less than they would be on the basis herein approved.” Finding No. 5, id., at 72-73, and see 45-59. The report adds that “the revenue loss as estimated by the respondents [railroads] because of the failure to authorize the increases herein sought is $915,325 a year.” Id., at 65.
Whereas in the North Carolina case there was evidence to indicate that the conditions in that State were more favorable to profitable intrastate transportation of passengers than in the Nation at large, here the Commission’s finding No. 2 expressly states that “the transportation conditions incident to the intrastate transportation of freight in Florida are not more favorable and such conditions in the Florida peninsula are somewhat less favorable than those (1) within southern territory and (2) between Florida and interstate points.” Id., at 72, and see 63-67.
Supporting the conclusion that the proposed increase in the Florida intrastate freight rates will not drive away business but will prove profitable and reasonable, the Commission in its finding No. 6 says that “the establishment of intrastate rates... increased sufficiently to equal the level herein approved will substantially increase respondents’ [railroads’] revenues therefrom, and will constitute not more than a fair proportion of respondents’ total income....” Id., at 73.
The foregoing findings cover the needs emphasized in the North Carolina case. They go far beyond the bare disparity between the existing intrastate rate and the proposed minimum rate which is in substantial uniformity with the interstate rate. These findings demonstrate that the proposed rate in Florida will be within the zone of reasonableness and, in the opinion of the Commission, will cause the intrastate freight traffic to contribute a fair share of the earnings.
The Commission has applied to the Florida operations the same conclusion it reached as to the need for increased revenue on a national basis and has distributed the burden within Florida along the same lines it followed when estimating the revenues available in the southern territory from intrastate as well as interstate operations. In the absence of any showing that it is not applicable to Florida, the evidence which forms the basis of the Commission’s nationwide order becomes the natural basis for its Florida order.
The Commission in the instant case has provided that these “findings are without prejudice to the right of the authorities of the State of Florida, or any other interested party, to apply for a modification thereof as to any specific intrastate rates... on the ground that they are not related to the interstate rates... on like traffic in such a way as to' contravene the provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act.” Id., at 74. Certain of the rates in the original order already have been modified or removed from that order. 101 F. Supp. at 946.
No question has been raised here as to the adequacy of the evidence upon which any of the findings are based. Although no such point is urged, supporting evidence appears in the record of the “full hearing” under § 13 (4), all of which was introduced in evidence in the court below. Much of the factual material that was before the Commission in Ex Parte No. 162 and Ex Parte No. 166, and the reports in those cases, were before the Commission and the court below in the present proceedings. To permit such material and reports to be applied under § 15a but not under § 13 (4) would be contrary to the complementary nature of those sections.
“The decision in the first proceeding, that the increase in interstate rates was reasonable, was made in the hope that the state commissions would bring intrastate rates into harmony. When they failed to do so, the Commission reaffirmed its finding that the new interstate rates were reasonable and found that the intrastate rates must be raised in order that the intrastate traffic may bear its fair share of the revenue burden. It is plain from the nature of the inquiry that the rate level, to which both classes of traffic were raised, was found reasonable on the basis of the trafile as a whole. Where the conditions under which interstate and intrastate traffic move are found to be substantially the same with respect to all factors bearing on the reasonableness of the rate, and the two classes are shown to be intimately bound together, there is no occasion to deal with the reasonableness of the intrastate rates more specifically, or to separate intrastate and interstate costs and revenues. Compare American Express Co. v. Caldwell, 244 U. S. 617; United States v. Louisiana, supra [290 U. S. 70]; Florida v. United States, ante [292 U. S.], p. 1.” Illinois Commerce Commission v. United States, 292 U. S. 474, 483-484. See also, Montana v. United States, 106 F. Supp. 778, 783.
The appellants point out that in the North Carolina case, this Court mentioned the absence of other findings. Those, however, are not needed to sustain an order already supported by such findings as have been made in this case.
For example, the North Carolina case mentions the absence in that case of a finding that the existing 1.65 cent per mile intrastate passenger rate was confiscatory. Such a finding, supported by competent evidence, would have provided a constitutional ground for enjoining the state rate. See Norfolk & Western R. Co. v. Conley, 236 U. S. 605; Northern Pacific R. Co. v. North Dakota, 236 U. S. 585. The Interstate Commerce Commission’s jurisdiction over intrastate rates, however, is not limited to cases where those rates are confiscatory. It is sufficient that the existing intrastate rates cause “unjust discrimination against interstate or foreign commerce....” In that event, § 13 (4) directs the Commission to prescribe intrastate rates that will remove the discrimination without raising the rate beyond the zone of reasonableness. See United States v. Louisiana, supra, at 74-75; Florida v. United States, 282 U. S. 194, 211; Wisconsin R. Commission v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563, 585-586.
Similarly, the North Carolina case mentions, but does not make indispensable, the specific findings in dollars which were absent there. Reference was made in the North Carolina case to the absence of “findings as to what contribution from intrastate traffic would constitute a fair proportion of the railroad’s total income” and also to the absence of any “finding as to what amount of revenue was required to enable these railroads to operate efficiently.” 325 U. S. at 516. The Court emphasized the Commission’s reliance on “the mere existence of a disparity between what it said was a reasonable interstate rate and the intrastate rate fixed by North Carolina.” Ibid. In the instant case the Commission does not rely upon the mere disparity between the intrastate and interstate rates. On the contrary, the Commission states that the Florida intrastate rates “are abnormally low and are not contributing their fair share to the revenues required... to render adequate and efficient service and to operate profitably, and thereby accomplish the purpose of the Interstate Commerce Act....” Finding No. 5, 278 I. C. C. at 72. Also, in finding No. 6, it says that the establishment of the proposed increases in intrastate rates “will substantially increase respondents’ revenues therefrom, and will constitute not more than a fair proportion of respondents’ total income....” Id., at 73. More is not needed. It is not necessary, for general revenue purposes, to establish for each item in each freight rate a fully developed rate case.
“[T]he administrative arm of the Commission [would be] paralyzed, if instead of adjudicating upon the rates in a large territory on evidence deemed typical of the whole rate structure, it were obliged to consider the reasonableness of each individual rate before carrying into effect the necessary increased schedule.” United States v. Louisiana, 290 U. S. 70, 75-76, and see 78-79. See also, Illinois Commerce Commission v. United States, 292 U. S. 474, 483; Florida v. United States, 292 U. S. 1, 9; Georgia P. S. Commission v. United States, 283 U. S. 765, 774; Wisconsin R. Commission v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 257 U. S. 563, 588. Where the Commission seeks to deal generally with rates and revenues in a large area on evidence typical of the area as a whole, it may proceed by way of a general order supported by sufficient evidence applicable to the whole territory. At the same time it is well for it to leave the way open, as it did here, for modifications of that general order in specific situations where the general order is not justly applicable. North Carolina v. United States, supra, at 518, 535.
For these reasons, we conclude that the findings before us sustain the order of the Commission and that the Commission was authorized to give the weight it did to passenger deficits when prescribing intrastate freight rates. The judgment accordingly is
Affirmed.
Mr. Justice Black is of opinion that the facts found by the Commission were not adequate to support the order and would set aside the order on authority of North Carolina v. United States, 325 U. S. 507.
“(4) Whenever in any such investigation [where rates made by authority of a state are in issue] the Commission, after full hearing, finds that any such rate, fare, charge, classification, regulation, or practice causes any undue or unreasonable advantage, preference, or prejudice as between persons or localities in intrastate commerce on the one hand and interstate or foreign commerce on the other hand, or any undue, unreasonable, or unjust discrimination against interstate or foreign commerce, which is hereby forbidden and declared to be unlawful, it shall prescribe the rate, fare, or charge, or the maximum or minimum, or maximum and minimum, thereafter to be charged, and the classification, regulation, or practice thereafter to be observed, in such manner as, in its judgment, will remove such advantage, preference, prejudice, or discrimination. Such rates, fares, charges, classifications, regulations, and practices shall be observed while in effect by the carriers parties to such proceeding affected thereby, the law of any State or the decision or order of any State authority to the contrary notwithstanding.” (Italics supplied.) 41 Stat. 484, 49 U. S. C. § 13 (4).
§13 (2), 36 Stat. 550, as amended, 41 Stat. 484, 49 U. S. C. § 13 (2); § 15a (2), 54 Stat. 912, 49 U. S. C. § 15a (2); § 1 of the Transportation Act of 1940, inserting a preamble to the Interstate Commerce Act, 54 Stat. 899, 49 U. S. C., note preceding § 1.
For earlier reports see Ex Parte No. 148, Increased Railway Rates, Fares, and Charges, 194%, 248 I. C. C. 545. The several proceedings under §§ 15a or 13 (4) referred to in this opinion deal at length with many commodity and other rates or charges besides those which are controlled by the general percentage increases referred to in the opinion. While such variations are important and significant in adjusting each order to specific situations, their consideration is not necessary to the determination of the issues before us. The percentages used in this opinion are those which were adopted by the court below for illustrative purposes. 101 F. Supp. 941, 943-944.
In Ex Parte No. 166, 270 I. C. C. 403, 421, the tabulations of overall percentage increases in freight rates include intrastate traffic. The report says: “The table which relates to class I railroads, covers all traffic, intrastate as well as interstate, and assumes increases to have been approved on intrastate traffic similarly to those upon interstate traffic in the same territory, for the whole time.” In referring to revenue from operations for a “constructive,” normal year, the report says: “This estimate is upon the assumption that timely similar adjustments will be made upon intrastate traffic.” Id., at 428. As to rates of return on property values, it adds: “They presuppose that generally similar increases will be permitted by State authorities on intrastate traffic, or may become effective otherwise.” Id., at 437. See also, 269 I. C. C. at 39, 94-95, and 270 I. C. C. at 440.
In response to requests based upon Ex Parte No. 162, supra, the Florida Commission granted the original 20% general increase in intrastate freight rates but declined to allow increases in intrastate rates on logs moving to the mills, wet phosphate moving from the washer to the drying plant, waste wood moving to retort or recovery plant and sugar cane moving to the mills. It also limited rate increases on pulpwood to 9%. In response to requests to conform to Ex Parte No. 166, supra, the Florida Commission granted the additional 20% general increase in intrastate freight rates, but declined to approve the further 5% increase. It also made specific exceptions in favor of certain commodities. As the issues with which we are concerned are sufficiently raised by the Florida Commission’s action denying the final 5% increase, we confine our discussion to that item.
While the Commission states that its conclusions differ from those in the proposed report of the examiner, they do not so differ on the issues before us.
For other decisions of the Commission as to intrastate rates under § 13 (3) and (4), growing out of Ex Parte Nos. 162 or 166, supra, see Increases in Alabama Freight Rates and Charges, 274 I. C. C. 439; Texas Intrastate Rates, 273 I. C. C. 749; Increases in Tennessee Freight Rates and Charges, 272 I. C. C. 625. See also, Increases in Arizona Freight Rates and Charges, 270 I. C. C. 105. A recent decision, growing out of Ex Parte No. 168, Increased Freight Rates, 1948, 276 I. C. C. 9, is Montana Intrastate Freight Rates and Charges, 284 I. C. C. 167. The intrastate rates there ordered into effect by the Commission were set aside in Montana v. United States, 106 F. Supp. 778, and 786; judgment vacated and cause remanded by this Court for further consideration in the light of the instant case, post, p. 905.
The Commission there said:
“We know of no provision of law under which we should be justified in increasing freight rates to provide a return upon property used exclusively in the passenger service, much less to take care of losses incurred in such service. In our opinion each branch of the service should contribute its proper share of the cost of operation and of return upon the property devoted to the use of the public.” 31 I. C. C. at 392.
Passenger service involves not only transportation of people but of mail, express, baggage, milk and other “head-end” services requiring the speed and service of passenger trains. These operations have shown a national operating deficit in each year from 1936 through 1948. 276 I. C. C. at 38.
“... Between the end of 1923 and the beginning of the present year [1948], the miles of line operated in passenger service of the class I roads decreased from 224,762 to 159,373... or 29.1 percent in 26 years.... In addition to total abandonments, much curtailment of service has occurred, which is impossible to portray statistically.
"... From 1923 through 1933 both the number of passengers carried and the revenues from passenger fares declined uninterruptedly. Passengers carried declined from slightly less than 1 billion in the earlier year to less than half that figure, or 433 millions, in round numbers, in the later year. Revenues from passenger fares fell from $1,148 millions to $329 millions, a decline between these 2 years of more than 70 percent. This development was accompanied, except for 1 year, by an uninterrupted increase in the passenger service operating ratio from 81.29 percent in 1923 to 101.22 percent in 1930, the latter being the first year of the 11 years 1920-30 in which there was an operating deficit in this service. Since that year there has been an annual operating deficit in passenger service, except during the war years 1942-45.
276 I. C. C. at 36, 40; see also, pp. 14^31 for data as to value, revenue, expenses, operating income, rate of return, traffic, efficiency, etc., and pp. 32-40 as to passenger deficits.
See Moulton, The American Transportation Problem, c. V (1933); 63d, 64th and 65th Annual Reports of the Interstate Commerce Commission, at pp. 3, 5 and 41, respectively.
“In the exercise of its power to prescribe just and reasonable rates the Commission shall give due consideration, among other factors, to the effect of rates on the movement of traffic by the carrier or carriers for which the rates are prescribed; to the need, in the public interest, of adequate and efficient railway transportation service at the lowest cost consistent with the furnishing of such service; and to the need of revenues sufficient to enable the carriers, under honest, economical, and efficient management to provide such service.” 54 Stat. 912, 49 U. S. C. § 15a (2).
“It is hereby declared to be the national transportation policy of the Congress to provide for fair and impartial regulation of all modes of transportation subject to the provisions of this Act, so administered as to recognize and preserve the inherent advantages of each; to promote safe, adequate, economical, and efficient service and foster sound economic conditions in transportation and among the several carriers; to encourage the establishment and maintenance of reasonable charges for transportation services, without unjust discrimina-tions, undue preferences or advantages, or unfair or destructive competitive practices; to cooperate with the several States and the duly authorized officials thereof; and to encourage fair wages and equitable working conditions;- — all to the end of developing, coordinating, and preserving
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
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the issue whether, and to what extent, the Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination applies to the business records of a sole proprietorship.
I
Respondent is the owner of several sole proprietorships. In late 1980, a grand jury, during the course of an investigation of corruption in the awarding of county and municipal contracts, served five subpoenas on respondent. The first two demanded the production of the telephone records of several of respondent’s companies and all records pertaining to four bank accounts of respondent and his companies. The subpoenas were limited to the period between January 1, 1977, and the dates of the subpoenas. The third subpoena demanded the production of a list of virtually all the business records of one of respondent’s companies for the period between January 1, 1976, and the date of the subpoena. The fourth subpoena sought production of a similar list of business records belonging to another company. The final subpoena demanded production of all bank statements and cancelled checks of two of respondent’s companies that had accounts at a bank in the Grand Cayman Islands.
1 — 1 I — 1
Respondent filed a motion in Federal District Court seeking to quash the subpoenas. The District Court for the District of New Jersey granted his motion except with respect to those documents and records required by law to be kept or disclosed to a public agency. In reaching its decision, the District Court noted that the Government had conceded that the materials sought in the subpoena were or might be incriminating. The court stated that, therefore, “the relevant inquiry is . . . whether the act of producing the documents has communicative aspects which warrant Fifth Amendment protection.” In re Grand Jury Empanelled March 19, 1980, 541 F. Supp. 1, 3 (1981) (emphasis in original). The court found that the act of production would compel respondent to “admit that the records exist, that they are in his possession, and that they are authentic.” Ibid. While not ruling out the possibility that the Government could devise a way to ensure that the act of turning over the documents would not incriminate respondent, the court held that the Government had not made such a showing.
The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. In re Grand Jury Empanelled March 19, 1980, 680 F. 2d 327 (1982). It first addressed the question whether the Fifth Amendment ever applies to the records of a sole proprietorship. After noting that an individual may not assert the Fifth Amendment privilege on behalf of a corporation, partnership, or other collective entity under the holding of Bellis v. United States, 417 U. S. 85 (1974), the Court of Appeals reasoned that the owner of a sole proprietorship acts in a personal rather than a representative capacity. As a result, the court held that respondent’s claim of the privilege was not foreclosed by the reasoning of Bellis. 680 F. 2d, at 331.
The Court of Appeals next considered whether the documents at issue in this case are privileged. The court noted that this Court held in Fisher v. United States, 425 U. S. 391 (1976), that the contents of business records ordinarily are not privileged because they are created voluntarily and without compulsion. The Court of Appeals nevertheless found that respondent’s business records were privileged under either of two analyses. First, the court reasoned that, notwithstanding the holdings in Beilis and Fisher, the business records of a sole proprietorship are no different from the individual owner’s personal records. Noting that Third Circuit cases had held that private papers, although created voluntarily, are protected by the Fifth Amendment, the court accorded the same protection to respondent’s business papers. Second, it held that respondent’s act of producing the subpoenaed records would have “communicative aspects of its own.” 680 F. 2d, at 335. The turning over of the subpoenaed documents to the grand jury would admit their existence and authenticity. Accordingly, respondent was entitled to assert his Fifth Amendment privilege rather than produce the subpoenaed documents.
The Government contended that the court should enforce the subpoenas because of the Government’s offer not to use respondent’s act of production against respondent in any way. The Court of Appeals noted that no formal request for use immunity under 18 U. S. C. §§6002 and 6003 had been made. In light of this failure, the court held that the District Court did not err in rejecting the Government’s attempt to compel delivery of the subpoenaed records.
We granted certiorari to resolve the apparent conflict between the Court of Appeals’ holding and the reasoning underlying this Court’s holding in Fisher. 461 U. S. 913 (1983). We now affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.
Ill
A
The Court in Fisher expressly declined to reach the question whether the Fifth Amendment privilege protects the contents of an individual’s tax records in his possession. The rationale underlying our holding in that case is, however, persuasive here. As we noted in Fisher, the Fifth Amendment protects the person asserting the privilege only from compelled, self-incrimination. 425 U. S., at 396. Where the preparation of business records is voluntary, no compulsion is present. A subpoena that demands production of documents “does not compel oral testimony; nor would it ordinarily compel the taxpayer to restate, repeat, or affirm the truth of the contents of the documents sought.” Id., at 409. Applying this reasoning in Fisher, we stated:
“[T]he Fifth Amendment would not be violated by the fact alone that the papers on their face might incriminate the taxpayer, for the privilege protects a person only against being incriminated by his own compelled testimonial communications. Schmerber v. California, [384 U. S. 757 (1966)]; United States v. Wade, [388 U. S. 218 (1967)]; and Gilbert v. California, [388 U. S. 263 (1967)]. The accountant’s workpapers are not the taxpayer’s. They were not prepared by the taxpayer, and they contain no testimonial declarations by him. Furthermore, as far as this record demonstrates, the preparation of all of the papers sought in these cases was wholly voluntary, and they cannot be said to contain compelled testimonial evidence, either of the taxpayers or of anyone else. The taxpayer cannot avoid compliance with the subpoena merely by asserting that the item of evidence which he is required to produce contains incriminating writing, whether his own or that of someone else.” Id., at 409-410.
This reasoning applies with equal force here. Respondent does not contend that he prepared the documents involuntarily or that the subpoena would force him to restate, repeat, or affirm the truth of their contents. The fact that the records are in respondent’s possession is irrelevant to the determination of whether the creation of the records was compelled. We therefore hold that the contents of those records are not privileged.
B
Although the contents of a document may not be privileged, the act of producing the document may be. Id., at 410. A government subpoena compels the holder of the document to perform an act that may have testimonial aspects and an incriminating effect. As we noted in Fisher:
“Compliance with the subpoena tacitly concedes the existence of the papers demanded and their possession or control by the taxpayer. It also would indicate the taxpayer’s belief that the papers are those described in the subpoena. Curcio v. United States, 354 U. S. 118, 125 (1957). The elements of compulsion are clearly present, but the more difficult issues are whether the tacit aver-ments of the taxpayer are both ‘testimonial’ and ‘incriminating’ for purposes of applying the Fifth Amendment. These questions perhaps do not lend themselves to categorical answers; their resolution may instead depend on the facts and circumstances of particular cases or classes thereof.” Id., at 410.
In Fisher, the Court explored the effect that the act of production would have on the taxpayer and determined that the act of production would have only minimal testimonial value and would not operate to incriminate the taxpayer. Unlike the Court in Fisher, we have the explicit finding of the District Court that the act of producing the documents would involve testimonial self-incrimination. The Court of Appeals agreed. The District Court’s finding essentially rests on its determination of factual issues. See United States v. Nixon, 418 U. S. 683, 702 (1974). Therefore, we will not overturn that finding unless it has no support in the record. Ibid. Traditionally, we also have been reluctant to disturb findings of fact in which two courts below have concurred. Rogers v. Lodge, 458 U. S. 613, 623 (1982). We therefore decline to overturn the finding of the District Court in this regard, where, as here, it has been affirmed by the Court of Appeals.
IV
The Government, as it concedes, could have compelled respondent to produce the documents listed in the subpoena. Title 18 U. S. C. §§ 6002 and 6003 provide for the granting of use immunity with respect to the potentially incriminating evidence. The Court upheld the constitutionality of the use immunity statute in Kastigar v. United States, 406 U. S. 441 (1972).
The Government did state several times before the District Court that it would not use respondent’s act of production against him in any way. But counsel for the Government never made a statutory request to the District Court to grant respondent use immunity. We are urged to adopt a doctrine of constructive use immunity. Under this doctrine, the courts would impose a requirement on the Government not to use the incriminatory aspects of the act of production against the person claiming the privilege even though the statutory procedures have not been followed.
We decline to extend the jurisdiction of courts to include prospective grants of use immunity in the absence of the formal request that the statute requires. As we stated in Pillsbury Co. v. Conboy, 459 U. S. 248 (1983), in passing the use immunity statute, “Congress gave certain officials in the Department of Justice exclusive authority to grant immunities.” Id., at 253-254 (footnotes omitted). “Congress foresaw the courts as playing only a minor role in the immunizing process . . . .” Id., at 254, n. 11. The decision to seek use immunity necessarily involves a balancing of the Government’s interest in obtaining information against the risk that immunity will frustrate the Government’s attempts to prosecute the subject of the investigation. See United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564, 575 (1976) (plurality opinion). Congress expressly left this decision exclusively to the Justice Department. If, on remand, the appropriate official concludes that it is desirable to compel respondent to produce his business records, the statutory procedure for requesting use immunity will be available.
V
We conclude that the Court of Appeals erred in holding that the contents of the subpoenaed documents were privileged under the Fifth Amendment. The act of producing the documents at issue in this case is privileged and cannot be compelled without a statutory grant of use immunity pursuant to 18 U. S. C. §§6002 and 6003. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is, therefore, affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The categories of records sought by the third subpoena were: (1) general ledgers; (2) general journals; (3) cash disbursement journals; (4) petty cash books and vouchers; (5) purchase journals; (6) vouchers; (7) paid bills; (8) invoices; (9) cash receipts journal; (10) billings; (11) bank statements; (12) canceled checks and check stubs; (13) payroll records; (14) contracts and copies of contracts, including all retainer agreements; (15) financial statements; (16) bank deposit tickets; (17) retained copies of partnership income tax returns; (18) retained copies of payroll tax returns; (19) accounts payable ledger; (20) accounts receivable ledger; (21) telephone company statement of calls and telegrams, and all telephone toll slips; (22) records of all escrow, trust, or fiduciary accounts maintained on behalf of clients; (23) safe deposit box records; (24) records of all purchases and sales of all stocks and bonds; (25) names and home addresses of all partners, associates, and employees; (26) W-2 forms of each partner, associate, and employee; (27) workpapers; and (28) copies of tax returns.
The only documents requested in the fourth subpoena that were not requested in the third were the company’s stock transfer book, any corporate minutes, the corporate charter, all correspondence and memoranda, and all bids, bid bonds, and contracts. The request for “corporate” minutes and the “corporate” charter is puzzling because the company named in the subpoena was an unincorporated sole proprietorship.
The District Court mentioned tax returns and W-2 statements as examples of documents falling within this category. Respondent has not challenged this aspect of the District Court’s opinion. We therefore understand that this ease concerns only business documents and records not required by law to be kept or disclosed to a public agency. We also note that our opinion addresses only the Fifth Amendment implications of the subpoenas. The subpoenas were drawn in the broadest possible terms. It may be that the breadth of the subpoenas is subject to attack on other grounds that are not before us.
Bellis defined a “collective entity” as “an organization which is recognized as an independent entity apart from its individual members.” 417 U. S., at 92.
See In re Grand Jury Proceedings (Johanson), 632 F. 2d 1033 (1980); ICC v. Gould, 629 F. 2d 847 (1980), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 1077 (1981).
Justice Stevens apparently reads the Court of Appeals’ decision as merely affirming the District Court’s finding that the act of producing the subpoenaed records was privileged. In support of this hypothesis, he quotes extensively from that portion of the Court of Appeals’ opinion that addresses the act-of-production issue. The quoted passage, however, begins after the court has discussed whether the records themselves are privileged. After noting that Fisher could be read to deprive the contents of a sole proprietorship’s records of Fifth Amendment protection, the court noted that other Third Circuit cases — principally ICC v. Gould, supra, had refused to adopt that interpretation. The court stated: “Gould, then, stands for the proposition that an individual’s business papers, as well as his personal records, cannot be subpoenaed by a grand jury.” 680 F. 2d, at 334 (footnote omitted). The court went on to hold, in the alternative, that the act of production is privileged as well. We note in passing that both parties share our interpretation of the Court of Appeals’ opinion. Brief for United States 5; Brief for Respondent 3-4.
In Fisher, the Court stated: “Whether the Fifth Amendment would shield the taxpayer from producing his own tax records in his possession is a question not involved here; for the papers demanded here are not his ‘private papers,’. . .” 425 U. S., at 414. We note that in some respects the documents sought in Fisher were more “personal” than those at issue here. The Fisher documents were accountant’s workpapers in the possession of the taxpayers’ lawyers. The workpapers related to the taxpayers’ individual personal returns. To that extent, the documents were personal, even though in the possession of a third party. In contrast, each of the documents sought here pertained to respondent’s businesses.
Respondent’s principal argument is that the Fifth Amendment should be read as creating a “zone of privacy which protects an individual and his personal records from compelled production.” Brief for Respondent 15. This argument derives from language in Boyd v. United States, 116 U. S. 616, 630 (1886). This Court addressed substantially the same argument in Fisher:
“Within the limits imposed by the language of the Fifth Amendment, which we necessarily observe, the privilege truly serves privacy interests; but the Court has never on any ground, personal privacy included, applied the Fifth Amendment to prevent the otherwise proper acquisition or use of evidence which, in the Court’s view, did not involve compelled testimonial self-incrimination of some sort.” 425 U. S., at 399.
In Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U. S. 463 (1976), the petitioner also relied on Boyd. In rejecting his argument, we observed that “the continued validity of the broad statements contained in some of the Court’s earlier cases [has] been discredited by later opinions.” 427 U. S., at 472. See also United States v. Nobles, 422 U. S. 225, 233, n. 7 (1975).
The Court of Appeals recognized the absence of compulsion in the compilation of the records sought in this case and those sought in Fisher. “To be sure, the documents requested here, like those sought in Fisher, were voluntarily prepared, and therefore ‘cannot be said to contain compelled testimonial evidence’ in and of themselves.” 680 F. 2d, at 334. The Court of Appeals nevertheless gave our holding in Fisher an unduly restrictive reading and found it not to control the outcome in this case.
Accord, In re Grand Jury Proceedings, 626 F. 2d 1051, 1055 (CA1 1980) (“The line of cases culminating in Fisher have stripped the content of business records of any Fifth Amendment protection”). While not directly on point, Andresen v. Maryland, supra, is consistent with our holding. In Andresen, investigators from a bicounty fraud unit obtained warrants to search the petitioner’s office. During the search, the investigators seized several incriminating business records relating to the petitioner’s practice as a sole practitioner of real estate law. The petitioner sought suppression of the documents on Fourth and Fifth Amendment grounds. The petitioner based his Fifth Amendment argument on “dicta in a number of cases which imply, or state, that the search for and seizure of a person’s private papers violate the privilege against self-incrimination.” Id., at 471. The Court dismissed this argument and found the documents not to be privileged because the petitioner “had voluntarily committed to writing” any incriminating statements contained therein. Id., at 473. Although Andresen involved a search warrant rather than a subpoena, the underlying principle is the same in this context. If the party asserting the Fifth Amendment privilege has voluntarily compiled the document, no compulsion is present and the contents of the document are not privileged.
The District Court stated:
“With few exceptions, enforcement of the subpoenas would compel [respondent] to admit that the records exist, that they are in his possession, and that they are authentic. These communications, if made under compulsion of a court decree, would violate [respondent’s] Fifth Amendment rights. . . . The government argues that the existence, possession and authenticity of the documents can be proved without [respondent’s] testimonial communication, but it cannot satisfy this court as to how that representation can be implemented to protect the witness in subsequent proceedings.” 541 F. Supp., at 3.
The Court of Appeals stated:
“In the matter sub judice, however, we find nothing in the record that would indicate that the United States knows, as a certainty, that each of the myriad documents demanded by the five subpoenas in fact is in the ap-pellee’s possession or subject to his control. The most plausible inference to be drawn from the broad-sweeping subpoenas is that the Government, unable to prove that the subpoenaed documents exist — or that the appellee even is somehow connected to the business entities under investigation — is attempting to compensate for its lack of knowledge by requiring the appel-lee to become, in effect, the primary informant against himself.” 680 F. 2d, at 335 (footnote omitted).
The Government concedes that the act of producing the subpoenaed documents might have had some testimonial aspects, but it argues that any incrimination would be so trivial that the Fifth Amendment is not implicated. The Government finds support for this argument in Marchetti v. United States, 390 U. S. 39 (1968). In Marchetti, the Court stated that a party who wishes to claim the Fifth Amendment privilege must be “confronted by substantial and ‘real,’ and not merely trifling or imaginary, hazards of incrimination.” Id., at 53; see United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U. S. 115, 128 (1980). On the basis of the findings made in this case we think it clear that the risk of incrimination was “substantial and real” and not “trifling or imaginary.” Respondent did not concede in the District Court that the records listed in the subpoena actually existed or were in his possession. Respondent argued that by producing the records, he would tacitly admit their existence and his possession. Respondent also pointed out that if the Government obtained the documents from another source, it would have to authenticate them before they would be admissible at trial. See Fed. Rule Evid. 901. By producing the documents, respondent would relieve the Government of the need for authentication. These allegations were sufficient to establish a valid claim of the privilege against self-incrimination. This is not to say that the Government was foreclosed from rebutting respondent’s claim by producing evidence that possession, existence, and authentication were a “foregone conclusion.” Fisher, 425 U. S., at 411. In this case, however, the Government failed to make such a showing.
Section 6002 provides:
“Whenever a witness refuses, on the basis of his privilege against self-incrimination, to testify or provide other information in a proceeding before or ancillary to—
“(1) a court or grand jury of the United States,
“(2) an agency of the United States, or
“(3) either House of Congress, a joint committee of the two Houses, or a committee or a subcommittee of either House,
“and the person presiding over the proceeding communicates to the witness an order issued under this part, the witness may not refuse to comply with the order on the basis of his privilege against self-incrimination; but no testimony or other information compelled under the order (or any information directly or indirectly derived from such testimony or other information) may be used against the witness in any criminal case, except a prosecution for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the order.”
Section 6003 provides:
“(a) In the case of any individual who has been or may be called to testify or provide other information at any proceeding before or ancillary to a court of the United States or a grand jury of the United States, the United States district court for the judicial district in which the proceeding is or may be held shall issue, in accordance with subsection (b) of this section, upon the request of the United States attorney for such district, an order requiring such individual to give testimony or provide other information which he refuses to give or provide on the basis of his privilege against self-incrimination, such order to become effective as provided in section 6002 of this part.
“(b) A United States attorney may, with the approval of the Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, or any designated Assistant Attorney General, request an order under subsection (a) of this section when in his judgment—
“(1) the testimony or other information from such individual may be necessary to the public interest; and
“(2) such individual has refused or is likely to refuse to testify or provide other information on the basis of his privilege against self-incrimination.”
Despite repeated questioning at oral argument, counsel for the Government gave no plausible explanation for the failure to request official use immunity rather than promising that the act of producing the documents would not be used against respondent.
Of course, courts generally suppress compelled, incriminating testimony that results from a violation of a witness’ Fifth Amendment rights. See United States v. Mandujano, 425 U. S. 564, 576 (1976); United States v. Blue, 384 U. S. 251, 255 (1966). The difference between that situation and the Government’s theory of constructive use immunity is that in the latter it is the grant of judicially enforceable use immunity that compels the witness to testify. In the former situation, exclusion of the witness’ testimony is used to deter the Government from future violations of witnesses’ Fifth Amendment rights.
Respondent argues that any grant of use immunity must cover the contents of the documents as well as the act of production. We find this contention unfounded. To satisfy the requirements of the Fifth Amendment, a grant of immunity need be only as broad as the privilege against self-incrimination. Murphy v. Waterfront Comm’n, 378 U. S. 52, 107 (1964) (White, J., concurring); see Pillsbury Co. v. Conboy, 459 U. S., at 253, n. 8; United States v. Calandra, 414 U. S. 338, 346 (1974). As discussed above, the privilege in this case extends only to the act of production. Therefore, any grant of use immunity need only protect respondent from the self-incrimination that might accompany the act of producing his business records.
Justice Stevens states that we should affirm the Court of Appeals decision as a whole because our reasoning is entirely consistent with that of the courts below. See post, at 623. As we stated above, see n. 6, supra, we read the opinion of the Court of Appeals as holding that the contents of the subpoenaed records were privileged. It is that aspect of the court’s opinion that we reverse today. Were we to adopt Justice Stevens’ suggestion, respondent could argue on remand that any grant of use immunity must cover the contents of the records because the records themselves are privileged under the holding of the Court of Appeals. To avoid that result, we must reverse the decision below insofar as it held that the contents of the subpoenaed records are privileged.
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 Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case raises a variety of questions concerning the proper standards to be applied by a United States district court in passing on a motion for summary judgment in a civil antitrust action. Petitioner, Fortner Enterprises, Inc., filed this suit seeking treble damages and an injunction against alleged violations of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, as amended, 16 U. S. C. §§ 1, 2. The complaint charged that respondents, United States Steel Corp. and its wholly owned subsidiary, the United States Steel Homes Credit Corp., had engaged in a contract, combination, and conspiracy to restrain trade and to monopolize trade in the sale of prefabricated houses. It alleged that there was a continuing agreement between respondents “to force corporations and individuals, including the plaintiff, as a condition to availing themselves of the services of United States Steel Homes Credit Corporation, to purchase at artificially high prices only United States Steel Homes . . . .” Specifically, petitioner claimed that in order to obtain loans totaling over $2,000,000 from the Credit Corp. for the purchase and development of certain land in the Louisville, Kentucky, area, it had been required to agree, as a condition of the loans, to erect a prefabricated house manufactured by U. S. Steel on each of the lots purchased with the loan proceeds. Petitioner claimed that the prefabricated materials were then supplied by U. S. Steel at unreasonably high prices and proved to be defective and unusable, thus requiring the expenditure of additional sums and delaying the completion date for the development. Petitioner sought treble damages for the profits thus lost, along with a decree enjoining respondents from enforcing the requirement of the loan agreement that petitioner use only houses manufactured by U. S. Steel.
After pretrial proceedings in which a number of affidavits and answers to interrogatories were filed, the District Court entered summary judgment for respondents, holding that petitioner’s allegations had failed to raise any question of fact as to a possible violation of the antitrust laws. Noting that the agreement involved here was essentially a tying arrangement, under which the purchaser was required to take a tied product — here prefabricated homes — as a condition of being allowed to purchase the tying product — here credit, the District Judge held that petitioner had failed to establish the prerequisites of illegality under our tying cases, namely sufficient market power over the tying product and foreclosure of a substantial volume of commerce in the tied product. The Court of Appeals affirmed without opinion, and we granted certiorari, 393 U. S. 820 (1968). Since we find no basis for sustaining this summary judgment, we reverse and order that the case proceed to trial.
We agree with the District Court that the conduct challenged here primarily involves a tying arrangement of the traditional kind. The Credit Corp. sold its credit only on the condition that petitioner purchase a certain number of prefabricated houses from the Homes Division of U. S. Steel. Our cases have made clear that, at least when certain prerequisites are met, arrangements of this kind are illegal in and of themselves, and no specific showing of unreasonable competitive effect is required. The discussion in Northern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 356 U. S. 1, 5-6 (1958), is dispositive of this question:
“[TJhere are certain agreements or practices which because of their pernicious effect on competition and lack of any redeeming virtue are conclusively presumed to be unreasonable and therefore illegal without elaborate inquiry as to the precise harm they have caused or the business excuse for their use. . . .
“. . . Where [tying] conditions are successfully exacted competition on the merits with respect to the tied product is inevitably curbed. Indeed 'tying agreements serve hardly any purpose beyond the suppression of competition.’ Standard Oil Co. of California v. United States, 337 U. S. 293, 305-306. They deny competitors free access to the market for the tied product, not because the party imposing the tying requirements has a better product or a lower price but because of his power or leverage in another market. At the same time buyers are forced to forego their free choice between competing products. For these reasons ‘tying agreements fare harshly under the laws forbidding restraints of trade.' Times-Picayune Publishing Co. v. United States, 345 U. S. 594, 606. They are unreasonable in and of themselves whenever a party has sufficient economic power with respect to the tying product to appreciably restrain free competition in the market for the tied product and a ‘not insubstantial’ amount of interstate commerce is affected. International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392.” (Footnote omitted.)
Despite its recognition of this strict standard, the District Court held that petitioner had not even made out a case for the jury. The court held that respondents did not have “sufficient economic power” over credit, the tying product here, because although the Credit Corp.’s terms evidently made the loans uniquely attractive to petitioner, petitioner had not proved that the Credit Corp. enjoyed the same unique attractiveness or economic control with respect to buyers generally. The court also held that the amount of interstate commerce affected was “insubstantial” because only a very small percentage of the land available for development in the area was foreclosed to competing sellers of prefabricated houses by the contract with petitioner. We think it plain that the District Court misunderstood the two controlling standards and misconceived the extent of its authority to evaluate the evidence in ruling on this motion for summary judgment.
A preliminary error that should not pass unnoticed is the District Court’s assumption that the two prerequisites mentioned in Northern Pacific are standards that petitioner must meet in order to prevail on the merits. On the contrary, these standards are necessary only to bring into play the doctrine of per se illegality. Where the standards were found satisfied in Northern Pacific, and in International Salt Co. v. United States, 332 U. S. 392 (1947), this Court approved summary judgment against the defendants but by no means implied that inability to satisfy these standards would be fatal to a plaintiff's case. A plaintiff can still prevail on the merits whenever he can prove, on the basis of a more thorough examination of the purposes and effects of the practices involved, that the general standards of the Sherman Act have been violated. Accordingly, even if we could agree with the District Court that the Northern Pacific standards were not satisfied here, the summary judgment against petitioner still could not be entered without further examination of petitioner’s general allegations that respondents conspired together for the purpose of restraining competition and acquiring a monopoly in the market for prefabricated houses. And such an examination could rarely justify summary judgment with respect to a claim of this kind, for as we said in Poller v. Columbia Broadcasting, 368 U. S. 464, 473 (1962):
“We believe that summary procedures should be used sparingly in complex antitrust litigation where motive and intent play leading roles, the proof is largely in the hands of the alleged conspirators, and hostile witnesses thicken the plot. It is only when the witnesses are present and subject to cross-examination that their credibility and the weight to be given their testimony can be appraised. Trial by affidavit is no substitute for trial by jury which so long has been the hallmark of ‘even handed justice.’ ” (Footnote omitted.)
We need not consider, however, whether petitioner is entitled to a trial on this more general theory, for it is clear that petitioner raised questions of fact which, if proved at trial, would bring this tying arrangement within the scope of the per se doctrine. The requirement that a “not insubstantial” amount of commerce be involved makes no reference to the scope of any particular market or to the share of that market foreclosed by the tie, and hence we could not approve of the trial judge’s conclusions on this issue even if we agreed that his definition of the relevant market was the proper one. An analysis of market shares might become relevant if it were alleged that an apparently small dollar-volume of business actually represented a substantial part of the sales for which competitors were bidding. But normally the controlling consideration is simply whether a total amount of business, substantial enough in terms of dollar-volume so as not to be merely de min-imis, is foreclosed to competitors by the tie, for as we said in International Salt, it is “unreasonable, per se, to foreclose competitors from any substantial market” by a tying arrangement, 332 U. S., at 396.
The complaint and affidavits filed here leave no room for doubt that the volume of commerce allegedly foreclosed was substantial. It may be true, as respondents claim, that petitioner’s annual purchases of houses from U. S. Steel under the tying arrangement never exceeded $190,000, while more than $500,000 in annual sales was involved in the tying arrangement held illegal in International Salt, but we cannot agree with respondents that a sum of almost $200,000 is paltry or “insubstantial.” In any event, a narrow focus on the volume of commerce foreclosed by the particular contract or contracts in suit would not be appropriate in this context. As the special provision awarding treble damages to successful plaintiffs illustrates, Congress has encouraged private antitrust litigation not merely to compensate those who have been directly injured but also to vindicate the important public interest in free competition. See Perma Life Mufflers v. International Parts Corp., 392 U. S. 134, 138-139 (1968). For purposes of determining whether the amount of commerce foreclosed is too insubstantial to warrant prohibition of the practice, therefore, the relevant figure is the total volume of sales tied by the sales policy under challenge, not the portion of this total accounted for by the particular plaintiff who brings suit. In International Salt the $500,000 total represented the volume of tied sales to all purchasers, and although this amount was directly involved because the case was brought by the Government against the practice generally, the case would have been no less worthy of judicial scrutiny if it had been brought by one individual purchaser who accounted for only a fraction of the $500,000 in tied sales. In the present case, the annual sales allegedly foreclosed by respondents’ tying arrangements throughout the country totaled almost $4,000,000 in 1960, more than $2,800,000 in 1961, and almost $2,300,000 in 1962. These amounts could scarcely be regarded as insubstantial.
The standard of “sufficient economic power” does not, as the District Court held, require that the defendant have a monopoly or even a dominant position throughout the market for the tying product. Our tie-in cases have made unmistakably clear that the economic power over the tying product can be sufficient even though the power falls far short of dominance and even though the power exists only with respect to some of the buyers in the market. See, e. g., International Salt; Northern Pacific; United States v. Loew’s Inc., 371 U. S. 38 (1962). As we said in the Loew’s case, 371 U. S., at 45: “Even absent a showing of market dominance, the crucial economic power may be inferred from the tying product’s desirability to consumers or from uniqueness in its attributes.”
These decisions rejecting the need for proof of truly dominant power over the tying product have all been based on a recognition that because tying arrangements generally serve no legitimate business purpose that cannot be achieved in some less restrictive way, the presence of any appreciable restraint on competition provides a sufficient reason for invalidating the tie. Such appreciable restraint results whenever the seller can exert some power over some of the buyers in the market, even if his power is not complete over them and over all other buyers in the market. In fact, complete dominance throughout the market, the concept that the District Court apparently had in mind, would never exist even under a pure monopoly. Market power is usually stated to be the ability of a single seller to raise price and restrict output, for reduced output is the almost inevitable result of higher prices. Even a complete monopolist can seldom raise his price without losing some sales; many buyers will cease to buy the product, or buy less, as the price rises. Market power is therefore a source of serious concern for essentially the same reason, regardless of whether the seller has the greatest economic power possible or merely some lesser degree of appreciable economic power. In both instances, despite the freedom of some or many buyers from the seller’s power, other buyers — whether few or many, whether scattered throughout the market or part of some group within the market— can be forced to accept the higher price because of their stronger preferences for the product, and the seller could therefore choose instead to force them to accept a tying arrangement that would prevent free competition for their patronage in the market for the tied product. Accordingly, the proper focus of concern is whether the seller has the power to raise prices, or impose other burdensome terms such as a tie-in, with respect to any appreciable number of buyers within the market.
The affidavits put forward by petitioner clearly entitle it to its day in court under this standard. A construction company president stated that competitors of U. S. Steel sold prefabricated houses and built conventional homes for at least $400 less than U. S. Steel’s price for comparable models. Since in a freely competitive situation buyers would not accept a tying arrangement obligating them to buy a tied product at a price higher than the going market rate, this substantial price differential with respect to the tied product (prefabricated houses) in itself may suggest that respondents had some special economic power in the credit market. In addition, petitioner’s president, A. B. Fortner, stated that he accepted the tying condition on respondents’ loan solely because the offer to provide 100% financing, lending an amount equal to the full purchase price of the land to be acquired, was unusually and uniquely advantageous to him. He found that no such financing was available to his corporation on any such cheap terms from any other source during the 1959-1962 period. His views on this were supported by the president of a finance company in the Louisville area, who stated in an affidavit that the type of advantageous financing plan offered by U. S. Steel “was not available to Fortner Enterprises or any other potential borrower from or through Louisville Mortgage Service Company or from or through any other lending institution or mortgage company to this affiant’s knowledge during this period.”
We do not mean to accept petitioner’s apparent argument that market power can be inferred simply because the kind of financing terms offered by a lending company are “unique and unusual.” We do mean, however, that uniquely and unusually advantageous terms can reflect a creditor’s unique economic advantages over his competitors. Since summary judgment in antitrust cases is disfavored, Poller, supra, the claims of uniqueness in this case should be read in the light most favorable to petitioner. They could well mean that U. S. Steel’s subsidiary Credit Corp. had a unique economic ability to provide 100% financing at cheap rates. The affidavits show that for a three-to-four-year period no other financial institution in the Louisville area was willing to match the special credit terms and rates of interest available from U. S. Steel. Since the possibility of a decline in property values, along with the difficulty of recovering full market value in a foreclosure sale, makes it desirable for a creditor to obtain collateral greater in value than the loan it secures, the unwillingness of competing financial institutions in the area to offer 100% financing probably reflects their feeling that they could not profitably lend money on the risks involved. U. S. Steel’s subsidiary Credit Corp., on the other hand, may well have had a substantial competitive advantage in providing this type of financing because of economies resulting from the nationwide character of its operations. In addition, potential competitors such as banks and savings and loan associations may have been prohibited from offering 100% financing by state or federal law. Under these circumstances the pleadings and affidavits sufficiently disclose the possibility of market power over borrowers in the credit market to entitle petitioner to go to trial on this issue.
It may also be, of course, that these allegations will not be sustained when the case goes to trial. It may turn out that the arrangement involved here serves legitimate business purposes and that U. S. Steel’s subsidiary does not have a competitive advantage in the credit market. But on the record before us it would be impossible to reach such conclusions as a matter of law, and it is not our function to speculate as to the ultimate findings of fact. We therefore conclude that the showing made by petitioner was sufficient on the market power issue.
Brief consideration should also be given to respondents’ additional argument that even if their unique kind of financing reflected economic power in the credit market, and even if a substantial volume of commerce was affected, the arrangement involving credit should not be held illegal under normal tie-in principles. In support of this, respondents suggest that every sale on credit in effect involves a tie. They argue that the offering of favorable credit terms is simply a form of price competition equivalent to the offering of a comparable reduction in the cash price of the tied product. Consumers should not, they say, be deprived of such advantageous services, and they suffer no harm because they can buy the tangible product with credit obtained elsewhere if the combined price of the seller’s credit-product package is less favorable than the cost of purchasing the components separately.
All of respondents’ arguments amount essentially to the same claim — namely, that this opinion will somehow prevent those who manufacture goods from ever selling them on credit. But our holding in this case will have no such effect. There is, at the outset of every tie-in case, including the familiar cases involving physical goods, the problem of determining whether two separate products are in fact involved. In the usual sale on credit the seller, a single individual or corporation, simply makes an agreement determining when and how much he will be paid for his product. In such a sale the credit may constitute such an inseparable part of the purchase price for the item that the entire transaction could be considered to involve only a single product. It will be time enough to pass on the issue of credit sales when a case involving it actually arises. Sales such as that are a far cry from the arrangement involved here, where the credit is provided by one corporation on condition that a product be purchased from a separate corporation, and where the borrower contracts to obtain a large sum of money over and above that needed to pay the seller for the physical products purchased. Whatever the standards for determining exactly when a transaction involves only a “single product,” we cannot see how an arrangement such as that present in this case could ever be said to involve only a single product.
Nor does anything in respondents’ arguments serve to distinguish credit from other kinds of goods and services, all of which may, when used as tying products, extend the seller’s economic power to new markets and foreclose competition in the tied product. The asserted business justifications for a tie of credit are not essentially different from the justifications that can be advanced when the tying product is some other service or commodity. Although advantageous credit terms may be viewed as a form of price competition in the tied product, so is the offer of any other tying product on advantageous terms. In both instances, the seller can achieve his alleged purpose, without extending his economic power, by simply reducing the price of the tied product itself.
The potential harm is also essentially the same when the tying product is credit. The buyer may have the choice of buying the tangible commodity separately, but as in other cases the seller can use his power over the tying product to win customers that would otherwise have constituted a market available to competing producers of the tied product. “ [C] ompetition on the merits with respect to the tied product is inevitably curbed.” Northern Pacific, 356 U. S., at 6. Nor can it be assumed that because the product involved is money needed to finance a purchase, the buyer would not have been able to purchase from anyone else without the seller’s attractive credit. A buyer might have a strong preference for a seller’s credit because it would eliminate the need for him to lay out personal funds, borrow from relatives, put up additional collateral, or obtain guarantors, but any of these expedients might have been chosen to finance a purchase from a competing producer if the seller had not captured the sale by means of his tying arrangement.
In addition, barriers to entry in the market for the tied product are raised since, in order to sell to certain buyers, a new company not only must be able to manufacture the tied product but also must have sufficient financial strength to offer credit comparable to that provided by larger competitors under tying arrangements. If the larger companies have achieved economies of scale in their credit operations, they can of course exploit these economies legitimately by lowering their credit charges to consumers who purchase credit only, but economies in financing should not, any more than economies in other lines of business, be used to exert economic power over other products that the company produces no more efficiently than its competitors.
For all these reasons we can find no basis for treating credit differently in principle from other goods and services. Although money is a fungible commodity — like wheat or, for that matter, unfinished steel — credit markets, like other markets, are often imperfect, and it is easy to see how a big company with vast sums of money in its treasury could wield very substantial power in a credit market. Where this is true, tie-ins involving credit can cause all the evils that the antitrust laws have always been intended to prevent, crippling other companies that are equally, if not more, efficient in producing their own products. Therefore, the same inquiries must be made as to economic power over the tying product and substantial effect in the tied market, but where these factors are present no special treatment can be justified solely because credit, rather than some other product, is the source of the tying leverage used to restrain competition.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded with directions to let this suit proceed to trial.
Reversed and remanded.
Since the loan agreements obligated petitioner to erect houses manufactured by TJ. S. Steel on the land acquired, the trial judge thought the relevant foreclosure was the percentage of the undeveloped land in the county that was no longer open for sites on which homes made by competing producers could be built. This apparently was an insignificant .00032%. But of course the availability of numerous vacant lots on which houses might legally be erected would be small consolation to competing producers once the economic demand for houses had been pre-empted by respondents. It seems plain that the most significant percentage figure with reference to the tied product is the percentage of annual sales of houses, or prefabricated houses, in the area that was foreclosed to other competitors by the tying arrangement.
Uniqueness confers economic power only when other competitors are in some way prevented from offering the distinctive product themselves. Such barriers may be legal, as in the case of patented and copyrighted products, e. g., International Salt; Loew’s, or physical, as when the product is land, e. g., Northern Pacific. It is true that the barriers may also be economic, as when competitors are simply unable to produce the distinctive product profitably, but the uniqueness test in such situations is somewhat confusing since the real source of economic power is not the product itself but rather the seller’s cost advantage in producing it.
See, e. g., Federal Reserve Act § 24, 38 Stat. 273, as amended, 12 U. S. C. §371; 12 CFR §545.6-14 (c).
Cf. Perma Life Mufflers, 392 U. S., at 141-142; Timken Co. v. United States, 341 U. S. 593, 598 (1951); Kiefer-Stewart Co. v. Seagram & Sons, 340 U. S. 211, 215 (1951); United States v. Yellow Cab Co., 332 U. S. 218, 227 (1947).
Where price reductions on the tied product are made difficult in practice by the structure of that market, the seller can still achieve his alleged objective by offering other kinds of fringe benefits over which he has no economic power.
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 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984), we held that a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated if his trial attorney's performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness and if there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different absent the deficient act or omission. Id., at 687-688, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Anthony Ray Hinton, an inmate on Alabama's death row, asks us to decide whether the Alabama courts correctly applied Strickland to his case. We conclude that they did not and hold that Hinton's trial attorney rendered constitutionally deficient performance. We vacate the lower court's judgment and remand the case for reconsideration of whether the attorney's deficient performance was prejudicial.
I
A
In February 1985, a restaurant manager in Birmingham was shot to death in the course of an after-hours robbery of his restaurant. A second manager was murdered during a very similar robbery of another restaurant in July. Then, later in July, a restaurant manager named Smotherman survived another similar robbery-shooting. During each crime, the robber fired two .38 caliber bullets; all six bullets were recovered by police investigators. Smotherman described his assailant to the police, and when the police showed him a photographic array, he picked out Hinton's picture.
The police arrested Hinton and recovered from his house a .38 caliber revolver belonging to his mother, who shared the house with him. After analyzing the six bullets fired during the three crimes and test-firing the revolver, examiners at the State's Department of Forensic Sciences concluded that the six bullets had all been fired from the same gun: the revolver found at Hinton's house. Hinton was charged with two counts of capital murder for the killings during the first two robberies. He was not charged in connection with the third robbery (that is, the Smotherman robbery).
At trial, the State's strategy was to link Hinton to the Smotherman robbery through eyewitness testimony and forensic evidence about the bullets fired at Smotherman and then to persuade the jury that, in light of the similarity of the three crimes and forensic analysis of the bullets and the Hinton revolver, Hinton must also have committed the two murders. Smotherman identified Hinton as the man who robbed his restaurant and tried to kill him, and two other witnesses provided testimony that tended to link Hinton to the Smotherman robbery. Hinton maintained that he was innocent and that Smotherman had misidentified him. In support of that defense, Hinton presented witnesses who testified in support of his alibi that he was at work at a warehouse at the time of the Smotherman robbery. See 548 So.2d 562, 568-569 (Ala.1989) (summarizing the evidence on each side of the case).
The six bullets and the revolver were the only physical evidence. Besides those items, the police found no evidence at the crime scenes that could be used to identify the perpetrator (such as fingerprints) and no incriminating evidence at Hinton's home or in his car. The State's case turned on whether its expert witnesses could convince the jury that the six recovered bullets had indeed been fired from the Hinton revolver. According to the Alabama Supreme Court, "the only evidence linking Hinton to the two murders were forensic comparisons of the bullets recovered from those crime scenes to the Hinton revolver." --- So.2d ----, ----, 2008 WL 4603723, *2 (Oct. 17, 2008).
The category of forensic evidence at issue in this case is "firearms and toolmark" evidence. Toolmark examiners attempt to determine whether a bullet recovered from a crime scene was fired from a particular gun by comparing microscopic markings (toolmarks) on the recovered bullet to the markings on a bullet known to have been fired from that gun. The theory is that minor differences even between guns of the same model will leave discernible traces on bullets that are unique enough for an examiner to conclude that the recovered bullet was or was not fired from a given weapon. See generally National Research Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward 150-155 (2009).
Recognizing that Hinton's defense called for an effective rebuttal of the State's expert witnesses, Hinton's attorney filed a motion for funding to hire an expert witness of his own. In response, the trial judge granted $1,000 with this statement:
" 'I don't know as to what my limitations are as for how much I can grant, but I can grant up to $500.00 in each case [that is, for each of the two murder charges, which were tried together] as far as I know right now and I'm granting up to $500.00 in each of these two cases for this. So if you need additional experts I would go ahead and file on a separate form and I'll have to see if I can grant additional experts, but I am granting up to $500.00, which is the statutory maximum as far as I know on this and if it's necessary that we go beyond that then I may check to see if we can, but this one's granted.' " --- So.2d ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *59 (Ala.Crim.App., Apr. 28, 2006) (Cobb, J., dissenting) (quoting Tr. 10).
Hinton's attorney did not take the judge up on his invitation to file a request for more funding.
In fact, $500 per case ($1,000 total) was not the statutory maximum at the time of Hinton's trial. An earlier version of the statute had limited state reimbursement of expenses to one half of the $1,000 statutory cap on attorney's fees, which explains why the judge believed that Hinton was entitled to up to $500 for each of the two murder charges. See Smelley v. State, 564 So.2d 74, 88 (Ala.Crim.App.1990). But the relevant statute had been amended to provide: " 'Counsel shall also be entitled to be reimbursed for any expenses reasonably incurred in such defense to be approved in advance by the trial court.' "
See Dubose v. State, 662 So.2d 1156, 1177, n. 5 (Ala.Crim.App.1993) (quoting Ala.Code § 15-12-21(d) (1984)), aff'd 662 So.2d 1189 (Ala.1995). That amendment went into effect on June 13, 1984, Dubose, supra, at 1177, n. 5, which was over a year before Hinton was arrested, so Hinton's trial attorney could have corrected the trial judge's mistaken belief that a $1,000 limit applied and accepted his invitation to file a motion for additional funds.
The attorney failed to do so because he was himself unaware that Alabama law no longer imposed a specific limit and instead allowed reimbursement for "any expenses reasonably incurred." At an evidentiary hearing held on Hinton's postconviction petition, the following conversation occurred between a state attorney and Hinton's trial attorney:
"Q. You did an awful lot of work to try and find what you believed to be a qualified expert in this case, didn't you?
"A. Yes, sir, I did.
"Q. Would you characterize it that you did everything that you knew to do?
"A. Yes, sir, I think so.
"Q. And this case, did it come down to an unwillingness of experts to work for the price that you were able to pay?
"A. Yes, sir, I think it did.
"Q. So your failure to get an expert that you would have been let's say a hundred percent satisfied with was not a failure on your part to go out and do some act, it was a failure of the court to approve what you believed would have been sufficient funds?
"A. Well, putting it a little differently, yes, sir, it was a failure- it was my failure, my inability under the statute to obtain any more funding for the purpose of hiring qualified experts." Reporter's Official Tr. 206-207 (emphasis added).
Operating under the mistaken belief that he could pay no more than $1,000, Hinton's attorney went looking for an expert witness. According to his postconviction testimony, he made an extensive search for a well-regarded expert, but found only one person who was willing to take the case for the pay he could offer: Andrew Payne. Hinton's attorney "testified that Payne did not have the expertise he thought he needed and that he did not consider Payne's testimony to be effective." --- So.2d ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *27. As he told the trial judge during a pretrial hearing:
"I made an effort to get somebody that I thought would be useable. And I'll have to tell you what I did [about] Payne. I called a couple of other lawyers in town ... to ask if they knew of anybody. One of them knew him; one of them knew him. The reason I didn't contact him was because he wasn't recommended by the lawyer. So now I'm stuck that he's the only guy I could possibly produce." Id., at ----, 2006 WL 1125605, at *30 (internal quotation marks omitted).
At trial, Payne testified that the toolmarks in the barrel of the Hinton revolver had been corroded away so that it would be impossible to say with certainty whether a particular bullet had been fired from that gun. He also testified that the bullets from the three crime scenes did not match one another. The State's two experts, by contrast, maintained that all six bullets had indeed been fired from the Hinton revolver.
On cross-examination, the prosecutor badly discredited Payne. Payne admitted that he'd testified as an expert on firearms and toolmark identification just twice in the preceding eight years and that one of the two cases involved a shotgun rather than a handgun. Payne also conceded that he had had difficulty operating the microscope at the state forensic laboratory and had asked for help from one of the state experts. The prosecutor ended the cross-examination with this colloquy:
"Q. Mr. Payne, do you have some problem with your vision?
"A. Why, yes.
"Q. How many eyes do you have?
"A. One." Tr. 1667.
The prosecutor's closing argument highlighted the fact that Payne's expertise was in military ordnance, not firearms and toolmark identification, and that Payne had graduated in 1933 (more than half a century before the trial) with a degree in civil engineering, whereas the State's experts had years of training and experience in the field of firearms and toolmark examination. The prosecutor said:
" 'I ask you to reject [Payne's] testimony and you have that option because you are the judges of the facts and whose testimony, Mr. Yates' or Mr. Payne's, you will give credence to, and I submit to you that as between these two men there is no match between them. There is no comparison. One man just doesn't have it and the other does it day in and day out, month in and month out, year in and year out, and is recognized across the state as an expert.' " --- So.2d ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *64 (Cobb, J., dissenting) (quoting Tr. 1733-1734).
The jury convicted Hinton and recommended by a 10-to-2 vote that he be sentenced to death. The trial judge accepted that recommendation and imposed a death sentence.
B
In his state postconviction petition, Hinton contended that his trial attorney was " 'ineffective to not seek additional funds when it became obvious that the individual willing to examine the evidence in the case for the $1,000 allotted by the court was incompetent and unqualified. Indeed, this failure to seek additional, sufficient funds is rendered all the more inexplicable by the trial court's express invitation to counsel to seek more funds if such funds were necessary.' " --- So.2d ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *28.
To show that he had been prejudiced by Payne's ineffective testimony, Hinton produced three new experts on toolmark evidence. One of the three, a forensic consultant named John Dillon, had worked on toolmark identification at the Federal Bureau of Investigation's forensics laboratory and, from 1988 until he retired in 1994, had served as chief of the firearms and toolmark unit at the FBI's headquarters. The other two postconviction experts had worked for many years as firearms and toolmark examiners at the Dallas County Crime Laboratory and had each testified as toolmark experts in several hundred cases.
All three experts examined the physical evidence and testified that they could not conclude that any of the six bullets had been fired from the Hinton revolver. The State did not submit rebuttal evidence during the postconviction hearing, and one of Hinton's experts testified that, pursuant to the ethics code of his trade organization, the Association of Firearm and Tool Mark Examiners, he had asked the State's expert, Yates, to show him how he had determined that the recovered bullets had been fired from the Hinton revolver. Yates refused to cooperate.
C
The circuit court denied Hinton's postconviction petition on the ground that Hinton had not been prejudiced by Payne's allegedly poor performance because Payne's testimony did not depart from what Hinton's postconviction experts had said: The bullets could not be affirmatively matched either to one another or to the Hinton revolver.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed by a 3-to-2 vote. --- So.2d ----, 2006 WL 1125605. The court agreed with the circuit court that Hinton had not been prejudiced because Payne's testimony, if believed by the jury, strongly supported the inference that Hinton was innocent. Id., at ----, 2006 WL 1125605, at *31. Then-Judge Cobb (who later became chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court) dissented. In her view, Hinton's attorney had been ineffective in failing to seek additional funds to hire a better expert and Hinton had been prejudiced by that failure, meaning that he was entitled to a new trial. Then-Judge Shaw (who is now a justice of the Alabama Supreme Court) also dissented. He would have remanded the case to the circuit court to make a finding as to whether or not Payne was qualified to act as an expert on toolmark evidence. He stated that "[i]t goes without saying that, with knowledge that sufficient funds were available to have a qualified firearms and toolmarks expert, no reasonable criminal defense lawyer would seek out and hire an unqualified firearms witness." Id., at ----, 2006 WL 1125605, at *73.
The Supreme Court of Alabama reversed and remanded. --- So.2d ----, 2008 WL 4603723. After quoting at length from Judge Shaw's dissent, the Court stated, "We agree with Judge Shaw that 'the dispositive issue is whether Payne was a qualified firearms and toolmarks expert' and that in denying Hinton's [postconviction] petition the trial court did not directly rule on 'the issue whether Payne was qualified to be testifying in the first place.' " Id., at ----, 2008 WL 4603723, at *4 (quoting --- So.2d ----, ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *70, *72 (Shaw, J., dissenting)). The Supreme Court was thus focused on Payne's own qualifications, rather than on whether a better expert-one who could have been hired had the attorney learned that there was no funding cap and requested additional funds-would have made a more compelling case for Hinton.
On remand, the circuit court held that Payne was indeed qualified to testify as a firearms and toolmark expert witness under the Alabama evidentiary standard in place at the time of the trial, which required only that Payne have had "knowledge of firearms and toolmarks examination beyond that of an average layperson." --- So.2d ----, ----, 2008 WL 5517591, *5 (Ala.Crim.App., Dec. 19, 2008); see also Charles v. State, 350 So.2d 730, 733 (Ala.Crim.App.1977) ("An 'expert witness' is one who can enlighten a jury more than the average man in the street.... An expert witness, by definition, is any person whose opportunity or means of knowledge in a specialized art or science is to some degree better than that found in the average juror or witness"). The appellate court affirmed the circuit court's ruling that Payne was qualified under the applicable standard. --- So.3d ----, 2013 WL 598122 (Ala.Crim.App., Feb. 15, 2013). The Alabama Supreme Court denied review by a 4-to-3 vote, with two justices recused. Hinton then filed this petition for a writ of certiorari.
II
This case calls for a straightforward application of our ineffective-assistance-of-counsel precedents, beginning with Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674.Strickland recognized that the Sixth Amendment's guarantee that "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence" entails that defendants are entitled to be represented by an attorney who meets at least a minimal standard of competence. Id., at 685-687, 104 S.Ct. 2052. "Under Strickland, we first determine whether counsel's representation 'fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.' Then we ask whether 'there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.' " Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 366, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 176 L.Ed.2d 284 (2010) (quoting Strickland,supra, at 688, 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052).
A
"The first prong-constitutional deficiency-is necessarily linked to the practice and expectations of the legal community: 'The proper measure of attorney performance remains simply reasonableness under prevailing professional norms.' " Padilla, supra, at 366, 130 S.Ct. 1473 (quoting Strickland, supra, at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052). "In any case presenting an ineffectiveness claim, the performance inquiry must be whether counsel's assistance was reasonable considering all the circumstances." Strickland, supra, at 688, 104 S.Ct. 2052 Under that standard, it was unreasonable for Hinton's lawyer to fail to seek additional funds to hire an expert where that failure was based not on any strategic choice but on a mistaken belief that available funding was capped at $1,000.
"Criminal cases will arise where the only reasonable and available defense strategy requires consultation with experts or introduction of expert evidence." Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 770, 788, 178 L.Ed.2d 624 (2011). This was such a case. As Hinton's trial attorney recognized, the core of the prosecution's case was the state experts' conclusion that the six bullets had been fired from the Hinton revolver, and effectively rebutting that case required a competent expert on the defense side. Hinton's attorney also recognized that Payne was not a good expert, at least with respect to toolmark evidence. Nonetheless, he felt he was "stuck" with Payne because he could not find a better expert willing to work for $1,000 and he believed that he was unable to obtain more than $1,000 to cover expert fees.
As discussed above, that belief was wrong: Alabama law in effect beginning more than a year before Hinton was arrested provided for state reimbursement of "any expenses reasonably incurred in such defense to be approved in advance by the trial court." Ala.Code § 15-12-21(d). And the trial judge expressly invited Hinton's attorney to file a request for further funds if he felt that more funding was necessary. Yet the attorney did not seek further funding.
The trial attorney's failure to request additional funding in order to replace an expert he knew to be inadequate because he mistakenly believed that he had received all he could get under Alabama law constituted deficient performance. Under Strickland, "strategic choices made after thorough investigation of law and facts relevant to plausible options are virtually unchallengeable; and strategic choices made after less than complete investigation are reasonable precisely to the extent that reasonable professional judgments support the limitations on investigation. In other words, counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary." 466 U.S., at 690-691, 104 S.Ct. 2052. Hinton's attorney knew that he needed more funding to present an effective defense, yet he failed to make even the cursory investigation of the state statute providing for defense funding for indigent defendants that would have revealed to him that he could receive reimbursement not just for $1,000 but for "any expenses reasonably incurred." An attorney's ignorance of a point of law that is fundamental to his case combined with his failure to perform basic research on that point is a quintessential example of unreasonable performance under Strickland. See, e.g.,Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 395, 120 S.Ct. 1495, 146 L.Ed.2d 389 (2000) (finding deficient performance where counsel "failed to conduct an investigation that would have uncovered extensive records [that could be used for death penalty mitigation purposes], not because of any strategic calculation but because they incorrectly thought that state law barred access to such records"); Kimmelman v. Morrison, 477 U.S. 365, 385, 106 S.Ct. 2574, 91 L.Ed.2d 305 (1986) (finding deficient performance where counsel failed to conduct pretrial discovery and that failure "was not based on 'strategy,' but on counsel's mistaken belie[f] that the State was obliged to take the initiative and turn over all of its inculpatory evidence to the defense").
We wish to be clear that the inadequate assistance of counsel we find in this case does not consist of the hiring of an expert who, though qualified, was not qualified enough. The selection of an expert witness is a paradigmatic example of the type of "strategic choic[e]" that, when made "after thorough investigation of [the] law and facts," is "virtually unchallengeable." Strickland, 466 U.S., at 690, 104 S.Ct. 2052. We do not today launch federal courts into examination of the relative qualifications of experts hired and experts that might have been hired. The only inadequate assistance of counsel here was the inexcusable mistake of law-the unreasonable failure to understand the resources that state law made available to him-that caused counsel to employ an expert that he himself deemed inadequate.
B
Having established deficient performance, Hinton must also "show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different. A reasonable probability is a probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome." Id., at 694, 104 S.Ct. 2052. "When a defendant challenges a conviction, the question is whether there is a reasonable probability that, absent the errors, the factfinder would have had a reasonable doubt respecting guilt." Id., at 695, 104 S.Ct. 2052.
The Court of Criminal Appeals held, and the State contends in its brief in opposition to certiorari, that Hinton could not have been prejudiced by his attorney's use of Payne rather than a more qualified expert because Payne said all that Hinton could have hoped for from a toolmark expert: that the bullets used in the crimes could not have been fired from the Hinton revolver. See --- So.2d ----, ----, 2006 WL 1125605, *31 ("[E]ven assuming that counsel's apparent ignorance that the cap on expert expenses had been lifted constituted deficient performance ..., the appellant has not shown that he was prejudiced by that deficient performance"). It is true that Payne's testimony would have done Hinton a lot of good if the jury had believed it. But the jury did not believe Payne. And if there is a reasonable probability that Hinton's attorney would have hired an expert who would have instilled in the jury a reasonable doubt as to Hinton's guilt had the attorney known that the statutory funding limit had been lifted, then Hinton was prejudiced by his lawyer's deficient performance and is entitled to a new trial.
That the State presented testimony from two experienced expert witnesses that tended to inculpate Hinton does not, taken alone, demonstrate that Hinton is guilty. Prosecution experts, of course, can sometimes make mistakes. Indeed, we have recognized the threat to fair criminal trials posed by the potential for incompetent or fraudulent prosecution forensics experts, noting that "[s]erious deficiencies have been found in the forensic evidence used in criminal trials.... One study of cases in which exonerating evidence resulted in the overturning of criminal convictions concluded that invalid forensic testimony contributed to the convictions in 60% of the cases." Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 319, 129 S.Ct. 2527, 174 L.Ed.2d 314 (2009) (citing Garrett & Neufeld, Invalid Forensic Science Testimony and Wrongful Convictions, 95 Va. L.Rev. 1, 14 (2009)). This threat is minimized when the defense retains a competent expert to counter the testimony of the prosecution's expert witnesses; it is maximized when the defense instead fails to understand the resources available to it by law.
Because no court has yet evaluated the prejudice question by applying the proper inquiry to the facts of this case, we remand the case for reconsideration of whether Hinton's attorney's deficient performance was prejudicial under Strickland.
* * *
The petition for certiorari and Hinton's motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis are granted, the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has adopted what it terms a “coconspirator exception” to the rule regarding who may challenge the constitutionality of a search or seizure. Under its reasoning, a co-conspirator obtains a legitimate expectation of privacy for Fourth Amendment purposes if he has either a supervisory role in the conspiracy or joint control over the place or property involved in the search or seizure. This “exception,” apparently developed in a series of earlier decisions of the Court of Appeals, squarely contradicts the controlling case from this Court. We therefore reject it.
While patrolling Interstate Highway 10 in Casa Grande, Arizona, Officer Russel Fifer spotted a Cadillac traveling westbound at approximately 65 miles per hour. Fifer followed the Cadillac for several miles because he thought the driver acted suspiciously as he passed the patrol car. Fifer ultimately stopped the Cadillac because it was going too slowly. Luis Arciniega, the driver and sole occupant of the car, gave Fifer his driver’s license and an insurance card demonstrating that respondent Donald Simpson, a United States customs agent, owned the Cadillac. Fifer and Robert Williamson, an officer who appeared on the scene to assist Fifer, believed that Arciniega matched the drug courier profile. Acting on this belief, they requested and received Arciniega’s permission to search the vehicle. The officers found 560 pounds of cocaine in the trunk and immediately arrested Arciniega.
After agreeing to make a controlled delivery of the cocaine, Arciniega made a telephone call to his contact from a motel in Tempe, Arizona. Respondents Jorge and Maria Padilla drove to the motel in response to the telephone call, but were arrested as they attempted to drive away in the Cadillac. Like Arciniega, Maria Padilla agreed to cooperate with law enforcement officials. She led them to the house in which her husband, respondent Xavier Padilla, was staying. The ensuing investigation linked Donald Simpson and his wife, respondent Maria Sylvia Simpson, to Xavier Padilla.
Respondents were charged with conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine, in violation of 21 U. S. C. §846, and possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, in violation of § 841(a)(1). Xavier Padilla was also charged with engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, in violation of 21 U. S. C. § 848 (1988 ed. and Supp. III). Respondents moved to suppress all evidence discovered in the course of the investigation, claiming that the evidence was the fruit of the unlawful investigatory stop of Arciniega’s vehicle. The United States District Court for the District of Arizona ruled that all respondents were entitled to challenge the stop and search because they were involved in “a joint venture for transportation... that had control of the contraband.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 22a. The District Court reasoned that, as owners, the Simpsons retained a reasonable expectation of privacy in their car, but that the Padillas could contest the stop solely because of their supervisory roles and their “joint control over a very sophisticated operation----” Id., at 23a. On the merits, the District Court ruled that Officer Fifer lacked reasonable suspicion to stop Areiniega, and granted respondents’ motion to suppress.
The Court of Appeals affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. The court began its analysis by stating that in order “[t]o contest the legality of a search and seizure, the defendants must establish that they had a legitimate expectation of privacy’ in the place searched or the property seized.” 960 F. 2d 854, 858-859 (CA9 1992) (quoting Bakas v. Illinois, 439 U. S. 128, 143-144 (1978)). The court then recited its eoeonspirator rule: “[A] coconspirator’s participation in an operation or arrangement that indicates joint control and supervision of the place searched establishes standing.” 960 F. 2d, at 859 (citations omitted).
Relying on a line of eases from the Ninth Circuit, the court held that “because Xavier Padilla and Donald and Maria Simpson have demonstrated joint control and supervision over the drugs and vehicle and engaged in an active participation in a formalized business arrangement, they have standing to claim a legitimate expectation of privacy in the property searched and the items seized.” Id., at 860-861. Donald Simpson established an expectation of privacy “not simply because [he] owned the car” but also because “he had a coordinating and supervisory role in the operation. He was a critical player in the transportation scheme who was essential in getting the drugs across the border.” Id., at 860. Maria Simpson established a privacy interest because she “provided a communication link” between her husband, Xavier Padilla, and other members of the conspiracy, and “held a supervisory role tying everyone together and overseeing the entire operation.” Ibid. Xavier Padilla established an expectation of privacy because he “exhibited substantial control and oversight with respect to the purchase [and] the transportation through Arizona.” Ibid. The court expressly stated that it did not matter that Padilla was not present during the stop, or that he could not exclude others from searching the Cadillac. Ibid.
The Court of Appeals could not tell from the record whether Jorge and Maria Padilla “shared any responsibility for the enterprise,” or whether they were “mere employees in a family operation.” Id., at 861. As a result, the court remanded to the District Court for further findings on that issue.
The Ninth Circuit appears to stand alone in embracing the “eoconspirator exception.” We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 506 U. S. 952 (1992), and now reverse. It has long been the rule that a defendant can urge the suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment only if that defendant demonstrates that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or seizure. Alderman v. United States, 394 U. S. 165, 171-172 (1969); Rakas v. Illinois, supra, at 131, n. 1, 133-134; Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U. S. 98, 106 (1980). We applied this principle to the case of co-conspirators in Alderman, in which we said:
“The established principle is that suppression of the product of a Fourth Amendment violation can be successfully urged only by those whose rights were violated by the search itself, not by those who are aggrieved solely by the introduction of damaging evidence. Co-conspirators and codefendants have been accorded no special standing.” 894 U. S., at 171-172.
In Rakas, supra, a police search of a car yielded a box of rifle shells found in the glove compartment and a sawed-off rifle found under the passenger seat. We held that petitioners, who were passengers in the car and had no ownership interest in the rifle shells or sawed-off rifle, and no legitimate expectation of privacy in the area searched, had suffered no invasion of their Fourth Amendment rights. See also Rawlings, supra; Soldal v. Cook County, 506 U. S. 56, 62-64 (1992) (decided since the Court of Appeals rendered its decision in the present case).
The “coconspirator exception” developed by the Ninth Circuit is, therefore, not only contrary to the holding of Aider-man, but at odds with the principle discussed above. Expectations of privacy and property interests govern the analysis of Fourth Amendment search and seizure claims. Participants in a criminal conspiracy may have such expectations or interests, but the conspiracy itself neither adds to nor detracts from them. Neither the fact, for example, that Maria Simpson was the “communication link” between her husband and the others, nor the fact that Donald Simpson and Xavier Padilla were in charge of transportation for the conspirators, has any bearing on their respective Fourth Amendment rights.
We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals. The case is remanded so that the court may consider whether each respondent had either a property interest protected by the Fourth Amendment that was interfered with by the stop of the automobile driven by Arciniega, or a reasonable expectation of privacy that was invaded by the search thereof. Alderman, supra; Rakas, supra; Rawlings, supra; Soldal, supra.
It is so ordered.
A related investigation led by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) revealed that Warren Strubbe was also involved in the conspiracy. Although Strubbe technically is a respondent in this case, see this Court’s Rule 12.4, the Court of Appeals found that he could not challenge the stop and search of the Cadillac. Strubbe did not file a petition challenging that decision, and we therefore do not address that aspect of the court’s opinion.
The Government did not challenge this finding on appeal and does not do so here.
The First, Second, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Eleventh, and District of Columbia Circuits have declined to adopt an exception for co-conspirators or codefendants. See United States v. Soule, 908 F. 2d 1032, 1036-1037 (CA1 1990); United States v. Galante, 547 F. 2d 733, 739-740 (CA2 1976), cert. denied, 431 U. S. 969 (1977); United States v. Hunter, 550 F. 2d 1066, 1074 (CA6 1977); United States v. DeLeon, 641 F. 2d 330, 337 (CA5 1981); United States v. Kiser, 948 F. 2d 418, 424 (CA8 1991), cert. denied, 503 U. S. 983 (1992); United States v. Brown, 743 F. 2d 1505, 1507-1508 (CA11 1984); United States v. Davis, 199 U. S. App. D. C. 95, 108, 617 F. 2d 677, 690 (1979).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
Respondent was convicted of second-degree robbery in a Missouri court. During jury selection, he objected to the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges to strike two black men from the jury panel, an objection arguably based on Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U. S. 79 (1986). The prosecutor explained his strikes:
“I struck [juror] number twenty-two because of his long hair. He had long curly hair. He had the longest hair of anybody on the panel by far. He appeared to me to not be a good juror for that fact, the fact that he had long hair hanging down shoulder length, curly, unkempt hair. Also, he had a mustache and a goatee type beard. And juror number twenty-four also has a mustache and goatee type beard. Those are the only two people on the jury . . . with the facial hair .... And I don’t like the way they looked, with the way the hair is cut, both of them. And the mustaches and the beards look suspicious to me.” App. to Pet. for Cert. A-41.
The prosecutor further explained that he feared that juror number 24, who had had a sawed-off shotgun pointed at him during a supermarket robbery, would believe that “to have a robbery you have to have a gun, and there is no gun in this case.” Ibid.
The state trial court, without explanation, overruled respondent’s objection and empaneled the jury. On direct appeal, respondent renewed his Batson claim. The Missouri Court of Appeals affirmed, finding that the “state’s explanation constituted a legitimate ‘hunch’” and that “[t]he circumstances fail[ed] to raise the necessary inference of racial discrimination.” State v. Elem, 747 S. W. 2d 772, 775 (Mo. App. 1988).
Respondent then filed a petition for habeas corpus under 28 U. S. C. § 2254, asserting this and other claims. Adopting the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation, the District Court concluded that the Missouri courts’ determination that there had been no purposeful discrimination was a factual finding entitled to a presumption of correctness under § 2254(d). Since the finding had support in the record, the District Court denied respondent’s claim.
The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded with instructions to grant the writ of habeas corpus. It said:
“[Wjhere the prosecution strikes a prospective juror who is a member of the defendant’s racial group, solely on the basis of factors which are facially irrelevant to the question of whether that person is qualified to serve as a juror in the particular case, the prosecution must at least articulate some plausible race-neutral reason for believing those factors will somehow affect the person’s ability to perform his or her duties as a juror. In the present case, the prosecutor’s comments, T don’t like the way [he] look[s], with the way the hair is cut. . . . And the mustach[e] and the bear[d] look suspicious to me,’ do not constitute such legitimate race-neutral reasons for striking juror 22.” 25 F. 3d 679, 683 (1994).
It concluded that the “prosecution’s explanation for striking juror 22 . . . was pretextual,” and that the state trial court had “clearly erred” in finding that striking juror number 22 had not been intentional discrimination. Id., at 684.
Under our Batson jurisprudence, once the opponent of a peremptory challenge has made out a prima facie case of racial discrimination (step one), the burden of production shifts to the proponent of the strike to come forward with a race-neutral explanation (step two). If a race-neutral explanation is tendered, the trial court must then decide (step three) whether the opponent of the strike has proved purposeful racial discrimination. Hernandez v. New York, 500 U. S. 352, 358-359 (1991) (plurality opinion); id., at 375 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment); Batson, supra, at 96-98. The second step of this process does not demand an explanation that is persuasive, or even plausible. “At this [second] 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.” Hernandez, 500 U. S., at 360 (plurality opinion); id., at 374 (O’Connor, J., concurring in judgment).
The Court of Appeals erred by combining Batson’s second and third steps into one, requiring that the justification tendered at the second step be not just neutral but also at least minimally persuasive, i.e., a “plausible” basis for believing that “the person’s ability to perform his or her duties as a juror” will be affected. 25 F. 3d, at 683. It is not until the third step that the persuasiveness of the justification becomes relevant — the step in which the trial court determines whether the opponent of the strike has carried his burden of proving purposeful discrimination. Batson, supra, at 98; Hernandez, supra, at 359 (plurality opinion). At that stage, implausible or fantastic justifications may (and probably will) be found to be pretexts for purposeful discrimination. But to say that a trial judge may choose to disbelieve a silly or superstitious reason at step three is quite different from saying that a trial judge must terminate the inquiry at step two when the race-neutral reason is silly or superstitious. The latter violates the principle that the ultimate burden of persuasion regarding racial motivation rests with, and never shifts from, the opponent of the strike. Cf. St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U. S. 502, 511 (1993).
The Court of Appeals appears to have seized on our admonition in Batson that to rebut a prima facie case, the proponent of a strike “must give a ‘clear and reasonably specific’ explanation of his ‘legitimate reasons’ for exercising the challenges,” Batson, supra, at 98, n. 20 (quoting Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248, 258 (1981)), and that the reason must be “related to the particular case to be tried,” 476 U. S., at 98. See 25 F. 3d, at 682, 683. This warning was meant to refute the notion that a prosecutor could satisfy his burden of production by merely denying that he had a discriminatory motive or by merely affirming his good faith. What it means by a “legitimate reason” is not a reason that makes sense, but a reason that does not deny equal protection. See Hernandez, supra, at 359; cf. Burdine, supra, at 255 (“The explanation provided must be legally sufficient to justify a judgment for the defendant”).
The prosecutor’s proffered explanation in this case — that he struck juror number 22 because he had long, unkempt hair, a mustache, and a beard — is race neutral and satisfies the prosecution’s step two burden of articulating a nondiscriminatory reason for the strike. “The wearing of beards is not a characteristic that is peculiar to any race.” EEOC v. Greyhound Lines, Inc., 635 F. 2d 188, 190, n. 3 (CA3 1980). And neither is the growing of long, unkempt hair. Thus, the inquiry properly proceeded to step three, where the state court found that the prosecutor was not motivated by discriminatory intent.
In habeas proceedings in federal courts, the factual findings of state courts are presumed to be correct, and may be set aside, absent procedural error, only if they are “not fairly supported by the record.” 28 U. S. C. § 2254(d)(8). See Marshall v. Lonberger, 459 U. S. 422, 432 (1983). Here the Court of Appeals did not conclude or even attempt to conclude that the state court’s finding of no racial motive was not fairly supported by the record. For its whole focus was upon the reasonableness of the asserted nonracial motive (which it thought required by step two) rather than the genuineness of the motive. It gave no proper basis for overturning the state court’s finding of no racial motive, a finding which turned primarily on an assessment of credibility, see Batson, 476 U. S., at 98, n. 21. Cf. Marshall, supra, at 434.
Accordingly, respondent’s motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
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, except as to Part III.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 924(e) (2000 ed. and Supp. II), popularly known as the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), mandates a minimum 15-year prison sentence for anyone possessing a firearm after three prior convictions for serious drug offenses or violent felonies. The Act makes burglary a violent felony only if committed in a building or enclosed space (“generic burglary”), not in a boat or motor vehicle. In Taylor v. United States, 495 U. S. 575 (1990), we held that a court sentencing under the ACCA could look to statutory elements, charging documents, and jury instructions to determine whether an earlier conviction after trial was for generic burglary. The question here is whether a sentencing court can look to police reports or complaint applications to determine whether an earlier guilty plea necessarily admitted, and supported a conviction for, generic burglary. We hold that it may not, and that a later court determining the character of an admitted burglary is generally limited to examining the statutory definition, charging document, written plea agreement, transcript of plea colloquy, and any explicit factual finding by the trial judge to which the defendant assented.
I
Petitioner Reginald Shepard was indicted under 18 U. S. C. § 922(g)(1), barring felons from possessing a firearm, and pleaded guilty. At sentencing the Government claimed that Shepard’s prior convictions raised his sentencing range from between 30 and 37 months (under the United States Sentencing Guidelines) to the 15-year minimum required by § 924(e), pointing to four prior convictions entered upon Shepard’s pleas of guilty under one of Massachusetts’s two burglary statutes. Whereas the Government said that each conviction represented a predicate ACCA offense of generic burglary, the District Court ruled that Taylor barred counting any of the prior convictions as predicates for the mandatory minimum. 125 F. Supp. 2d 562, 569 (Mass. 2000).
In Taylor we read the listing of “burglary” as a predicate “violent felony” (in the ACCA) to refer to what we called “generic burglary,” an “unlawful or unprivileged entry into, or remaining in, a building or structure, with intent to commit a crime.” 495 U. S., at 599. Because statutes in some States (like Massachusetts) define burglary more broadly, as by extending it to entries into boats and cars, we had to consider how a later court sentencing under the ACCA might tell whether a prior burglary conviction was for the generic offense. We held that the ACCA generally prohibits the later court from delving into particular facts disclosed by the record of conviction, thus leaving the court normally to “look only to the fact of conviction and the statutory definition of the prior offense.” Id., at 602. We recognized an exception to this “categorical approach” only for “a narrow range of cases where a jury [in a State with a broader definition of burglary] was actually required to find all the elements of” the generic offense. Ibid. We held the exception applicable “if the indictment or information and jury instructions show that the defendant was charged only with a burglary of a building, and that the jury necessarily had to find an entry of a building to convict....” Ibid. Only then might a conviction under a “nongeneric” burglary statute qualify as an ACCA predicate.
In this case, the offenses charged in state complaints were broader than generic burglary, and there were of course no jury instructions that might have narrowed the charges to the generic limit. The Government nonetheless urged the District Court to examine reports submitted by the police with applications for issuance of the complaints, as a way of telling whether Shepard’s guilty pleas went to generic burglaries notwithstanding the broader descriptions of the offenses in the complaints, descriptions that tracked the more expansive definition in Massachusetts law. The court concluded that Taylor forbade this, and that investigation within the Taylor limits failed to show that Shepard had three generic burglary convictions. The court accordingly refused to consider the 15-year mandatory minimum, though it did sentence Shepard somewhat above the standard level under the Sentencing Guidelines, on the ground that his criminal history category under the Guidelines did not do justice to his ample criminal record.
On appeal the First Circuit, following its earlier decision in United States v. Harris, 964 F. 2d 1234 (1992), vacated the sentence and ruled that complaint applications and police reports may count as “sufficiently reliable evidence for determining whether a defendant’s plea of guilty constitutes an admission to a generically violent crime,” 231 F. 3d 56, 67 (2000). As to each of Shepard’s prior convictions, the court remanded the case for the District Court to determine whether there was “sufficiently reliable evidence that the government and the defendant shared the belief that the defendant was pleading guilty to a generically violent crime.” Id., at 70.
The District Court again declined to impose the 15-year mandatory minimum, even though the Government supplemented its earlier submission with police reports or complaint applications on two additional burglary convictions. The District Judge noted that the only account of what occurred at each of the prior plea hearings came from an affidavit submitted by Shepard, who stated “that none of the details in th[e police] reports w[as] ever mentioned at his pleas,” that “the reports themselves were never read by the judge to him during the plea colloquy,” and that at no time “was he ever asked if the information contained in the . . . [rjeports w[as] true.” 181 F. Supp. 2d 14, 19 (Mass. 2002). Shepard further swore that “with respect to each report: [he] did not admit the truth of the information contained in the ... [rjeport as part of [his] plea and [had] never admitted in court the facts alleged in the report. . . .” Id., at 19-20 (internal quotation marks omitted). Based on this, the District Court found that the Government had failed to carry its burden to demonstrate that Shepard had pleaded to three generic burglaries.
The Court of Appeals again vacated the sentence. After observing that Shepard had never “seriously disputed” that he did in fact break into the buildings described in the police reports or complaint applications, 348 F. 3d 308, 311 (CA1 2003), the court rejected the District Court’s conclusion that the Government had not shown the requisite predicate offenses for the 15-year minimum sentence, id., at 314. The case was remanded with instructions to impose that sentence.
We granted certiorari, 542 U. S. 918 (2004), to address divergent decisions in the Courts of Appeals applying Taylor when prior convictions stem from guilty pleas, not jury verdicts. We now reverse.
II
We agree with the First Circuit (and every other Court of Appeals to speak on the matter) that guilty pleas may establish ACCA predicate offenses and that Taylor’s reasoning controls the identification of generic convictions following pleas, as well as convictions on verdicts, in States with non-generic offenses. See 348 F. 3d, at 312, n. 4 (citing cases). Shepard wisely refrains from challenging this position, for the ACCA nowhere provides that convictions in tried and pleaded cases are to be regarded differently. It drops no hint that Congress contemplated different standards for establishing the fact of prior convictions, turning on the basis of trial or plea. Nothing to that effect is suggested, after all, by the language imposing the categorical approach, which refers to predicate offenses in terms not of prior conduct but of prior “convictions” and the “elements] ” of crimes. Taylor, supra, at 600-601 (citing 18 U. S. C. § 924(e)). Nor does the ACCA’s legislative history reveal a lesser congressional preference for a categorical, as distinct from fact-specific, approach to recognizing ACCA predicates in cases resolved by plea. Taylor, supra, at 601. And certainly, “the practical difficulties and potential unfairness of a factual approach are daunting,” ibid., no less in pleaded than in litigated cases. Finally, nothing in Taylor’s, rationale limits it to prior jury convictions; our discussion of the practical difficulties inherent in looking into underlying circumstances spoke specifically of “cases where the defendant pleaded guilty, [in which] there often is no record of the underlying facts.” Ibid. Our job, then, is to find the right analogs for applying the Taylor rule to pleaded cases.
The Taylor Court drew a pragmatic conclusion about the best way to identify generic convictions in jury cases, while respecting Congress’s adoption of a categorical criterion that avoids subsequent evidentiary enquiries into the factual basis for the earlier conviction. The Court held that generic burglary could be identified only by referring to charging documents filed in the court of conviction, or to recorded judicial acts of that court limiting convictions to the generic category, as in giving instruction to the jury.
The Court did not, however, purport to limit adequate judicial record evidence strictly to charges and instructions, id., at 602 (discussing the use of these documents as an “example”), since a conviction might follow trial to a judge alone or a plea of guilty. In cases tried without a jury, the closest analogs to jury instructions would be a bench-trial judge’s formal rulings of law and findings of fact, and in pleaded cases they would be the statement of factual basis for the charge, Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11(a)(3), shown by a transcript of plea colloquy or by written plea agreement presented to the court, or by a record of comparable findings of fact adopted by the defendant upon entering the plea. With such material in a pleaded case, a later court could generally tell whether the plea had “necessarily” rested on the fact identifying the burglary as generic, Taylor, supra, at 602, just as the details of instructions could support that conclusion in the jury case, or the details of a generically limited charging document would do in any sort of case.
The Government argues for a wider evidentiary cast, however, going beyond conclusive records made or used in adjudicating guilt and looking to documents submitted to lower courts even prior to charges. It argues for considering a police report submitted to a local court as grounds for issuing a complaint under a nongeneric statute; if that report alleges facts that would satisfy the elements of a generic statute, the report should suffice to show that a later plea and conviction were for a predicate offense under the ACCA. There would be no reason for concern about unavailable witnesses or stale memories, the Government points out, and such limited enquiry would be consistent with Taylor because “[t]he underlying purpose [would be] the same as in examining the charging paper and jury instructions (which the Court endorsed in Taylor): to determine the nature of the offense of which petitioner was convicted, rather than to determine what he actually did.” Brief for United States 22-23. The Government stresses three points.
First, it says that the more accommodating view of evidence competent to prove that the plea was to a generic offense will yield reliable conclusions. Although the records of Shepard’s pleas with their notations that he “[a]dmit[ted] suff[icientj facts” do not necessarily show that he admitted entering buildings or structures, as would be true under a generic burglary statute or charge, the police reports suffice to show that the record of admitting sufficient facts “can only have plausibly rested on petitioner’s entry of a building.” Id., at 25.
Second, the Government pulls a little closer to Taylor’s, demand for certainty when identifying a generic offense by emphasizing that the records of the prior convictions used in this case are in each instance free from any inconsistent, competing evidence on the pivotal issue of fact separating generic from nongeneric burglary. “[TJhere is nothing in the record to indicate that petitioner had pleaded guilty based on entering a ship or vehicle on any of the occasions at issue.” Brief for United States 16.
Finally, the Government supports its call for a more inclusive standard of competent evidence by invoking the virtue of a nationwide application of a federal statute unaffected by idiosyncrasies of recordkeeping in any particular State. A bar on review of documents like police reports and complaint applications would often make the ACCA sentencing enhancement “hinge on the happenstance of state court record-keeping practices and the vagaries of state prosecutors’ charging practices.” Brief in Opposition 13 (internal quotation marks omitted).
On each point, however, the Government’s position raises an uncomfortable implication: every one of its arguments could have been pressed in favor of an enquiry beyond what Taylor allows when a jury conviction follows nongeneric instructions, and each is therefore as much a menace to Taylor as a justification for an expansive approach to showing whether a guilty plea admitted the generic crime. If the transcript of a jury trial showed testimony about a building break, one could say that the jury’s verdict rested on a finding to that effect. If the trial record showed no evidence of felonious entrance to anything but a building or structure, the odds that the offense actually committed was generic burglary would be a turf accountant’s dream. And, again, if it were significant that vagaries of abbreviated plea records could limit the application of the ACCA, the significance would be no less when the disputed, predicate conviction followed a jury trial and the stenographic notes of the charge had been thrown away.
The Government’s position thus amounts to a call to ease away from the Taylor conclusion, that respect for congressional intent and avoidance of collateral trials require that evidence of generic conviction be confined to records of the convicting court approaching the certainty of the record of conviction in a generic crime State. But that limitation was the heart of the decision, and we cannot have Taylor and the Government’s position both.
There is not, however, any sufficient justification for upsetting precedent here. We are, after all, dealing with an issue of statutory interpretation, see, e. g., Taylor, 495 U. S., at 602, and the claim to adhere to case law is generally powerful once a decision has settled statutory meaning, see Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U. S. 164, 172-173 (1989) (“Considerations of stare decisis have special force in the area of statutory interpretation, for here, unlike in the context of constitutional interpretation, the legislative power is implicated, and Congress remains free to alter what we have done”). In this instance, time has enhanced even the usual precedential force, nearly 15 years having passed since Taylor came down, without any action by Congress to modify the statute as subject to our understanding that it allowed only a restricted look beyond the record of conviction under a nongeneric statute.
Ill
Developments in the law since Taylor, and since the First Circuit’s decision in Harris, provide a further reason to adhere to the demanding requirement that any sentence under the ACCA rest on a showing that a prior conviction “necessarily” involved (and a prior plea necessarily admitted) facts equating to generic burglary. The Taylor Court, indeed, was prescient in its discussion of problems that would follow from allowing a broader evidentiary enquiry. “If the sentencing court were to conclude, from its own review of the record, that the defendant [who was convicted under a non-generic burglary statute] actually committed a generic burglary, could the defendant challenge this conclusion as abridging his right to a jury trial?” 495 U. S., at 601. The Court thus anticipated the very rule later imposed for the sake of preserving the Sixth Amendment right, that any fact other than a prior conviction sufficient to raise the limit of the possible federal sentence must be found by a jury, in the absence of any waiver of rights by the defendant. Jones v. United States, 526 U. S. 227, 243, n. 6 (1999); see also Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466, 490 (2000).
The Government dismisses the relevance of the Jones-Apprendi implementation of the jury right here by describing the determination necessary to apply the ACCA as “involving] only an assessment of what the state court itself already has been 'required to find’ in order to find the defendant guilty.” Brief for United States 38 (quoting Taylor, supra, at 602). But it is not that simple. The problem is that “what the state court... has been 'required to find’ ” is debatable. In a nongeneric State, the fact necessary to show a generic crime is not established by the record of conviction as it would be in a generic State when a judicial finding of a disputed prior conviction is made on the authority of Almendarez-Torres v. United States, 523 U. S. 224 (1998). The state statute requires no finding of generic burglary, and without a charging document that narrows the charge to generic limits, the only certainty of a generic finding lies in jury instructions, or bench-trial findings and rulings, or (in a pleaded case) in the defendant’s own admissions or accepted findings of fact confirming the factual basis for a valid plea. In this particular pleaded case, the record is silent on the generic element, there being no plea agreement or recorded colloquy in which Shepard admitted the generic fact.
Instead, the sentencing judge considering the ACCA enhancement would (on the Government’s view) make a disputed finding of fact about what the defendant and state judge must have understood as the factual basis of the prior plea, and the dispute raises the concern underlying Jones and Apprendi: the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee a jury standing between a defendant and the power of the State, and they guarantee a jury’s finding of any disputed fact essential to increase the ceiling of a potential sentence. While the disputed fact here can be described as a fact about a prior conviction, it is too far removed from the conclusive significance of a prior judicial record, and too much like the findings subject to Jones and Apprendi, to say that Almendarez-Torres clearly authorizes a judge to resolve the dispute. The rule of reading statutes to avoid serious risks of unconstitutionality, see Jones, supra, at 239, therefore counsels us to limit the scope of judicial factfinding on the disputed generic character of a prior plea, just as Taylor constrained judicial findings about the generic implication of a jury’s verdict.
IV
We hold that enquiry under the ACCA to determine whether a plea of guilty to burglary defined by a nongeneric statute necessarily admitted elements of the generic offense is limited to the terms of the charging document, the terms of a plea agreement or transcript of colloquy between judge and defendant in which the factual basis for the plea was confirmed by the defendant, or to some comparable judicial record of this information.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
The Chief Justice took no part in the decision of this case.
The Government initially cited a fifth prior burglary conviction, but after failing to obtain adequate documentation about this conviction the Government focused on the other four.
Although Taylor involved prior burglaries, as this ease does, our holding in Taylor covered other predicate ACCA offenses. 495 U. S., at 600.
Several Courts of Appeals have taken a similar view, approving the use of some or all of these documents. United States v. Bonat, 106 F. 3d 1472, 1476-1477 (CA9 1997); United States v. Maness, 23 F. 3d 1006, 1009-1010 (CA6 1994); United States v. Smith, 10 F. 3d 724, 733-734 (CA10 1993) (per curiam) (construing United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §4B1.2 (Nov. 1990)).
Like the Government, the dissent would allow district courts to examine a wider range of documents than we approve today, and its proposal is no more consistent with Taylor than the Government’s. Taylor is clear that any enquiry beyond statute and charging document must be narrowly restricted to implement the object of the statute and avoid evidentiary disputes. In the ease before it, the Court drew the line after allowing courts to review documents showing .“that the jury necessarily had to find an entry of a building to convict.” 495 U. S., at 602; see also ibid, (permitting a sentencing court to look beyond the state statute “in a narrow range of eases where a jury was actually required to find all the elements of generic burglary”). As we say in the text, there are certainly jury trials with record documents like those at issue here, never introduced at trial but “uncontradicted,” •post, at 31 (opinion of O’Connor, J.), and “internally consistent,” ibid., with the evidence that came in. The dissent would presumably permit examination of such documents, but Taylor assuredly does not.
The only way to reconcile the dissent’s approach with Taylor is to say that in Taylor the prior convictions followed jury verdicts while in this case each prior conviction grew out of a guilty plea. See post, at 36 (“Taylor itself set no rule for guilty pleas”). But Taylor has no suggestion that its reasoning would not apply in plea cases, and its discussion of the practical difficulties specifically referred to prior guilty pleas. 495 U. S., at 601. Moreover, as we have noted, see supra, at 19, and as the dissent nowhere disputes, the ACCA provides no support for such a distinction. We decline to create a distinction that Congress evidently had no desire to draw, that Taylor did not envision, and that we would be hard pressed to explain.
The dissent charges that our decision may portend the extension of Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U. S. 466 (2000), to proof of prior convictions, a move which (if it should occur) “surely will do no favors for future defendants in Shepard’s shoes.” Post, at 38. According to the dissent, the Government, bearing the burden of proving the defendant’s prior burglaries to the jury, would then have the right to introduce evidence of those burglaries at trial, and so threaten severe prejudice to the defendant. It is up to the future to show whether the dissent is good prophesy, but the dissent’s apprehensiveness can be resolved right now, for if the dissent turns out to be right that Apprendi will reach further, any defendant who feels that the risk of prejudice is too high can waive the right to have a jury decide questions about his prior convictions.
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 and Justice O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to BCRA Titles I and II.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), 116 Stat. 81, contains a series of amendments to the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA or Act), 86 Stat. 11, as amended, 2 U. S. C. §431 et seq. (2000 ed. and Supp. II), the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1088, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 315 (2000 ed. and Supp. II), and other portions of the United States Code, 18 U. S. C. §607 (Supp. II), 36 U. S. C. §§510-511 (Supp. II), that are challenged in these cases. In this opinion we discuss Titles I and II of BCRA. The opinion of the Court delivered by The ChieF Justice, post, p. 224, discusses Titles III and IV, and the opinion of the Court delivered by Justice Breyer, post, p. 233, discusses Title. V.
I
More than a century ago the “sober-minded Elihu Root” advocated legislation that would prohibit political contributions by corporations in order to prevent “ 'the great aggregations of wealth, from using their corporate funds, directly or indirectly,’ ” to elect legislators who would “ ‘vote for their protection and the advancement of their interests as against those of the public.’ ” United States v. Automobile Workers, 352 U. S. 567, 571 (1957) (quoting E. Root, Addresses on Government and Citizenship 143 (R. Bacon & J. Scott eds. 1916)). In Root’s opinion, such legislation would “‘strik[e] 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.’ ” 352 U. S., at 571. The Congress of the United States has repeatedly enacted legislation endorsing Root’s judgment.
BCRA is the most recent federal enactment designed “to purge national polities of what was conceived to be the pernicious influence of ‘big money' campaign contributions.” Id., at 572. As Justice Frankfurter explained in his opinion for the Court in Automobile Workers, the first such enactment responded to President Theodore Roosevelt’s call for legislation forbidding all contributions by corporations “ ‘to any political committee or for any political purpose/ ” Ibid, (quoting 40 Cong. Rec. 96 (1905)). In his annual message to Congress in December 1905, President Roosevelt stated that “‘directors should not be permitted to use stockholders’ money’ ” for political purposes, and he recommended that “ ‘a prohibition’ ” on corporate political contributions “ ‘would be, as far as it went, an effective method of stopping the evils aimed at in corrupt practices acts.’ ” 352 U. S., at 572. The resulting 1907 statute completely banned corporate contributions of “money... in connection with” any federal election. Tillman Act, ch. 420, 34 Stat. 864. Congress soon amended the statute to require the public disclosure of certain contributions and expenditures and to place “maximum limits on the amounts that congressional candidates could spend in seeking nomination and election.” Automobile Workers, supra, at 575-576.
In 1925 Congress extended the prohibition of “contributions” “to include 'anything of value/ and made acceptance of a corporate contribution as well as the giving of such a contribution a crime.” Federal Election Comm’n v. National Right to Work Comm., 459 U. S. 197, 209 (1982) (citing Federal Corrupt Practices Act, 1925, §§301, 313, 43 Stat. 1070,1074). During the debates preceding that amendment, a leading Senator characterized “‘the apparent hold on political parties which business interests and certain organizations seek and sometimes obtain by reason of liberal campaign contributions’ ” as “ ‘one of the great political evils of the time.’ ” Automobile Workers, supra, at 576 (quoting 65 Cong. Rec. 9507-9508 (1924)). We upheld the amended statute against a constitutional challenge, observing that “[t]he power of Congress to protect the election of President and Vice President from corruption being clear, the choice of means to that end presents a question primarily addressed to the judgment of Congress.” Burroughs v. United States, 290 U. S. 534, 547 (1934).
Congress’ historical concern with the “political potentialities of wealth” and their “untoward consequences for the democratic process,” Automobile Workers, supra, at 577-578, has long reached beyond corporate money. During and shortly after World War II, Congress reacted to the “enormous financial outlays” made by some unions in connection with national elections. 352 U. S., at 579. Congress first restricted union contributions in the Hatch Act, 18 U. S. C. § 610, and it later prohibited “union contributions in connection with federal elections... altogether.” National Right to Work, supra, at 209 (citing War Labor Disputes Act (Smith-Connally Anti-Strike Act), ch. 144, §9, 57 Stat. 167). Congress subsequently extended that prohibition to cover unions’ election-related expenditures as well as contributions, and it broadened the coverage of federal campaigns to include both primary and general elections. Labor Management Relations Act, 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act), 61 Stat. 136. See Automobile Workers, supra, at 578-584. During the consideration of those measures, legislators repeatedly voiced their concerns regarding the pernicious influence of large campaign contributions. See 93 Cong. Rec. 3428, 3522 (1947); H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947); S. Rep. No. 1, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., pt. 2 (1947); H. R. Rep. No. 2093, 78th Cong., 2d Sess. (1945). As we noted in a unanimous opinion recalling this history, Congress’ "careful legislative adjustment of the federal electoral laws, in a ‘cautious advance, step by step,’ to account for the particular legal and economic attributes of corporations and labor organizations warrants considerable deference.” National Right to Work, supra, at 209 (citations omitted).
In early 1972 Congress continued its steady improvement of the national election laws by enacting FECA, 86 Stat. 3. As first enacted, that statute required disclosure of all contributions exceeding $100 and of expenditures by candidates and political committees that spent more than $1,000 per year. Id., at 11-19. It also prohibited contributions made in the name of another person, id., at 19, and by Government contractors, id., at 10. The law ratified the earlier prohibition on the use of corporate and union general treasury funds for political contributions and expenditures, but it expressly permitted corporations and unions to establish and administer separate segregated funds (commonly known as political action committees, or PACs) for election-related contributions and expenditures. Id., at 12-13. See Pipefitters v. United States, 407 U. S. 385, 409-410 (1972).
As the 1972 Presidential elections made clear, however, FECA’s passage did not deter unseemly fundraising and campaign practices. Evidence of those practices persuaded Congress to enact the Federal Election Campaign Act Amendments of 1974, 88 Stat. 1263. Reviewing a constitu-. tional challenge to the amendments, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit described them as “by far the most comprehensive... reform legislation [ever] passed by Congress concerning the election of the President, Vice-President and members of Congress.” Buckley v. Valeo, 519 F. 2d 821, 831 (1975) (en banc) (per curiam).
The 1974 amendments closed the loophole that had allowed candidates to use an unlimited number of political committees for fundraising purposes and thereby to circumvent the limits on individual committees’ receipts and disbursements. They also limited individual political contributions to any single candidate to $1,000 per election, with an overall annual limitation of $25,000 by any contributor; imposed ceilings on spending by candidates and political parties for national conventions; required reporting and public disclosure of contributions and expenditures exceeding certain limits; and established the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to administer and enforce the legislation. Id., at 831-834.
The Court of Appeals upheld the 1974 in their entirety. It concluded that the clear and compelling interest in preserving the integrity of the electoral process provided a sufficient basis for sustaining the substantive provisions of the Act. Id., at 841. The court’s opinion relied heavily on findings that large contributions facilitated access to public officials and described methods of evading the contribution limits that had enabled contributors of massive sums to avoid disclosure. Id., at 837-841.
The Court of Appeals upheld the provisions establishing contribution and expenditure limitations on the theory that they should be viewed as regulations of conduct rather than speech. Id., at 840-841 (citing United States v. O’Brien, 391 U. S. 367, 376-377 (1968)). This Court, however, concluded that each set of limitations raised serious — though different — concerns under the First Amendment. Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U. S. 1, 14-23 (1976) (per curiam). We treated the limitations on candidate and individual expenditures as direct restraints on speech, but we observed that the contribution limitations, in contrast, imposed only “a marginal restriction upon the contributor’s ability to engage in free communication.” Id., at 20-21. Considering the “deeply disturbing examples” of corruption related to candidate contributions discussed in the Court of Appeals’ opinion, we determined that limiting contributions served an interest in protecting “the integrity of our system of representative democracy.” Id., at 26-27. In the end, the Act’s primary purpose — “to limit the actuality and appearance of corruption resulting from large individual financial contributions” — provided “a constitutionally sufficient justification for the $1,000 contribution limitation.” Id., at 26.
We prefaced our analysis of the $1,000 limitation on expenditures by observing that it broadly encompassed every expenditure “‘relative to a clearly identified candidate.’” Id., at 39 (quoting 18 U. S. C. § 608(e)(1) (1970 ed., Supp. IV)). To avoid vagueness concerns we construed that phrase to apply only to “communications that in express terms advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate for federal office.” 424 U. S., at 42-44. We concluded, however, that as so narrowed, the provision would not provide effective protection against the dangers of quid pro quo arrangements, because persons and groups could eschew expenditures that expressly advocated the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate while remaining “free to spend as much as they want to promote the candidate and his views.” Id., at 45. We also rejected the argument that the expenditure limits were necessary to prevent attempts to circumvent the Act’s contribution limits, because FECA already treated expenditures controlled by or coordinated with the candidate as contributions, and we were not persuaded that independent expenditures posed the same risk of real or apparent corruption as coordinated expenditures. Id., at 46-47. We therefore held that Congress’ interest in preventing real or apparent corruption was inadequate to justify the heavy burdens on the freedoms of expression and association that the expenditure limits imposed.
We upheld all of the disclosure and reporting requirements in the Act that were challenged on appeal to this Court after finding that they vindicated three important interests: providing the electorate with relevant information about the candidates and their supporters; deterring actual corruption and discouraging the use of money for improper purposes; and facilitating enforcement of the prohibitions in the Act. Id., at 66-68. In order to avoid an overbreadth problem, however, we placed the same narrowing construction on the term “expenditure” in the disclosure context that we had adopted in the context of the expenditure limitations. Thus, we construed the reporting requirement for persons making expenditures of more than $100 in a year “to reach only funds used for communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.” Id., at 80 (footnote omitted).
Our opinion in Buckley addressed issues that primarily related to contributions and expenditures by individuals, since none of the parties challenged the prohibition on contributions by corporations and labor unions. We noted, however, that the statute authorized the use of corporate and union resources to form and administer segregated funds that could be used for political purposes. Id., at 28-29, n. 31; see also n. 3, supra.
Three important developments in the years after our decision in Buckley persuaded Congress that further legislation was necessary to regulate the role that corporations, unions, and wealthy contributors play in the electoral process. As a preface to our discussion of the specific provisions of BCRA, we comment briefly on the increased importance of “soft money,” the proliferation of “issue ads,” and the disturbing findings of a Senate investigation into campaign practices related to the 1996 federal elections.
Soft Money
Under FECA, “contributions” must be made with funds that are subject to the Act’s disclosure requirements and source and amount limitations. Such funds are known as “federal” or “hard” money. FECA defines the term “contribution,” however, to include only the gift or advance of anything of value “made by any person for the purpose of influencing any election for Federal office.” 2 U. S. C. §431(8)(A)(i) (emphasis added). Donations made solely for the purpose of influencing state or local elections are therefore unaffected by FECA’s requirements and prohibitions. As a result, prior to the enactment of BCRA, federal law permitted corporations and unions, as well as individuals who had already made the maximum permissible contributions to federal candidátes, to contribute “nonfederal money” — also known as “soft money” — to political parties for activities intended to influence state or local elections.
Shortly after Buckley was decided, questions arose concerning the treatment of contributions intended to influence both federal and state elections. Although a literal reading of FBCA’s definition of “contribution” would have required such activities to be funded with hard money, the FEC ruled that political parties could fund mixed-purpose activities— including get-out-the-vote drives and generic party advertising — in part with soft money. In 1995 the FEC concluded that the parties could also use soft money to defray the costs of “legislative advocacy media advertisements,” even if the ads mentioned the name of a federal candidate, so long as they did not expressly advocate the candidate’s election or defeat. FEC Advisory Op. 1995-25.
As- the permissible uses of soft money expanded, the amount of soft money raised and spent by the national political parties increased exponentially. Of the two major parties’ total spending, soft money accounted for 5% ($21.6 million) in 1984, 11% ($45 million) in 1988, 16% ($80 million) in 1992, 30% ($272 million) in 1996, and 42% ($498 million) in 2000. The national parties transferred large amounts of their soft money to the state parties, which were allowed to use a larger percentage of soft money to finance mixed-purpose activities under FEC rules. In the year 2000, for example, the national parties diverted $280 million — more than half of their soft money — to state parties.
Many contributions of soft money were dramatically larger than the contributions of hard money permitted by FECA. For example, in 1996 the top five corporate soft-money donors gave, in total, more than $9 million in nonfederal funds to the two national party committees. In the most recent election cycle the political parties raised almost $300 million — 60% of their total soft-money fundraising — from just 800 donors, each of which contributed a minimum of $120,000. Moreover, the largest corporate donors often made substantial contributions to both parties. Such practices corroborate evidence indicating that many corporate contributions were motivated by a desire for access to candidates and a fear of being placed at a disadvantage in the legislative process relative to other contributors, rather than by ideological support for the candidates and parties.
Not only were such soft-money contributions often designed to gain access to federal candidates, but they were in many cases solicited by the candidates themselves. Candidates often directed potential donors to party committees and tax-exempt organizations that could legally accept soft money. For example, a federal legislator running for reelection solicited soft money from a supporter by advising him that even though he had already “ ‘contributed the legal maximum’ ” to the campaign committee, he could still make an additional contribution to a joint program supporting federal, state, and local candidates of his party. Such solicitations were not uncommon.
The solicitation, transfer, and use of soft money thus enabled parties and candidates to circumvent FECA’s limitations on the source and amount of contributions in connection with federal elections.
Issue Advertising
In Buckley we construed FECA’s disclosure and reporting requirements, as well as its expenditure limitations, “to reach only funds used for communications that expressly advocate the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate.” 424 U. S., at 80 (footnote omitted). As a result of that strict reading of the statute, the use or omission of “magic words” such as “Elect John Smith” or “Vote Against Jane Doe” marked a bright statutory line separating “express advocacy” from “issue advocacy.” See id., at 44, n. 52. Express advocacy was subject to. FECA’s limitations and could be financed only using hard money. The political parties, in other words, could not use soft money to sponsor ads that used any magic words, and corporations and unions could not fund such ads out of their general treasuries. So-called issue ads, on the other hand, not only could be financed with soft money, but could be aired without disclosing the identity of, or any other information about, their sponsors.
While the distinction between “issue” and express advocacy seemed neat in theory, the two categories of advertisements proved functionally identical in important respects. Both were used to advocate the election or defeat of clearly identified federal candidates, even though the so-called issue ads eschewed the use of magic words. Little difference existed, for example, between an ad that urged viewers to “vote against Jane Doe” and one that condemned Jane Doe’s record on a particular issue before exhorting viewers to “call Jane Doe and tell her what you think.” Indeed, campaign professionals testified that the most effective campaign ads, like the most effective commercials for products such as Coca-Cola, should, and did, avoid the use of the magic words. Moreover, the conclusion that such ads were specifically intended to affect election results was confirmed by the fact that almost all of them aired in the 60 days immediately preceding a federal election. Corporations and unions spent hundreds of millions of dollars of their general funds to pay for these ads, and those expenditures, like soft-money donations to the political parties, were unregulated under FECA. Indeed, the ads were attractive to organizations and candidates precisely because they were beyond FECA’s reach, enabling candidates and their parties to work closely with friendly interest groups to sponsor so-called issue ads when the candidates themselves were running out of money.
Because FECA’s disclosure requirements did not apply to so-called issue ads, sponsors of such ads often used misleading names to conceal their identity. “Citizens for Better Medicare,” for instance, was not a grassroots organization of citizens, as its name' might suggest, but was instead a platform for an association of drug manufacturers. And “Republicans for Clean Air,” which ran ads in the 2000 Republican Presidential primary, was actually an organization consisting of just two individuals — brothers who together spent $25 million on ads supporting their favored candidate.
While the public may not have been fully informed about the sponsorship of so-called issue ads, the record indicates that candidates and officeholders often were. A former Senator confirmed that candidates and officials knew who their friends were and “ ‘sometimes suggested] that corporations or individuals make donations to interest groups that run “issue ads.” ’ ” As with soft-money contributions, political parties and candidates used the availability of so-called issue ads to circumvent FECA’s limitations, asking donors who contributed their permitted quota of hard money to give money to nonprofit corporations to spend on “issue” advocacy.
Senate Committee Investigation
In 1998 the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs issued a six-volume report summarizing the results of an extensive investigation into the campaign practices in the 1996 federal elections. The report gave particular attention to the effect of soft money on the American political system, including elected officials’ practice of granting special access in return for political contributions.
The committee’s principal findings relating to Democratic Party fundraising were set forth in the majority’s report, while the minority report primarily described Republican practices. The two reports reached consensus, however, on certain central propositions. They agreed that the “soft money loophole” had led to a “meltdown” of the campaign finance system that had been intended “to keep corporate, union and large individual contributions from influencing the electoral process.” One Senator stated that “the hearings provided overwhelming evidence that the twin loopholes of soft money and bogus issue advertising have virtually destroyed our campaign finance laws, leaving us with little more than a pile of legal rubble.”
The report was critical of both parties’ methods of raising soft money, as well as their use of those funds. It concluded that both parties promised and provided special access to candidates and senior Government officials in exchange for large soft-money contributions. The committee majority described the White House coffees that rewarded major donors with access to President Clinton, and the courtesies extended to an international businessman named Roger Tamraz, who candidly acknowledged that his donations of about $300,000 to the DNC and to state parties were motivated by his interest in gaining the Federal Government’s support for an oil-line project in the Caucasus. The minority described the promotional materials used by the RNC’s two principal donor programs, “Team 100” and the “Republican Eagles,” which promised “special access to high-ranking Republican elected officials, including governors, senators, and representatives.” One fundraising letter recited that the chairman of the RNC had personally escorted a donor on appointments that “ 'turned out to be very significant in the legislation affecting public utility holding companies’” and made the donor ‘"a hero in his industry.’”
In 1996 both parties began to use large amounts of soft money to pay for issue advertising designed to influence federal elections. The committee found such ads highly problematic for two reasons. Since they accomplished the same purposes as express advocacy (which could lawfully be funded only with hard money), the ads enabled unions, corporations, and wealthy contributors to circumvent protections that FECA was intended, to provide. Moreover, though ostensibly independent of the candidates, the ads were often actually coordinated with, and controlled by, the campaigns. The ads thus provided a means for evading FECA’s candidate contribution limits.
The report also emphasized the role of state and local parties. While, the FEC’s allocation regime permitted national parties to use soft money to pay for up to 40% of the costs of both generic voter activities and issue advertising, they allowed state and local parties to use larger percentages of soft money for those purposes. For that reason, national parties often made substantial transfers of soft money to “state and local political parties for ‘generic voter activities’ that in fact ultimately benefited] federal candidates because the funds for all practical purposes remained] under the control of the national committees.” The report concluded that “[t]he use of such soft money thus allow[ed] more corporate, union treasury, and large contributions from wealthy individuals into the system.”
The report discussed potential reforms, including a ban on soft money at the national and state party levels and restrictions on sham issue advocacy by nonparty groups. The majority expressed the view that a ban on the raising of soft money by national party committees would effectively address the use of union and corporate general treasury funds in the federal political process only if it required that candidate-specific ads be funded with hard money. The minority similarly recommended the elimination of soft-money contributions to political parties from individuals, corporations, and unions, as well as “reforms addressing candidate advertisements masquerading as issue ads.”
> — 1
In BCRA, Congress enacted many of the committee s proposed reforms. BCRA’s central provisions are designed to address Congress’ concerns about the increasing use of soft money and issue advertising to influence federal elections. Title I regulates the use of soft money by political parties, officeholders, and candidates. Title II primarily prohibits corporations and labor unions from using general treasury funds for communications that are intended to, or have the effect of, influencing the outcome of federal elections.
Section 403 of BCRA provides special rules for actions challenging the constitutionality of any of the Act’s provisions. 2 U. S. C. § 437h note (Supp. II). Eleven such actions were filed promptly after the statute went into effect in March 2002. As required by §403, those actions were filed in the District Court for the District of Columbia and heard by a three-judge court. Section 403 directed the District Court to advance the cases on the docket and to expedite their disposition “to the greatest possible extent.” The court received a voluminous record compiled by the parties and ultimately delivered a decision embodied in a two-judge per curiam opinion and three separate,. lengthy opinions, each of which contained extensive commentary on the facts and a careful analysis of the legal issues. 251 F. Supp. 2d 176 (2003). The three judges reached unanimity on certain issues but differed on many. Their judgment, entered on May 1, 2003, held some parts of BCRA unconstitutional and upheld others. 251 F. Supp. 2d 948.
As authorized by § 403, all of the losing parties filed direct appeals to this Court within 10 days. 2 U. S. C. § 437h note. On June 5, 2003, we noted probable jurisdiction and ordered the parties to comply with an expedited briefing schedule and present their oral arguments at a special hearing on September 8, 2003. 539 U. S. 911. To simplify the presentation, we directed the parties challenging provisions of BCRA to proceed first on all issues, whether or not they prevailed on any issue in the District Court. Ibid. Mindful of §403’s instruction that we expedite our disposition of these appeals to the greatest extent possible, we also consider each of the issues in order. Accordingly, we first, turn our attention to Title I of BCRA.
III
Title I is Congress’ effort to plug the soft-money loophole. The cornerstone of Title I is new FECA ■§ 323(a), which prohibits national party committees and their agents from soliciting, receiving, directing, or spending any soft money. 2 U. S. C. § 441i(a) (Supp. II). In short, § 323(a) takes national parties out of the soft-money business.
The remaining provisions of new FECA §323 largely reinforce the restrictions in § 323(a). New FECA § 323(b) prevents the wholesale shift of soft-money influence from national to state party committees by prohibiting state and local party committees from using such funds for activities that affect federal elections. 2 U. S. C. § 441i(b). These “Federal election activities],” defined in new FECA § 301(20)(A), are almost identical to the mixed-purpose activities that have long been regulated under the FEC’s pre-BCRA allocation regime. 2 U. S. C. §431(20)(A). New FECA § 323(d) reinforces these soft-money restrictions by prohibiting political parties from soliciting and donating funds to tax-exempt organizations that engage in electioneering activities. 2 U. S. C. §441i(d). New FECA § 323(e) restricts federal candidates and officeholders from receiving, spending, or soliciting soft money in connection with federal elections and limits their ability to do so in connection with state and local elections. 2 U. S. C. § 441i(e). Finally, new FECA § 323(f) prevents circumvention of the restrictions on national, state, and local party committees by prohibiting state and local candidates from raising and spending soft money to fund advertisements and other public communications that promote or attack federal candidates. 2 U. S. C. §441i(f).
Plaintiffs mount a facial First Amendment challenge to new FECA §323, as well as challenges based on the Elections Clause, U. S. Const., Art. I, §4, principles of federalism, and the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause. We address these challenges in turn.
A
In Buckley and subsequent cases, we have subjected restrictions on campaign expenditures to closer scrutiny than limits on campaign contributions. See, e. g., Federal Election Comm’n v. Beaumont, 539 U. S. 146, 161 (2003); see also Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U. S. 377, 387-388 (2000); Buckley, 424 U. S., at 19. In these cases we have recognized that contribution limits, unlike limits on expenditures, “entai[l] only a marginal restriction upon the contributor’s ability to engage in free communication.” Id., at 20; see also, e. g., Beaumont, supra, at 161; Shrink Missouri, supra, at 386-388. In Buckley we said:
“A contribution serves as a general expression of support for the candidate and his views, but does not communicate the underlying basis for the support. The quantity of communication by the contributor does not increase perceptibly with the size of the contribution, since the expression rests solely on the undifferentiated, symbolic act of contributing. At most, the size of the contribution provides a very rough index of the intensity of the contributor’s support for the candidate. A limitation on the amount of money a person may give to a candidate or campaign organization thus involves little direct restraint on his political communication, for it permits the symbolic expression of support evidenced by a contribution but does not in any way infringe the contributor’s freedom to discuss candidates and issues. While contributions may result in political expression if spent by a candidate or an association to present views to the voters, the transformation of contributions into political debate involves speech by someone other than the contributor.” 424 U. S., at 21 (footnote omitted).
Because.the communicative value of large contributions inheres mainly in their ability to facilitate the speech of their recipients, we have said that contribution limits impose serious burdens on free speech only if they are so low as to “prevent] candidates and political committees from amassing the resources necessary for effective advocacy.” Ibid.
We have recognized that contribution limits may bear “more heavily on the associational right than on freedom to speak,” Shrink Missouri, supra, at 388, since contributions serve “to affiliate a person with a candidate” and “enabl[e] like-minded persons to pool their resources,” Buckley, 424 U. S., at 22. Unlike expenditure limits, however, which “preclud[ej most associations from effectively amplifying the voice of their adherents,” contribution limits both “leave the contributor free to become a member of any political association and to assist personally in the association’s efforts on behalf of candidates,” and allow associations “to aggregate large sums of money to promote effective advocacy.” Ibid. The “overall effect” of dollar limits on contributions is “merely to require candidates and political committees to raise funds from a greater number of persons.” Id., at 21-22. Thus, a contribution limit involving even “‘significant interference’ ” with associational rights is nevertheless valid if it satisfies the “lesser demand” of being “ ‘closely drawn’ ” to match a “‘sufficiently important interest.’” Beaumont, supra, at 162 (quoting Shrink Missouri, supra, at 387-388).
Our treatment of contribution restrictions reflects more than the limited burdens they impose on First Amendment freedoms. It also reflects the importance of the interests that underlie contribution limits — interests in preventing “both the actual corruption threatened by large financial contributions and the eroding of public confidence in the electoral process through the appearance of corruption.” National Right to Work, 459 U. S., at 208; see also Federal Election Comm’n v. Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm., 533 U. S. 431, 440-441 (2001) (Colorado II). We have said that these interests directly implicate “‘the integrity of our electoral process, and, not less, the responsibility of the individual citizen for the successful functioning of that process.’” National Right to Work, supra, at 208 (quoting Automobile Workers, 352 U. S., at 570). Because the electoral process is the very “means through which a free society democratically translates political speech into concrete governmental action,” Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 401 (Breyer, J., concurring), contribution limits, like other measures aimed at protecting the integrity of the process, tangibly benefit public participation in political debate. For that reason, when reviewing Congress’ decision to enact contribution limits, “there is no place for a strong presumption against constitutionality, of the sort often thought to accompany the words ‘strict scrutiny.’” Id., at 400 (Breyer, J., concurring). The less rigorous standard of review we have applied to contribution limits (Buckley’s “closely drawn” scrutiny) shows proper deference to Congress’ ability to weigh competing constitutional interests in an area in which it enjoys particular expertise. It also provides Congress with sufficient room to anticipate and respond to concerns about circumvention of regulations designed to protect the integrity of the political process.
Our application of this less rigorous degree of scrutiny has given rise to significant criticism in the past from our dissenting colleagues. See, e. g., Shrink Missouri, 528 U. S., at 405-410 (Kennedy, J., dissenting); id., at 410-420 (Thomas, J.; dissenting); Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Comm. v. Federal Election Comm’n, 518 U. S. 604, 635-644 (1996) (Colorado I) (Thomas, J., dissenting). We have rejected such criticism in previous cases for the reasons identified above. We are also mindful of the fact that in its lengthy deliberations leading to the enactment of BCRA, Congress properly relied on the recognition of its authority contained in Buckley and its progeny. Considerations of stare decisis, buttressed by the respect that the Legislative and Judicial Branches owe to one another, provide additional powerful reasons for adhering to the analysis of contribution limits that the Court has consistently followed since Buckley was decided. See Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U. S. 197, 202 (1991).
Like the contribution limits we upheld in Buckley, § 323’s restrictions have only a marginal impact on the ability of contributors, candidates, officeholders, and parties to engage in effective political speech. Beaumont, 539 U. S., at 161. Complex as its provisions may be, §323, in the main, does little more than regulate the ability of wealthy individuals, corporations, and unions to contribute large sums of money to influence federal elections, federal candidates, and federal officeholders.
Plaintiffs contend that we must apply strict scrutiny to § 323 because many of its provisions restrict not only contributions but also the spending and solicitation of funds raised outside of FECA’s contribution limits. But for purposes of determining the level of scrutiny, it is irrelevant that Congress chose in § 323 to regulate contributions on the demand rather than the supply side. See, e.g., National Right to Work,
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 Souter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Bankruptcy Code’s provisions for discharge stop short of certain debts resulting from “false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud.” 11 U. S. C. § 523(a)(2)(A). In this case we consider the level of a creditor’s reliance on a fraudulent misrepresentation necessary to place a debt thus beyond release. While the Court of Appeals followed a rule requiring reasonable reliance on the statement, we hold the standard to be the less demanding one of justifiable reliance and accordingly vacate and remand.
I
In June 1987, petitioners William and Norinne Field sold real estate for $462,500 to a corporation controlled by respondent Philip W. Mans, who supplied $275,000 toward the purchase price and personally guaranteed a promissory note for $187,500 secured by a second mortgage on the property. The mortgage deed had a clause calling for the Fields’ consent to any conveyance of the encumbered real estate during the term of the secured indebtedness, failing which the entire unpaid balance on the note would become payable upon a sale unauthorized.
On October 8, 1987, Mans’s corporation triggered application of the clause by conveying the property to a newly formed partnership without the Fields’ knowledge or consent. The next day, Mans wrote to the Fields asking them not for consent to the conveyance but for a waiver of their rights under the due-on-sale clause, saying that he sought to avoid any claim that the clause might apply to arrangements to add a new principal to his land development organization. The letter failed to mention that Mans had already caused the property to be conveyed. The Fields responded with an offer to waive if Mans paid them $10,500. Mans answered with a lower bid, to pay only $500, and again failed to disclose the conveyance. There were no further written communications.
The ensuing years brought a precipitous drop in real estate prices, and on December 10, 1990, Mans petitioned the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Hampshire for relief under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. On the following February 6, the Fields learned of the October 1987 conveyance, which their lawyer had discovered at the registry of deeds. In their subsequent complaint in the bankruptcy proceeding, they argued that some $150,000 had become due upon the 1987 conveyance for which Mans had become liable as guarantor, and that his obligation should be excepted from discharge under § 523(a)(2)(A) of the Bankruptcy Code, 11 U. S. C. § 523(a)(2)(A), as a debt resulting from fraud.
The Bankruptcy Court found that Mans’s letters constituted false representations on which petitioners had relied to their detriment in extending credit. The court followed Circuit precedent, however, see In re Burgess, 955 F. 2d 134 (CA1 1992), in requiring the Fields to make a further showing of reasonable reliance, defined as “what would be reasonable for a prudent man to do under those circumstances.” App. 43-44. The court held that a reasonable person would have checked for any conveyance after the exchange of letters, and that the Fields had unreasonably ignored further reason to investigate in 1988, when Mr. Field’s boss told him of a third party claiming to be the owner of the property. Having found the Fields unreasonable in relying without further enquiry on Mans’s implicit misrepresentation about the state of the title, the court held Mans’s debt dischargeable.
The District Court affirmed, likewise following Circuit precedent in holding that § 523(a)(2)(A) requires reasonable reliance to exempt a debt from discharge, and finding the Bankruptcy Court’s judgment supported by adequate indication in the record that the Fields had relied without sufficient reason. The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed judgment for the Bankruptcy Court’s reasons. Judgt. order reported at 36 F. 3d 1089 (1994).
We granted certiorari, 514 U. S. 1095 (1995), to resolve a conflict among the Circuits over the level of reliance that § 523(a)(2)(A) requires a creditor to demonstrate.
II
The provisions for discharge of a bankrupt’s debts, 11 U. S. C. §§727, 1141, 1228, and 1328(b), are subject to exception under 11 U. S. C. § 523(a), which carries 16 subsections setting out categories of nondischargeable debts. Two of these are debts traceable to falsity or fraud or to a materially false financial statement, as set out in § 523(a)(2):
“(a) A discharge under section 727, 1141, 1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt—
“(2) for money, property, services, or an extension, renewal, or refinancing of credit, to the extent obtained by—
“(A) false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud, other than a statement respecting the debtor’s or an insider’s financial condition; [or]
“(B) use of a statement in writing—
“(i) that is materially false;
“(ii) respecting the debtor’s or an insider’s financial condition;
“(iii) on which the creditor to whom the debtor is liable for such money, property, services, or credit reasonably relied; and
“(iv) that the debtor caused to be made or published with intent to deceive.”
These provisions were not innovations in their most recent codification, the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (Act), Pub. L. 95-598, 92 Stat. 2590, but had obvious antecedents in the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 (1898 Act), as amended, 30 Stat. 544. The precursor to § 523(a)(2)(A) was created when § 17(a)(2) of the 1898 Act was modified by an amendment in 1903, which provided that debts that were “liabilities for obtaining property by false pretenses or false representations” would not be affected by any discharge granted to a bankrupt, who would still be required to pay them. Act of Feb. 5,1903, ch. 487, 32 Stat. 798. This language inserted in § 17(a)(2) was changed only slightly between 1903 and 1978, at which time the section was recodified as § 523(a)(2)(A) and amended to read as quoted above. Thus, since 1903 the statutory language at issue here merely progressed from “false pretenses or false representations” to “false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud, other than a statement respecting the debtor’s or an insider’s financial condition.”
Section 523(a)(2)(B), however, is the product of more active evolution. The germ of its presently relevant language was also inserted into the 1898 Act by a 1903 amendment, which barred any discharge by a bankrupt who obtained property by use of a materially false statement in writing made for the purpose of obtaining the credit. Act of Feb. 5, 1903, ch. 487, 32 Stat. 797-798. The provision did not explicitly require an intent to deceive or set any level of reliance, but Congress modified its language in 1960 by adding the requirements that the debtor intend to deceive the creditor and that the creditor rely on the false statement, and by limiting its application to false financial statements. Act of July 12, 1960, Pub. L. 86-621, 74 Stat. 409. In 1978, Congress rewrote the provision as set out above and recodified it as § 523(a)(2)(B). Though the forms of the 1960 and 1978 provisions are quite different, the only distinction relevant here is that the 1978 version added a new element of reasonable reliance.
The sum of all this history is two close statutory companions barring discharge. One applies expressly when the debt follows a transfer of value or extension of credit induced by falsity or fraud (not going to financial condition), the other when the debt follows a transfer or extension induced by a materially false and intentionally deceptive written statement of financial condition upon which the creditor reasonably relied.
Ill
The question here is what, if any, level of justification a creditor needs to show above mere reliance in fact in order to exempt the debt from discharge under § 523(a)(2)(A). The text that we have just reviewed does not say in so many words. While § 523(a)(2)(A) speaks of debt for value “obtained by... false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud,” it does not define those terms or so much as mention the creditor’s reliance as such, let alone the level of reliance required. No one, of course, doubts that some degree of reliance is required to satisfy the element of causation inherent in the phrase “obtained by,” but the Government, as amicus curiae (like petitioners in a portion of their brief), submits that the minimum level will do. It argues that when § 523(a)(2)(A) is understood in its statutory context, it requires mere reliance in fact, not reliance that is reasonable under the circumstances. Both petitioners and the Government note that § 523(a)(2)(B) expressly requires reasonable reliance, while § 523(a)(2)(A) does not. They emphasize that the precursors to §§ 523(a)(2)(A) and (B) lacked any reasonableness requirement, and that Congress added an element of reasonable reliance to § 523(a)(2)(B) in 1978, but not to § 523(a)(2)(A). They contend that the addition to § 523(a) (2)(B) alone supports an inference that, in § 523(a)(2)(A), Congress did not intend to require reasonable reliance, over and above actual reliance. But this argument is unsound.
The argument relies on the apparent negative pregnant, under the rule of construction that an express statutory requirement here, contrasted with statutory silence there, shows an intent to confine the requirement to the specified instance. See Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S. 395, 404 (1991) (“ ‘[WJhere Congress includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another section of the same Act, it is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely in the disparate inclusion or exclusion’ ”) (quoting Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23 (1983)). Thus the failure of § 523(a)(2)(A) to require the reasonableness of reliance demanded by § 523(a)(2)(B) shows that (A) lacks such a requirement. Without more, the inference might be a helpful one. But there is more here, showing why the negative pregnant argument should not be elevated to the level of interpretive trump card.
First, assuming the argument to be sound, the most it would prove is that the reasonableness standard was not intended. But our job does not end with rejecting reasonableness as the standard. We have to discover the correct standard, and where there are multiple contenders remaining (as there are here), the inference from the negative pregnant does not finish the job.
There is, however, a more fundamental objection to depending on a negative pregnant argument here, for in the present circumstances there is reason to reject its soundness even as far as it goes. Quite simply, if it proves anything here, it proves too much. If the negative pregnant is the reason that § 523(a)(2)(A) has no reasonableness requirement, then the same reasoning will strip paragraph (A) of any requirement to establish a causal connection between the misrepresentation and the transfer of value or extension of credit, and it will eliminate scienter from the very notion of fraud. Section 523(a)(2)(B) expressly requires not only reasonable reliance but also reliance itself; and not only a representation but also one that is material; and not only one that is material but also one that is meant to deceive. Section 523(a)(2)(A) speaks in the language neither of reliance nor of materiality nor of intentionality. If the contrast is enough to preclude a reasonableness requirement, it will do as well to show that the debtor need not have misrepresented intentionally, the statement need not have been material, and the creditor need not have relied. But common sense would balk. If Congress really had wished to bar discharge to a debtor who made unintentional and wholly immaterial misrepresentations having no effect on a creditor’s decision, it could have provided that. It would, however, take a very clear provision to convince anyone of anything so odd, and nothing so odd has ever been apparent to the courts that have previously construed this statute, routinely requiring intent, reliance, and materiality before applying § 523(a)(2)(A). See, e. g., In re Phillips, 804 F. 2d 930 (CA6 1986); In re Martin, 963 F. 2d 809 (CA5 1992); In re Menna, 16 F. 3d 7 (CA1 1994).
The attempt to draw an inference from the inclusion of reasonable reliance in § 523(a)(2)(B), moreover, ignores the significance of a historically persistent textual difference between the substantive terms in §§ 523(a)(2)(A) and (B): the former refer to common-law torts, and the latter do not. The principal phrase in the predecessor of § 523(a)(2)(B) was “obtained property... upon a materially false statement in writing,” Act of Feb. 5, 1903, ch. 487, 32 Stat. 797; in the current § 523(a)(2)(B) it is value “obtained by... use of a statement in writing.” Neither phrase is apparently traceable to another context where it might have been construed to include elements that need not be set out separately. If other elements are to be added to “statement in writing,” the statutory language must add them (and of course it would need to add them to keep this exception to discharge-ability from swallowing most of the rule). The operative terms in § 523(a)(2)(A), on the other hand, “false pretenses, a false representation, or actual fraud,” carry the acquired meaning of terms of art. They are common-law terms, and, as we will shortly see in the case of “actual fraud,” which concerns us here, they imply elements that the common law has defined them to include. See Durland, v. United States, 161 U. S. 306, 312 (1896); James-Dickinson Farm Mortgage Co. v. Harry, 273 U. S. 119, 121 (1927). Congress could have enumerated their elements, but Congress’s contrary drafting choice did not deprive them of a significance richer than the bare statement of their terms.
IV
“It is... well established that ‘[w]here Congress uses terms that have accumulated settled meaning under... the common law, a court must infer, unless the statute otherwise dictates, that Congress means to incorporate the established meaning of these terms.’” Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730, 739 (1989) (quoting NLRB v. Amax Coal Co., 453 U. S. 322, 329 (1981)); see also Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 322 (1992). In this case, neither the structure of § 523(a)(2) nor any explicit statement in § 523(a)(2)(A) reveals, let alone dictates, the particular level of reliance required by § 523(a)(2)(A), and there is no reason to doubt Congress’s intent to adopt a common-law understanding of the terms it used.
Since the District Court treated Mans’s conduct as amounting to fraud, we will look to the concept of “actual fraud” as it was understood in 1978 when that language was added to § 523(a)(2)(A). Then, as now, the most widely accepted distillation of the common law of torts was the Restatement (Second) of Torts (1976), published shortly before Congress passed the Act. The section on point dealing with fraudulent misrepresentation states that both actual and “justifiable” reliance are required. Id., § 537. The Restatement expounds upon justifiable reliance by explaining that a person is justified in relying on a representation of fact “although he might have ascertained the falsity of the representation had he made an investigation.” Id., §540. Significantly for our purposes, the illustration is given of a seller of land who says it is free of encumbrances; according to the Restatement, a buyer’s reliance on this factual representation is justifiable, even if he could have “walk[ed] across the street to the office of the register of deeds in the courthouse” and easily have learned of an unsatisfied mortgage. Id., § 540, Illustration 1. The point is otherwise made in a later section noting that contributory negligence is no bar to recovery because fraudulent misrepresentation is an intentional tort. Here a contrast between a justifiable and reasonable reliance is clear: “Although the plaintiff’s reliance on the misrepresentation must be justifiable... this does not mean that his conduct must conform to the standard of the reasonable man. Justification is a matter of the qualities and characteristics of the particular plaintiff, and the circumstances of the particular case, rather than of the application of a community standard of conduct to all cases.” Id., §545A, Comment b. Justifiability is not without some limits, however. As a comment to § 541 explains, a person is
“required to use his senses, and cannot recover if he blindly relies upon a misrepresentation the falsity of which would be patent to him if he had utilized his opportunity to make a cursory examination or investigation. Thus, if one induces another to buy a horse by representing it to be sound, the purchaser cannot recover even though the horse has but one eye, if the horse is shown to the purchaser before he buys it and the slightest inspection would have disclosed the defect. On the other hand, the rule stated in this Section applies only when the recipient of the misrepresentation is capable of appreciating its falsity at the time by the use of his senses. Thus a defect that any experienced horseman would at once recognize at first glance may not be patent to a person who has had no experience with horses.” Id., § 541, Comment a.
A missing eye in a “sound” horse is one thing; long teeth in a “young” one, perhaps, another.
Similarly, the edition of Prosser’s Law of Torts available in 1978 (as well as its current successor) states that justifiable reliance is the standard applicable to a victim’s conduct in cases of alleged misrepresentation and that “[i]t is only where, under the circumstances, the facts should be apparent to one of his knowledge and intelligence from a cursory glance, or he has discovered something which should serve as a warning that he is being deceived, that he is required to make an investigation of his own.” W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 108, p. 718 (4th ed. 1971) (footnotes omitted); accord, W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 108, p. 752 (5th ed. 1984) (Prosser & Keeton). Prosser represents common-law authority as rejecting the reasonable person standard here, stating that “the matter seems to turn upon an individual standard of the plaintiff’s own capacity and the knowledge which he has, or which may fairly be charged against him from the facts within his observation in the light of his individual case.” Prosser, supra, § 108, at 717; accord, Prosser & Keeton § 108, at 751; see also 1 F. Harper & F. James, Law of Torts §7.12, pp. 581-583 (1956) (rejecting reasonableness standard in misrepresentation cases in favor of justifiability and stating that “by the distinct tendency of modern cases, the plaintiff is entitled to rely upon representations of fact of such a character as to require some kind of investigation or examination on his part to discover their falsity, and a defendant who has been guilty of conscious misrepresentation can not offer as a defense the plaintiff’s failure to make the investigation or examination to verify the same”) (footnote omitted); accord, 2 F. Harper, F. James, & O. Gray, Law of Torts §7.12, pp. 455-458 (2d ed. 1986).
These authoritative syntheses surely spoke (and speak today) for the prevailing view of the American common-law courts. Of the 46 States that, as of November 6, 1978 (the day the Act became law), had articulated the required level of reliance in a common-law fraud action, 5 required reasonable reliance, 5 required mere reliance in fact, and 36 required an intermediate level of reliance, most frequently referred to as justifiable reliance. Following our established practice of finding Congress’s meaning in the generally shared common law when common-law terms are used without further specification, we hold that § 523(a)(2)(A) requires justifiable, but not reasonable, reliance. See In re Vann, 67 F. 3d 277 (CA11 1995); In re Kirsh, 973 F. 2d 1454 (CA9 1992).
It should go without saying that our analysis does not relegate all reasoning from a negative pregnant to the rubbish heap, or render the reasonableness of reliance wholly irrelevant under § 523(a)(2)(A). As for the rule of construction, of course it is not illegitimate, but merely limited. The more apparently deliberate the contrast, the stronger the inference, as applied, for example, to contrasting statutory sections originally enacted simultaneously in relevant respects, see Gozlon-Peretz v. United States, 498 U. S., at 404 (noting that a single enactment created provisions with language that differed). Even then, of course, it may go no further than ruling out one of several possible readings as the wrong one. The rule is weakest when it suggests results strangely at odds with other textual pointers, like the common-law language at work in the statute here. See Alaska Airlines, Inc. v. Brock, 480 U. S. 678, 690-691 (1987).
As for the reasonableness of reliance, our reading of the Act does not leave reasonableness irrelevant, for the greater the distance between the reliance claimed and the limits of the reasonable, the greater the doubt about reliance in fact. Naifs may recover, at common law and in bankruptcy, but lots of creditors are not at all naive. The subjectiveness of justifiability cuts both ways, and reasonableness goes to the probability of actual reliance.
V
There remains a fair question that ought to be faced. It makes sense to protect a creditor even if he was not quite reasonable in relying on a fraudulent representation; fraudulence weakens the debtor’s claim to consideration. And yet, why should the rule be different when fraud is carried to the point of a written financial statement? Does it not count against our reading of the statute that a debtor who makes a misrepresentation with the formality of a written financial statement may have less to bear than the debtor who commits his fraud by a statement, perhaps oral, about something other than his bank balance? One could answer that the question does have its force, but counter it by returning to the statutory history and asking why Congress failed to place a requirement of reasonable reliance in § 523(a)(2)(A) if it meant all debtors to be in the same boat. But there may be a better answer, tied to the peculiar potential of financial statements to be misused not just by debtors, but by creditors who know their bankruptcy law. The House Report on the Act suggests that Congress wanted to moderate the burden on individuals who submitted false financial statements, not because lies about financial condition are less blameworthy than others, but because the relative equities might be affected by practices of consumer finance companies, which sometimes have encouraged such falsity by their borrowers for the very purpose of insulating their own claims from discharge. The answer softens the ostensible anomaly.
VI
In this case, the Bankruptcy Court applied a reasonable person test entailing a duty to investigate. The court stated that
“the case law establishes an objective test, and that is what would be reasonable for a prudent man to do under those circumstances. At a minimum, a prudent man, I think, would have asked his attorney, could he transfer it without my consent? And the answer would have to be yes, and then the next question would be, well, let’s see if he’s done it? And those questions simply were not asked, and I don’t think on balance that was reasonable reliance.” App. 43-44.
Because the Bankruptcy Court’s requirement of reasonableness clearly exceeds the demand of justifiable reliance that we hold to apply under § 523(a)(2)(A), we vacate the judgment and remand the case for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Although we observe the distinction between Mans and his corporations, the record before us does not indicate that the parties thought anything should turn on treating them separately. As the case comes to us, Mans is presented as the originator of both debt and misrepresentation.
Here, Mans argues that neither he nor his corporation obtained any extension of credit at the time of the alleged fraud or thereafter. Since this issue was never raised previously and is not fairly subsumed within the question on which we granted certiorari, we do not reach it.
Mr. Field testified in the Bankruptcy Court proceeding that he asked Mans in 1988 about the report of a conveyance and that Mans indicated he had not conveyed the property, App. 14-15, but Mr. Field later testified that he had not confronted Mans on the issue, id., at 26-27. The Bankruptcy Court made no finding about any such conversation.
Compare In re Ophaug, 827 F. 2d 340 (CA8 1987); In re Mayer, 51 F. 3d 670 (CA7 1995); In re Allison, 960 F. 2d 481 (CA5 1992), with In re Burgess, 955 F. 2d 134 (CA1 1992); In re Mullet, 817 F. 2d 677 (CA10 1987).
The one intervening change to the quoted language was that “obtaining property” became “obtaining money or property.” Act of June 22, 1938, 52 Stat. 851.
The 1960 amendments also transferred the language on false financial statements by individuals from §14 (where it barred any discharge) to § 17(a)(2) (where it barred discharge of only the specific debt incurred as a result of the false financial statement). Thus, as of 1960 the relevant portion of § 17(a)(2) provided that discharge would not release a bankrupt from debts that
“are liabilities for obtaining money or property by false pretenses or false representations, or for obtaining money or property on credit or obtaining an extension or renewal of credit in reliance upon a materially false statement in writing respecting [the bankrupt’s] financial condition made or published or caused to be made or published in any manner whatsoever with intent to deceive.” Act of July 12,1960, Pub. L. 86-621,74 Stat. 409.
The fact that § 523(a)(2) uses the terra “obtained by” does not avoid this problem, for two reasons. First, “obtained by” applies to both §§ 523(a)(2)(A) and (B); if it supplies the elements of materiality, intent to deceive, and actual reliance it renders § 523(a)(2)(B)’s inclusion of materiality and intent to deceive redundant. More to the point, it renders Congress’s addition of the requirements of actual reliance and intent to deceive to the precursor of § 523(a)(2)(B) (§ 17(a)(2) of the 1898 Act) in 1960 nonsensical, since that provision also had the “obtained by” language. Second, it seems impossible to construe “obtained by” as encompassing a requirement of intent to deceive; one can obtain credit by a misrepresentation even if one has no intention of doing so (for example, by unintentionally writing that one has an annual income of $100,000, rather than $10,000, in applying for a loan).
Although we do not mean to suggest that the requisite level of reliance would differ if there should be a case of false pretense or representation but not of fraud, there is no need to settle that here.
We construe the terms in § 523(a)(2)(A) to incorporate the general common law of torts, the dominant consensus of common-law jurisdictions, rather than the law of any particular State. See Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Darden, 503 U. S. 318, 323, n. 3 (1992); Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid, 490 U. S. 730, 740 (1989).
See Polansky v. Orlove, 252 Md. 619, 624-625, 251 A. 2d 201, 204 (1969) (stating that purchaser must show reasonable reliance); Cudemo v. Al and Lou Construction Co., 54 App. Div. 2d 995, 996, 387 N. Y. S. 2d 929, 930 (1976) (referring to justifiable reliance but imposing duty to investigate); Works v. Wyche, 344 S. W. 2d 193,198 (Tex. Civ. App. 1961) (requiring reasonable reliance); Jardine v. Brunswick Corp., 18 Utah 2d 378, 382, 423 P. 2d 659, 662 (1967) (requiring reasonable reliance); Horner v. Ahern, 207 Va. 860, 863-864,153 S. E. 2d 216, 219 (1967) (stating that, if purchaser is given information that would excite suspicions of reasonably prudent man, he has a duty to investigate).
See Beavers v. Lamplighters Realty, Inc., 556 P. 2d 1328, 1331 (Okla. App. 1976) (requiring actual reliance only); Campanelli v. Vescera, 75 R. I. 71, 74-75, 63 A. 2d 722, 724 (1949) (stating that actual reliance is sufficient, notwithstanding relying party’s failure to investigate or verify); Negyessy v. Strong, 136 Vt. 193, 194-195, 388 A. 2d 383, 385 (1978) (stating that actual reliance is sufficient, even if plaintiff might have discovered the wrong but for his own neglect); Horton v. Tyree, 104 W. Va. 238, 242, 139 S. E. 737, 738 (1927) (holding that one to whom a representation is made has the right to rely without any further inquiry); Johnson v. Soulis, 542 P. 2d 867, 872 (Wyo. 1975) (requiring actual reliance only).
See Franklin v. Nunnelley, 242 Ala. 87, 89, 5 So. 2d 99, 101 (1941) (stating that there is no duty to investigate in absence of anything that would arouse suspicion); Thomson v. Wheeler Construction Co., 385 P. 2d 111, 113 (Alaska 1963) (stating that justifiable reliance is the appropriate standard); Barnes v. Lopez, 25 Ariz. App. 477, 480, 544 P. 2d 694, 697 (1976) (holding that purchaser had no duty to investigate); Fausett & Co. v. Bullard, 217 Ark. 176, 179-180, 229 S. W. 2d 490,491-492 (1950) (relying on Restatement of Torts § 540 (1938) (hereinafter Restatement (First)), which applies the same rule as in Restatement (Second) of Torts § 540 (1976)); Seeger v. Odell, 18 Cal. 2d 409, 414-415, 115 P. 2d 977, 980-981 (1941) (relying on Restatement (First) and W. Prosser, Law of Torts (1941)); Monte Verde v. Moore, 539 P. 2d 1362, 1365 (Colo. App. 1975) (requiring justifiable reliance and distinguishing it from reasonable reliance); Ford v. H. W. Dubiskie & Co., 105 Conn. 572, 577-578, 136 A. 560, 562-563 (1927) (stating that no investigation is necessary for reliance to be justified); Eastern States Petroleum Co. v. Universal Oil Products Co., 24 Del. Ch. 11, 28-29, 3 A. 2d 768, 776-777 (1939) (holding that buyer had right to rely without investigating); Board of Public Instruction v. Everett W. Martin & Son, Inc., 97 So. 2d 21, 26-27 (Fla. 1957) (holding that purchaser had no duty to investigate where seller made clear factual representation); City Dodge, Inc. v. Gardner, 232 Ga. 766, 770, 208 S. E. 2d 794, 797 (1974) (requiring justifiable reliance); Sorenson v. Adams, 98 Idaho 708, 715, 571 P. 2d 769, 776 (1977) (stating that neither purchasers’ lack of caution in believing a factual misrepresentation nor their failure to make an independent investigation is a defense to their fraud action); Roda v. Berko, 401 Ill. 335, 342, 81 N. E. 2d 912, 916 (1948) (“[I]f it appears that one party has been guilty of an intentional and deliberate fraud, the doctrine is well settled that he cannot defend against such fraud by saying that the same might have been discovered had the party whom he deceived exercised reasonable diligence and care”); Gonderman v. State Exchange Bank, 166 Ind. App. 181, 190, 334 N. E. 2d 724, 729 (1975) (stating that level of required prudence depends on whether the recipient of a representation is unwary); Sutton v. Greiner, 177 Iowa 532, 540-541, 159 N. W. 268, 271-272 (1916) (same as Illinois); Prather v. Colorado Oil & Gas Corp., 218 Kan. 111,
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.
On April 11, 1962, petitioner pleaded not guilty to federal narcotics charges; thereafter, on July 18, 1962, he was permitted to withdraw this plea and plead guilty; in November 1962, when the case came on for sentencing, he moved to withdraw his guilty plea because of facts and circumstances which had changed since the time of the plea, including petitioner’s extensive cooperation with the Government. The Government acquiesced in this motion, but the district judge denied it, holding that he had no power to permit withdrawal of the plea on such grounds. The court sentenced petitioner to the minimum statutory term of imprisonment and the Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction, 323 F. 2d 936.
The Government now says that it consented to petitioner’s motion to withdraw his plea because it “planned to dismiss the pending indictment against petitioner and substitute lesser charges.” The Government admits that this purpose was not expressly stated and that “it may be that the court was misled.”
In these circumstances, we believe that the court has discretion to permit withdrawal of the plea. See Kercheval v. United States, 274 U. S. 220, 224 (1927). Accordingly, we grant the petition for certiorari, vacate the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 petitioner was convicted upon information in the Municipal Court of Chicago of violating § 224a of the Illinois Criminal Code, Ill. Rev. Stat,, 1949, c. 38, Div. 1, § 471. He was fined $200. The section provides:
“It shall be unlawful for any person, firm or corporation to manufacture, sell, or offer for sale, advertise or publish, present or exhibit in any public place in this state any lithograph, moving picture, play, drama or sketch, which publication or exhibition portrays depravity, criminality, unchastity, or lack of virtue of a class of citizens, of any race, color, creed or religion which said publication or exhibition exposes the citizens of any race, color, creed or religion to contempt, derision, or obloquy or which is productive of breach of the peace or riots...
Beauharnais challenged the statute as violating the liberty of speech and of the press guaranteed as against the States by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and as too vague, under the restrictions implicit in the same Clause, to support conviction for crime. The Illinois courts rejected these contentions and sustained defendant’s conviction. 408 Ill. 512, 97 N. E. 2d 343. We granted certiorari in view of the serious questions raised concerning the limitations imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment on the power of a State to punish utterances promoting friction among racial and religious groups. 342 U. S. 809.
The information, cast generally in the terms of the statute, charged that Beauharnais “did unlawfully... exhibit in public places lithographs, which publications portray depravity, criminality, unchastity or lack of virtue of citizens of Negro race and color and which exposes [sic] citizens of Illinois of the Negro race and color to contempt, derision, or obloquy....” The lithograph complained of was a leaflet setting forth a petition calling on the Mayor and City Council of Chicago “to halt the further encroachment, harassment and invasion of white people, their property, neighborhoods and persons, by the Negro....” Below was a call for “One million self respecting white people in Chicago to unite....” with the statement added that “If persuasion and the need to prevent the white race from becoming mongrelized by the negro will not unite us, then the aggressions... rapes, robberies, knives, guns and marijuana of the negro, surely will.” This, with more language, similar if not so violent, concluded with an attached application for membership in the White Circle League of America, Inc.
The testimony at the trial was substantially undisputed. From it the jury could find that Beauharnais was president of the White Circle League; that, at a meeting on January 6, 1950, he passed out bundles of the lithographs in question, together with other literature, to volunteers for distribution on downtown Chicago street corners the following day; that he carefully organized that distribution, giving detailed instructions for it; and that the leaflets were in fact distributed on January 7 in accordance with his plan and instructions. The court, together with other charges on burden of proof and the like, told the jury “if you find... that the defendant, Joseph Beauharnais, did... manufacture, sell, or offer for sale, advertise or publish, present or exhibit in any public place the lithograph... then you are to find the defendant guilty....” He refused to charge the jury, as requested by the defendant, that in order to convict they must find “that the article complained of was likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance or unrest.” Upon this evidence and these instructions, the jury brought in the conviction here for review.
The statute before us is not a catchall enactment left at large by the State court which applied it. Cf. Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88; Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 307. It is a law specifically directed at a defined evil, its language drawing from history and practice in Illinois and in more than a score of other jurisdictions a meaning confirmed by the Supreme Court of that State in upholding this conviction. We do not, therefore, parse the statute as grammarians or treat it as an abstract exercise in lexicography. We read it in the animating context of well-defined usage, Nash v. United States, 229 U. S. 373, and State court construction which determines its meaning for us. Cox v. New Hampshire, 312 U. S. 569; Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U. S. 568.
The Illinois Supreme Court tells us that § 224a “is a form of criminal libel law.” 408 Ill. 512, 517, 97 N. E. 2d 343, 346. The defendant, the trial court and the Supreme Court consistently treated it as such. The defendant offered evidence tending to prove the truth of parts of the utterance, and the courts below considered and disposed of this offer in terms of ordinary criminal libel precedents. Section 224a does not deal with the defense of truth, but by the Illinois Constitution, Art. II, § 4, “in all trials for libel, both civil and criminal, the truth, when published with good motives and for justifiable ends, shall be a sufficient defense.” See also Ill. Rev. Stat., 1949, c. 38, § 404. Similarly, the action of the trial court in deciding as a matter of law the libelous character of the utterance, leaving to the jury only the question of publication, follows the settled rule in prosecutions for libel in Illinois and other States. Moreover, the Supreme Court’s characterization of the words prohibited by the statute as those “liable to cause violence and disorder” paraphrases the traditional justification for punishing libels criminally, namely their “tendency to cause breach of the peace.”
Libel of an individual was a common-law crime, and thus criminal in the colonies. Indeed, at common law, truth or good motives was no defense. In the first decades after the adoption of the Constitution, this was changed by judicial decision, statute or constitution in most States, but nowhere was there any suggestion that the crime of libel be abolished. Today, every American jurisdiction — the forty-eight States, the District of Columbia, Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico — punish libels directed at individuals. “There are certain well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech, the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any Constitutional problem. These include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or 'fighting’ words — those which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. It has been well observed that such utter-anees are no essential part of any exposition of ideas, and are of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality. ‘Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.’ Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 309-310.” Such were the views of a unanimous Court in Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, supra, at 571-572.
No one will gainsay that it is libelous falsely to charge another with being a rapist, robber, carrier of knives and guns, and user of marijuana. The precise question before us, then, is whether the protection of “liberty” in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prevents a State from punishing such libels — as criminal libel has been defined, limited and constitutionally recognized time out of mind — directed at designated collectivities and flagrantly disseminated. There is even authority, however dubious, that such utterances were also crimes at common law. It is certainly clear that some American jurisdictions have sanctioned their punishment under ordinary criminal libel statutes. We cannot say, however, that the question is concluded by history and practice. But if an utterance directed at an individual may be the object of criminal sanctions, we cannot deny to a State power to punish the same utterance directed at a defined group, unless we can say that this is a wilful and purposeless restriction unrelated to the peace and well-being of the State.
Illinois did not have to look beyond her own borders or await the tragic experience of the last three decades to conclude that wilful purveyors of falsehood concerning racial and religious groups promote strife and tend powerfully to obstruct the manifold adjustments required for free, ordered life in a metropolitan, polyglot community. From the murder of the abolitionist Lovejoy in 1837 to the Cicero riots of 1951, Illinois has been the scene of exacerbated tension between races, often flaring into violence and destruction. In many of these outbreaks, utterances of the character here in question, so the Illinois legislature could conclude, played a significant part. The law was passed on June 29, 1917, at a time when the State was struggling to assimilate vast numbers of new inhabitants, as yet concentrated in discrete racial or national or religious groups — foreign-born brought to it by the crest of the great wave of immigration, and Negroes attracted by jobs in war plants and the allurements of northern claims. Nine years earlier, in the very city where the legislature sat, what is said to be the first northern race riot had cost the lives of six people, left hundreds of Negroes homeless and shocked citizens into action far beyond the borders of the State. Less than a month before the bill was enacted, East St. Louis had seen a day’s rioting, prelude to an outbreak, only four days after the bill became law, so bloody that it led to Congressional investigation. A series of bombings had begun which was to culminate two years later in the awful race riot which held Chicago in its grip for seven days in the summer of 1919. Nor has tension and violence between the groups defined in the statute been limited in Illinois to clashes between whites and Negroes.
In the face of this history and its frequent obligato of extreme racial and religious propaganda, we would deny experience to say that the Illinois legislature was without reason in seeking ways to curb false or malicious defamation of racial and religious groups, made in public places and by means calculated to have a powerful emotional impact on those to whom it was presented. “There are limits to the exercise of these liberties [of speech and of the press]. The danger in these times from the coercive activities of those who in the delusion of racial or religious conceit would incite violence and breaches of the peace in order to deprive others of their equal right to the exercise of their liberties, is emphasized by events familiar to all. These and other transgressions of those limits the States appropriately may punish.” This was the conclusion, again of a unanimous Court, in 1940. Cantwell v. Connecticut, supra, at 310.
It may be argued, and weightily, that this legislation will not help matters; that tension and on occasion violence between racial and religious groups must be traced to causes more deeply embedded in our society than the rantings of modern Know-Nothings. Only those lacking responsible humility will have a confident solution for problems as intractable as the frictions attributable to differences of race, color or religion. This being so, it would be out of bounds for the judiciary to deny the legislature a choice of policy, provided it is not unrelated to the problem and not forbidden by some explicit limitation on the State’s power. That the legislative remedy might not in practice mitigate the evil, or might itself raise new problems, would only manifest once more the paradox of reform. It is the price to be paid for the trial-and-error inherent in legislative efforts to deal with obstinate social issues. “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.” Anderson v. Dunn, 6 Wheat. 204, 226. Certainly the Due Process Clause does not require the legislature to be in the vanguard of science — especially sciences as young as human ecology and cultural anthropology. See Tigner v. Texas, 310 U. S. 141, 148.
Long ago this Court recognized that the economic rights of an individual may depend for the effectiveness of their enforcement on rights in the group, even though not formally corporate, to which he belongs. American Foundries v. Tri-City Council, 257 U. S. 184. Such group-protection on behalf of the individual may, for all we know, be a need not confined to the part that a trade union plays in effectuating rights abstractly recognized as belonging to its members. It is not within our competence to confirm or deny claims of social scientists as to the dependence of the individual on the position of his racial or religious group in the community. It would, however, be arrant dogmatism, quite outside the scope of our authority in passing on the powers of a State, for us to deny that the Illinois legislature may warrantably believe that a man’s job and his educational opportunities and the dignity accorded him may depend as much on the reputation of the racial and religious group to which he willy-nilly belongs, as on his own merits. This being so, we are precluded from saying that speech concededly punishable when immediately directed at individuals cannot be outlawed if directed at groups with whose position and esteem in society the affiliated individual may be inextricably involved.
We are warned that the choice open to the Illinois legislature here may be abused, that the law may be dis-criminatorily enforced; prohibiting libel of a creed or of a racial group, we are told, is but a step from prohibiting libel of a political party. Every power may be abused, but the possibility of abuse is a poor reason for denying Illinois the power to adopt measures against criminal libels sanctioned by centuries of Anglo-American law. “While this Court sits” it retains and exercises authority to nullify action which encroaches on freedom of utter-anee under the guise of punishing libel. Of course discussion cannot be denied and the right, as well as the duty, of criticism must not be be stifled.
~~The scope of the statute before us, as construed by the Illinois court, disposes of the contention that the conduct prohibited by the law is so ill-defined that judges and juries in applying the statute and men in acting cannot draw from it adequate standards to guide them. The clarifying construction and fixed usage which govern the meaning of the enactment before us were not present, so the Court found, in the New York law held invalid in Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507. Nor, thus construed and limited, is the act so broad that the general verdict of guilty on an indictment drawn in the statutory language might have been predicated on constitutionally protected conduct. On this score, the conviction here reviewed differs from those upset in Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, Thornhill v. Alabama, 310 U. S. 88, and Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1. Even the latter case did not hold that the unconstitutionality of a statute is established because the speech prohibited by it raises a ruckos.
It is suggested that while it was clearly within the constitutional power of Illinois to punish this utterance if the proceeding were properly safeguarded, in this particular case Illinois denied the defendant rights which the Due Process Clause commands. Specifically, it is argued that the defendant was not permitted to raise at the trial defenses constitutionally guaranteed in a criminal libel prosecution: (1) the defense of truth; (2) justification of the utterance as “fair comment”; and (3) its privilege as a means for redressing grievances.
Neither by proffer of evidence, requests for instructions, nor motion before or after verdict did the defendant seek to justify his utterance as “fair comment” or as privileged. Nor has the defendant urged as a ground for reversing his conviction in this Court that his opportunity to make those defenses was denied below. And so, whether a prosecution for libel of a racial or religious group is unconstitutionally invalid where the State did deny the defendant such opportunities is not before us. Certainly the State may cast the burden of justifying what is patent defamation upon the defamer. The benefits of hypothetical defenses, never raised below or pressed upon us, are not to be invoked in the abstract.
As to the defense of truth, Illinois in common with many States requires a showing not only that the utterance state the facts, but also that the publication be made “with good motives and for justifiable ends.” Ill. Const., Art. II, § 4. Both elements are necessary if the defense is to prevail. What has been called “the common sense of American criminal law,” as formulated, with regard to necessary safeguards in criminal libel prosecutions, in the New York Constitution of 1821, Art. VII, § 8, has been adopted in terms by Illinois. The teaching of a century and a half of criminal libel prosecutions in this country would go by the board if we were to hold that Illinois was not within her rights in making this combined requirement. Assuming that defendant’s offer of proof directed to a part of the defense was adequate, it did not satisfy the entire requirement which Illinois could exact.
Libelous utterances not being within the area of constitutionally protected speech, it is unnecessary, either for us or for the State courts, to consider the issues behind the phrase “clear and present danger.” Certainly no one would contend that obscene speech, for example, may be punished only upon a showing of such circumstances. Libel, as we have seen, is in the same class.
We find no warrant in the Constitution for denying to Illinois the power to pass the law here under attack. But it bears repeating — although it should not — that our finding that the law is not constitutionally objectionable carries no implication of approval of the wisdom of the legislation or of its efficacy. These questions may raise doubts in our minds as well as in others. It is not for us, however, to make the legislative judgment. We are not at liberty to erect those doubts into fundamental law.
Affirmed.
408 Ill. 512, 518, 97 N. E. 2d 343, 346-347. Illinois law requires that for the defense to prevail, the truth of all facts in the utterance must be shown together with good motive for publication. People v. Strauch, 247 Ill. 220, 93 N. E. 126; People v. Fuller, 238 Ill. 116, 87 N. E. 336; cf. Ogren v. Rockford Star Printing Co., 288 Ill. 405, 123 N. E. 587.
See, e. g., State v. Sterman, 199 Iowa 569, 202 N. W. 222; State v. Howard, 169 N. C. 312, 313, 84 S. E. 807-808; cf. Ogren v. Rockford Star Printing Co., supra.
See, e. g., People v. Spielman, 318 Ill. 482, 489, 149 N. E. 466, 469; Odgers, Libel and Slander (6th ed.), 368; 19 A. L. R. 1470. Some States hold, however, that injury to reputation, as in civil libel, and not tendency to breach of the peace, is the gravamen of the offense. See Tanenhaus, Group Libel, 35 Cornell L. Q. 261, 273 and n. 67.
For a brief account of this development see Warren, History of the American Bar, 236-239. See also correspondence between Chief Justice Cushing of Massachusetts and John Adams, published in 27 Mass. L. Q. 11-16 (Oct. 1942). Jefferson explained in a letter to Abigail Adams, dated September 11, 1804, that to strike down the Alien and Sedition Act would not “remove all restraint from the overwhelming torrent of slander which is confounding all vice and virtue, all truth and falsehood in the US. The power to do that is fully possessed by the several state legislatures.” See Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, 522, n. 4. See Miller, Crisis in Freedom, 168-169, 231-232. See also provisions as to criminal libel in Edward Livingston’s famous draft System of Penal Law for Louisiana, 2 Works of Edward Livingston 100-108.
In eight States the offense is punished as at common law, without legislative enactment. State v. Roberts, 2 Marv. (Del.) 450, 43 A. 252; Cole v. Commonwealth, 222 Ky. 350, 300 S. W. 907; Robinson v. State, 108 Md. 644, 71 A. 433; Commonwealth v. Canter, 269 Mass. 359, 168 N. E. 790; State v. Burnham, 9 N. H. 34; State v. Spear, 13 R. I. 324; State v. Sutton, 74 Vt. 12, 52 A. 116; State v. Payne, 87 W. Va. 102, 104 S. E. 288. Twelve other jurisdictions make “libel” a crime by statute, without defining the term. Ala. Code, 1940, Tit. 14, § 347; Alaska Comp. Laws Ann., 1949, § 65-4-28; D. C. Code, 1940, § 22-2301; Fla. Stat. Ann., 1944, § 836.01; Burns Ind. Stat., 1933, § 10-3201; Miss. Code, 1942, § 2268; Neb. Rev. Stat., 1943, § 28-440; N. J. Stat. Ann., 1939, § 2:146-1; N. C. Gen. Stat., 1943, § 14-47; Page’s Ohio Gen. Code, 1939, § 13383; Wis. Stat., 1949, § 348.41; Wyo. Comp. Stat., 1945, § 9-1601. Thus, twenty American jurisdictions punish “libel” as defined by the case-by-case common-law development.
The remaining jurisdictions have sought to cast the common-law definition in a statutory form of words. Two formulas have been popular. Eleven jurisdictions, Illinois among them, have accepted with minor variations the following:
“A libel is a malicious defamation, expressed either by printing, or by signs or pictures, or the like, tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead, or to impeach the honesty, integrity, virtue or reputation or publish the natural defects of one who is alive, and thereby to expose him to public hatred, contempt, ridicule, or financial injury.” Smith-Hurd Ill. Ann. Stat., 1936, c. 38, § 402. Ariz. Code Ann., 1939, § 43.3501; Ark. Stat., 1947, § 41-2401; Deering’s Cal. Penal Code, 1949, § 248; Colo. Stat. Ann., 1935, c. 48, § 199; Ga. Code Ann., 1936, § 26-2101; Idaho Code, 1947, § 18-4801; Smith-Hurd Ill. Ann. Stat., 1936, c. 38, § 402; Mont. Rev. Codes, 1947, § 94-2801; Nev. Comp. Laws, 1929, § 10110; P. R. Codigo Penal, 1937, § 243; Utah Code Ann., 1943, § 103-38-1; cf. Virgin Islands Code, 1921, Tit. IV, c. 5, § 36.
The other version, again with minor variations, has found favor in twelve jurisdictions.
“A libel is a malicious defamation of a person, made public by any printing, writing, sign, picture, representation or effigy, tending to provoke him to wrath or expose him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or to deprive him of the benefits of public confidence and social intercourse; or any malicious defamation, made public as aforesaid, designed to blacken and vilify the memory of one who is dead, and tending to scandalize or provoke his surviving relatives or friends.”
Iowa Code Ann., 1949, § 737.1; Kan. Gen. Stat., 1935, § 21-2401; Dart’s La. Crim. Code, 1943, Art. 740-47; Me. Rev. Stat., 1944, c. 117, § 30; Minn. Stat., 1949, § 619.51; Mo. Rev. Stat., 1949, § 559.410; McKinney’s N. Y. Laws, Penal Code, § 1340; N. D. Rev. Code, 1943, § 12-2801; Okla. Stat. Ann., 1936, Tit. 21, § 771; Purdon’s Pa. Stat. Ann., 1945, Tit. 18, § 4412; Williams Tenn. Code, 1934, §§ 11021, 11022; Remington’s Wash. Rev. Stat., 1932, §2424.
The remaining nine jurisdictions have definitions of criminal libel which fall into no common pattern. See Conn. Gen. Stat., 1949, § 8518; Hawaii Rev. Laws, 1945, § 11450; Mich. Comp. Laws, 1948, § 750-370; N. M. Stat., 1941, §§ 41-2701, 41-2708; Ore. Comp. Laws, 1940, § 23-437; S. C. Code, 1942, § 1395; S. D. Code, 1939, § 13.3401; Vernon’s Tex. Stat., 1948, Arts. 1269, 1275; Va. Code, 1950, § 18-133.
Our examination of the homogeneity of these statutory definitions of criminal libel might well begin and end with the words “virtue” and “ridicule.” Of thirty-two jurisdictions, twelve outlaw statements impeaching the “virtue” of another; eleven of these, and fifteen more — twenty-six in all — prohibit utterances tending to bring another into “public ridicule.”
For the common-law definition, applicable in the twenty jurisdictions first noted above, see L. Hand, J., in Grant v. Reader’s Digest Assn., 151 F. 2d 733, 735, where he speaks of defining libel “in accordance with the usual rubric, as consisting of utterances which arouse ‘hatred, contempt, scorn, obloquy or shame,’ and the like.” Cf. Restatement, Torts, § 559, comment (b); Odgers, Libel and Slander (6th ed.), 16-17; Newell, Slander and Libel (4th ed.), 1-2.
Even a cursory examination of these enactments and common-law pronouncements demonstrates that Illinois, in §224a, was using a form of words which invoked the familiar common law of libel to define the prohibited utterances. The defendant and the Illinois courts, as we have seen, understood this and acted upon it.
In all but five States, the constitutional guarantee of free speech to every person is explicitly qualified by holding him “responsible for the abuse of that right.” See Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 356, n. 5. See Jefferson in Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799, 4 Elliot’s Debates 540-541, and in an undated draft prepared, but not used, for his December 8, 1801, Message to Congress, Library of Congress Jefferson Papers, Vol. 119, Leaf 20569. In Carlson v. California, 310 U. S. 106, 112, we noted that the statute there invalidated made “no exceptions with respect to the truthfulness and restraint of the information conveyed....”
Compare reports of King v. Osborne in 2 Barn. K. B. 138, 166, 94 Eng. Rep. 406, 425; 2 Swans. 503, n. (c), 36 Eng. Rep. 705, 717; W. Kel. *230, 25 Eng. Rep. 584 (1732). The present Attorney General of England asserted that this case obviated the need of special group libel legislation for Great Britain. See The [London] Times, March 26, 1952, p. 2, col. 4. See also Odgers, Libel and Slander (6th ed.), 369; Tanenhaus, Group Libel, 35 Cornell L. Q. 261, 267-269.
One of the leading cases arose in Illinois. People v. Spielman, 318 Ill. 482, 149 N. E. 466 (1925), sustaining a conviction for libel on the members of the American Legion. The authorities are collected and discussed in Tanenhaus, Group Libel, 35 Cornell L. Q. 261, 269-276.
See, e. g., Loewenstein, Legislative Control of Political Extremism in European Democracies, 38 Col. L. Rev. 591 and 725; Riesman, Democracy and Defamation, 42 Col. L. Rev. 727, 1085 and 1282; Public Order Act, 1936, 1 Edw. VIII and 1 Geo. VI, e. 6, and 317 H. C. Deb. 1349-1473 (5th ser. 1936); 318 H. C. Deb. 49-193, 581-710, 1659-1785, 2781-2784 (5th ser. 1936); 103 H. L. Deb. 741-773, 961-972 (5th ser. 1936).
See generally The Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 1-78, and passim (University of Chicago Press, 1922); Research Memorandum No. 5, First Annual Rep. Ill. InterRacial Comm’n (1944).
The May 28, 1917, riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, was preceded by a violently inflammatory speech to unemployed workmen by a prominent lawyer of the town. Report of the Special Committee Authorized by Congress to Investigate the East St. Louis Riots, H. R. Doc. No. 1231, 65th Cong., 2d Sess. 11; Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 75. And see id., at 118-122 for literature circulated by real estate associations and other groups during the series of bombings leading up to the Chicago riots of 1919. For the Commission’s comments on the role of propaganda in promoting race frictions, see id., at 589, 638-639.
Tables in Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, 8, show that between 1900 and 1920 the number of foreign-born in Chicago increased by over y3 and the Negro population trebled. United States census figures show the following population growth for the State as a whole and selected counties:
For an account of these vast population movements entailing great social maladjustments, see Drake and Cayton, Black Metropolis, 8-18, 31-65; Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 79-105; Carl Sandburg, The Chicago Race Riots, 9-30.
See Walling, Race War in the North, 65 The Independent 529 (1908). This article apparently led to the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Ovington, How the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Began, 8 Crisis 184 (1914). See also Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 67-71.
Report of the Special Committee Authorized by Congress to Investigate the East St. Louis Riots, H. R. Doc. No. 1231, 65th Cong., 2d Sess. See also The Massacre of East St. Louis, 14 Crisis 219 (1917).
Chicago Commission on Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago, 122-133.
The utterances here in question "are not,” as a detached student of the problem has noted, “the daily grist of vituperative political debate. Nor do they represent the frothy imaginings of lunatics, or the ‘idle’ gossip of a country town. Rather, they indicate the systematic avalanche of falsehoods which are circulated concerning the various groups, classes and races which make up the countries of the western world.” Riesman, Democracy and Defamation: Control of Group Libel, 42 Col. L. Rev., at 727. Professor Riesman continues: “Such purposeful attacks are nothing new, of course.... What is new, however, is the existence of a mobile public opinion as the controlling force in politics, and the systematic manipulation of that opinion by the use of calculated falsehood and vilification.” Id., at 728.
See, e. g., L. Hand, J., in a symposium in The Saturday Review of Literature, Mar. 15, 1947, pp. 23-24; Report of the Committee on the Law of Defamation, Cmd. 7536, 11 (1948).
It deserves emphasis that there is no such attempt in this statute. The rubric “race, color, creed or religion” which describes the type of group libel of which is punishable, has attained too fixed a meaning to permit political groups to be brought within it. If a statute sought to outlaw libels of political parties, quite different problems not now before us would be raised. For one thing, the whole doctrine of fair comment as indispensable to the democratic political process would come into play. See People v. Fuller, supra, at 125, 87 N. E., at 338-339; Commonwealth v. Pratt, 208 Mass. 553, 559, 95 N. E. 105, 106. Political parties, like public men, are, as it were, public property.
Indeed, such defenses are evidently protected by Illinois law. See Ill. Const., Art. II, § 17, guaranteeing the right of the people to apply for redress of grievances. And see People v. Fuller, 238 Ill. 116, 125, 87 N. E. 336, 338-339, on the defense of “fair comment” in criminal libel prosecutions.
The present constitution, adopted in 1870, is Illinois’ third. The first two preserved the defense of truth in certain types of libel prosecutions: “
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.
Per Curiam.
The petitioner was indicted in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Ga., for possessing cocaine. At a hearing before trial, he moved to suppress the introduction of the cocaine as evidence against him on the ground that it had been seized from him by an agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in violation of his rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.
The relevant facts were determined at the pretrial hearing and may be recounted briefly. The petitioner arrived at the Atlanta Airport on a commercial airline flight from Fort Lau-derdale, Fla., in the early morning hours of August 14, 1978. The passengers left the plane in a single file and proceeded through the concourse. The petitioner was observed by an agent of the DEA, who was in the airport for the purpose of uncovering illicit commerce in narcotics. Separated from the petitioner by several persons was another man, who carried a shoulder bag like the one the petitioner carried. As they proceeded through the concourse past the baggage claim area, the petitioner occasionally looked backward in the direction of the second man. When they reached the main lobby of the terminal, the second man caught up with the petitioner and spoke briefly with him. They then left the terminal building together.
The DEA agent approached them outside of the building, identified himself as a federal narcotics agent, and asked them to show him their airline ticket stubs and identification, which they did. The airline tickets had been purchased with the petitioner’s credit card and indicated that the men had stayed in Fort Lauderdale only one day. According to the agent’s testimony, the men appeared nervous during the encounter. The agent then asked them if they would agree to return to the terminal and to consent to a search of their persons and their shoulder bags. The agent testified that the petitioner nodded his head affirmatively, and that the other responded, “Yeah, okay.” As the three of them entered the terminal, however, the petitioner began to run and before he was apprehended, abandoned his shoulder bag. The bag, when recovered, was found to contain cocaine.
The Superior Court granted the petitioner’s motion to suppress the cocaine, concluding that it had been obtained as a result of a seizure of him by the DEA agent without an articu-lable suspicion that he was unlawfully carrying narcotics. The Georgia Court of Appeals reversed. 149 Ga. App. 685, 255 S. E. 2d 71. It held that the stop of the petitioner was permissible, citing Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968), since the petitioner, “in a number df respects, fit a 'profile’ of drug couriers compiled by the [DEA].” 149 Ga. App., at 686, 255 S. E. 2d, at 72. The appellate court also concluded that the petitioner had consented to return to the terminal for a search of his person, and that after he had attempted to flee and had discarded his shoulder bag, there existed probable cause for the search of the bag.
The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments’ prohibition of searches and seizures that are not supported by some objective justification governs all seizures of the person, “including seizures that involve only a brief detention short of traditional arrest. Davis v. Mississippi, 394 U. S. 721 (1969); Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1, 16-19 (1968) ” United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U. S. 873, 878 (1975)1. While the Court has recognized that in some circumstances a person may be detained briefly, without probable cause to arrest him, any curtailment of a person’s liberty by the police must be' supported at least by a reasonable and articulable suspicion that, the person seized is engaged in criminal activity. See Brown v. Texas, 443 U. S. 47, 51 (1979); Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U. S. 648, 661 (1979); United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, supra; Adams v. Williams, 407 U. S. 143, 146-149 (1972); Terry v. Ohio, supra.
The appellate court’s, conclusion in this case that the DEA agent reasonably suspected the petitioner of wrongdoing rested on the fact that the petitioner appeared to the agent to - fit the so-called “drug courier profile,” a somewhat informál compilation of characteristics believed tó be typical of persons unlawfully carrying narcotics. Specifically, the court thought it relevant that (1) the petitioner had arrived from Fort Lauderdale, which the agent testified is a principal place of origin of cocaine sold elsewhere in the country, (2) the petitioner arrived in the early morning, when law enforcement activity is diminished, (3) he and his companion appeared to the agent to be trying to conceal the fact that they were traveling together, and (4) they apparently had no luggage other than their shoulder bags.
We conclude that the agent could not, as a matter of law, have reasonably suspected the petitioner of criminal activity on the basis of these observed circumstances. Of the evidence relied on, only the fact that the petitioner preceded another person and occasionally looked backward at him as they proceeded through the concourse relates to their particular conduct. The other circumstances describe a very large category of presumably innocent travelers, who would be subject to virtually random seizures were the Court to conclude that as little foundation as there was in this case could justify a seizure. Nor can we agree, on this record, that the manner in which the petitioner and his companion walked through the airport reasonably could have led the agent to suspect them of wrongdoing. Although there could, of course, be circumstances in which wholly lawful conduct might justify the suspicion that criminal activity was afoot, see Terry v. Ohio, supra, at 27-28, this is not such a case. The agent’s belief that the petitioner and his companion were attempting to conceal the fact that they were traveling together, a belief that was more an “inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or ‘hunch/ ” 392 U. S., at 27, than a fair inference in the light of his experience, is simply too slender a reed to support the seizure in this case.
For these reasons, the judgment of the appellate court cannot be sustained insofar as it rests on the determination that the DEA agent lawfully seized the petitioner when he approached him outside the airline terminal. Accordingly, the petition for certiorari is granted, the judgment of the Georgia Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
“Obviously, not all personal intercourse between policemen and citi- • zens involves ‘seizures’ of persons. Only when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen may we conclude that a seizure has occurred.” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1,19, n. 16 (1968). See also id., at 34 (White, J., concurring) ; id., at 31, 32-33 (Harlan, J.,-concurring).
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 this case we noted probable jurisdiction, 411 U. S. 915 (1973), in order to consider whether the published notice provisions of the then-applicable Oklahoma tax-sale statutes, Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, §§ 382 and 432b (1951), comported with due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment. See Mullane v. Central Han over Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306 (1950). This was the only issue addressed by the appellate courts of Oklahoma and by the parties in the Jurisdictional Statement and the papers responsive thereto filed with this Court.
After oral argument and upon our review of the record, it now appears that there might have been an independent and, possibly, an unchallenged ground for the judgment of the state trial court, viz., the running of the Oklahoma period of limitation for adverse claims. If that should prove to be the case, any decision by this Court would be advisory and beyond our jurisdiction. Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 636 (1875).
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma is therefore vacated and the case is remanded to that court to consider whether the appellants preserved the right to challenge the 'trial court’s determination that the State’s statute of limitations is a bar to their mineral rights claim, and, if so, whether, under state law, the statute of limitations independently bars appellants’ claim, irrespective of the constitutional adequacy of the tax-sale notice provisions of §§ 382 and 432b. Cf. Walker v. Hoffman, 405 P. 2d 57 (Okla. 1965).
It is so ordered.
The ad valorem taxes in question were for the year 1952. The original tax sale took place in November 1953 and the resale in May 1956. Okla. Stat., Tit. 68, §§ 383 and 432 (1951). The statutes cited (§§ 382, 383, 432, and 432b) were repealed by Okla. Sess. Laws 1965, c. 501, § 3, and replaced by corresponding provisions of the State’s present Ad Valorem Tax Code, namely, Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 68, §§24312, 24313, 24329, and 24331 (1966).
See 502 P. 2d 1265 (1972). The earlier opinion of the Oklahoma Court of Appeals, Division 2, is not reported; it is reproduced in the Jurisdictional Statement, App. A, p. vii.
The trial court’s judgment read in part as follows:
“ (2) The Court Further Finds, Orders, Adjudges and Decrees that from the date of the recording of said resale tax deed, on June 6, 1956 ... said Grantees therein, the Cross-Petitioners, R. W. Garrett and R. H. Vaughn, have been in the open, continuous, visible, notorious, exclusive and hostile possession of said lands and premises, receiving all of the rents, profits and income therefrom, and that said contesting substituted party defendants, are further forever barred and precluded by the statute of limitations, from seeking to assert the invalidity of said resale tax deed, as provided by 12 O. S. 1961, Sec. 93 (3) and (6).” Jurisdictional Statement, App. B, p. xvii.
Okla. Stat. Ann., Tit. 12, §93 (Supp. 1973-1974), reads:
§ 93. Limitation of real actions. — “Actions for the recovery of real property, or for the determination of any adverse right or interest therein, can only be brought within the periods hereinafter prescribed, after the cause of action shall have accrued, and at no other time thereafter:
“(3) An action for the recovery of real property sold for taxes, within five (5) years after the date of the recording of the tax deed . . . provided, nothing herein shall be construed as reviving any cause of action for recovery of real property heretofore barred nor as divesting any interest acquired by adverse possession prior to the effective date hereof.
“(6) Numbered paragraphs 1, 2, and 3 shall be fully operative regardless of whether the deed or judgment or the precedent -action or proceeding upon which such deed or judgment is based is void or voidable in whole or in part, for any reason, jurisdictional or otherwise; provided that this paragraph shall not be applied so as to bar causes of action which have heretofore accrued, until the expiration of one (1) year from and after its effective date.”
Whether the alleged lack of constitutionally valid notice would preclude the running of the statute of limitations for an adverse land claim is a question that has not been presented to this Court or to the Oklahoma courts below. Cf. Shroeder v. City of New York, 371 U. S. 208, 213-214 (1962). We intimate no view on this issue.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Per Curiam.
The motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis and the petition for a writ of certiorari are granted.
In this capital case the Supreme Court of Arkansas sustained. petitioner’s conviction against the claim, among others, that in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States his involuntary confession of the crime was introduced in evidence at the trial. Walton v. State, 233 Ark. 999, 350 S. W. 2d 302. Petitioner contends that independently of this claim his conviction was unconstitutional because he was not represented by counsel at the time of his arraignment in the course of which he acknowledged the voluntariness of his confession, such acknowledgment being later used in evidence against him at the trial.
When the Arkansas Supreme Court decided this case it did not have the benefit of this Court’s decision in Hamilton v. Alabama, 368 U. S. 52, which was rendered subsequent to the state court’s decision and on the same day that it denied rehearing upon a petition filed prior to the announcement of the Hamilton case. Further, we are unable to conclude from the record filed in this Court either that petitioner had counsel at the time of the arraignment proceedings or, if not, that he was advised of his right to have counsel at such proceedings and that he understandingly and intelligently waived that right.
In these circumstances we conclude that the judgment of the Supreme Court of Arkansas should be vacated and the case remanded to that court for further consideration in light of Hamilton v. Alabama, supra, or for such other appropriate proceedings as may be available under state law for resolution of this constitutional claim.
It is so ordered.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | A | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Justice Kennedy
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether the Education of the Handicapped Act abrogates the States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in the federal courts.
I
The Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA), 84 Stat. 175, as amended, 20 U. S. C. §1400 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. V.), enacts a comprehensive scheme to assure that handicapped children may receive a free public education appropriate to their needs. To achieve these ends, the Act mandates certain procedural requirements for participating state and local educational agencies. In particular, the Act guarantees to parents the right to participate in the development of an “individualized education program” (IEP) for their handicapped child, and to challenge the appropriateness of their child’s IEP in an administrative hearing with subsequent judicial review. See 20 U. S. C. § 1415 (1982 ed. and Supp. V); School Committee of Burlington v. Department of Education of Massachusetts, 471 U. S. 359, 361 (1985).
Alex Muth, the son of respondent Russell Muth (hereinafter respondent), is a bright child, but one handicapped within the meaning of the EHA by a language learning disability and associated emotional problems. Alex was enrolled in public school in the Central Bucks School District of Pennsylvania from 1980 to 1983. In the summer of 1983, respondent requested a statutory administrative hearing to challenge the district’s IEP for Alex. In September, shortly before the hearing convened, respondent enrolled Alex in a private school for learning disabled children for the coming school year.
The hearing examiner found that Alex’s original IEP was inappropriate and made a number of recommendations. Both respondent and the school district then appealed.the decision to the secretary of education, as provided under Pennsylvania law, see 22 Pa. Code § 13.32(24) (1988). The secretary remanded the case to the hearing examiner with instructions to the school district to revise Alex’s IEP (1988). After the district did so, the hearing examiner issued a decision declaring the revised IEP appropriate, and the secretary-affirmed that decision on October 24, 1984, more than a year after the original due process hearing.
While the administrative proceedings were underway, respondent brought this suit in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against the school district and the state secretary of education, whose successor is petitioner here. As amended, respondent’s complaint alleged that the district’s IEP for Alex was inappropriate and that the Commonwealth’s administrative proceedings had violated the procedural requirements of the EHA in two respects: the assignment of review to the secretary, an allegedly partial officer; and the delays occasioned by the secretary’s remand to the hearing examiner. Respondent requested declaratory and injunctive relief, reimbursement for Alex’s private-school tuition in 1983-1984, and attorney’s fees.
The District Court found various procedural infirmities in Pennsylvania’s administrative scheme and entered summary judgment on respondent’s procedural claims. The court held a hearing to resolve the remaining issues in the case and to determine the proper remedy for the procedural violations. The court concluded that, while the district’s proposed IEP for 1983-1984 had been appropriate within the meaning of the EHA, respondent was entitled to reimbursement for Alex’s tuition that year because the procedural flaws had delayed the administrative process. The District Court further determined that the school district and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were jointly and severally liable, agreeing with respondent that the EHA abrogated Pennsylvania’s Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit. The court also awarded attorney’s fees, assessed jointly and severally against the school district and the Commonwealth.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed. Muth v. Central Bucks School Dist., 839 F. 2d 113 (1988). Most pertinent for this case, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that the Eleventh Amendment did not bar the reimbursement award against the Commonwealth. The court concluded that “the text of EHA and its legislative history leave no doubt that Congress intended to abrogate the 11th amendment immunity of the states.” Id., at 128.
To resolve a conflict among the Circuits, we granted certio-rari sub nom. Gilhool v. Muth, 488 U. S. 815 (1988), on the question whether the EHA abrogates the States’ sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment. Compare David D. v. Dartmouth School Committee, 775 F. 2d 411 (CA1 1985) (finding abrogation), with Gary A. v. New Trier High School Dist. No. 203, 796 F. 2d 940 (CA7 1986); Doe v. Maher, 793 F. 2d 1470 (CA9 1986); and Miener v. Missouri, 673 F. 2d 969 (CA8 1982) (finding no abrogation). We now reverse.
II
We have recognized that Congress, acting in the exercise of its enforcement authority under §5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, may abrogate the States’ Eleventh Amendment immunity. Fitzpatrick v. Bitzer, 427 U. S. 445, 456 (1976). We have stressed, however, that abrogation of sovereign immunity upsets “the fundamental constitutional balance between the Federal Government and the States,” Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 238 (1985), placing a considerable strain on “‘[t]he principles of federalism that inform Eleventh Amendment doctrine,’” Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U. S. 89, 100 (1984), quoting Hutto v. Finney, 437 U. S. 678, 691 (1978). To temper Congress’ acknowledged powers of abrogation with due concern for the Eleventh Amendment’s role as an essential component of our constitutional structure, we have applied a simple but stringent test: “Congress may abrogate the States’ constitutionally secured immunity from suit in federal court only by making its intention unmistakably clear in the language of the statute.” Atascadero, supra, at 242.
In concluding that the EHA contains the requisite clear statement of congressional intent, the Court of Appeals rested principally on three textual provisions. The court first cited the Act’s preamble, which states Congress’ finding that “it is in the national interest that the Federal government assist State and local efforts to provide programs to meet the education needs of handicapped children in order to assure equal protection of the law.” 20 U. S. C. § 1400(b)(9). Second, and most important for the Court of Appeals, was the Act’s judicial review provision, which permits parties aggrieved by the administrative process to “bring a civil action ... in any State court of competent jurisdiction or in a district court of the United States without regard to the amount in controversy.” 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e)(2). Finally, the Court of Appeals pointed to a 1986 amendment to the EHA, which states that the Act’s provision for a reduction of attorney’s fees shall not apply “if the court finds that the State or local educational agency unreasonably protracted the final resolution of the action or proceeding or there was a violation of this section.” 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e)(4)(G) (1982 ed., Supp. V). In the view of the Court of Appeals, this amendment represented an express statement of Congress’ understanding that States can be parties in civil actions brought under the EHA.
Respondent supplements these points with some non-textual arguments. Most notably, respondent argues that abrogation is “necessary ... to achieve the EHA’s goals,” Brief for Respondent Muth 37; and that the 1986 amendments to another statute, the Rehabilitation Act, 100 Stat. 1845, 42 U. S. C. §2000d-7 (1982 ed., Supp. IV), expressly abrogate state immunity from suits brought under the EHA, Brief for Respondent Muth 30. In connection with the latter argument, respondent recognizes that the Rehabilitation Act amendments expressly apply only to “violations that occur in whole or in part after October 21, 1986.” 42 U. S. C. §2000d-7(b) (1982 ed., Supp. IV). Respondent contends, however, that “[a]lthough the amendment became effective after Muth initially filed suit, . . . the overwhelming support for the amendment shows that it reflects Congress’ intent in originally enacting the EHA [in 1975].” Brief for Respondent Muth 32, n. 48.
We turn first to respondent’s nontextual arguments, because they are the easier to dismiss. It is far from certain that the EHA cannot function if the States retain immunity, or that the 1986 amendments to the Rehabilitation Act are a useful guide to congressional intent in 1975. Indeed, the language of the 1986 amendments to the Rehabilitation Act appears to cut against respondent. Without intending in any way to prejudge the Rehabilitation Act amendments, we note that a comparison of the language in the amendments with the language of the EHA serves only to underscore the difference in the two statutes, and the absence of any clear statement of abrogation in the EHA. The amendments to the Rehabilitation Act read in pertinent part:
“A State shall not be immune under the Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States from suit in Federal court for a violation of [several enumerated provisions] or the provisions of any other Federal statute prohibiting discrimination by recipients of Federal financial assistance.” 42 U. S. C. §2000d-7(a) (1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV).
When measured against such explicit consideration of' abrogation of the Eleventh Amendment, the EHA’s treatment of the question appears ambiguous at best.
More importantly, however, respondent’s contentions are beside the point. Our opinion in Atascadero should have left no doubt that we will conclude Congress intended to abrogate sovereign immunity only if its intention is “unmistakably clear in the language of the statute. ” Atascadero, 473 U. S., at 242. Lest Atascadero be thought to contain any ambiguity, we reaffirm today that in this area of the law, evidence of congressional intent must be both unequivocal and textual. Respondent’s evidence is neither. In particular, we reject the approach of the Court of Appeals, according to which, “[w]hile the text of the federal legislation must bear evidence of such an intention, the legislative history may still be used as a resource in determining whether Congress’ intention to lift the bar has been made sufficiently manifest.” 839 F. 2d, at 128. Legislative history generally will be irrelevant to a judicial inquiry into whether Congress intended to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment. If Congress’ intention is “unmistakably clear in the language of the statute,” recourse to legislative history will be unnecessary; if Congress’ intention is not unmistakably clear, recourse to legislative history will be futile, because by definition the rule of Atascadero will not be met.
The gist of Justice Brennan’s dissent’s argument appears to be that application of the governing law in Atascadero is unfair in this case. The dissent complains that we “resor[t] to an interpretative standard that Congress could have anticipated only with the aid of a particularly effective crystal ball.” Post, at 241. This complaint appears to be premised on an unrealistic and cynical view of the legislative process. We find it difficult to believe that the 94th Congress, taking careful stock of the state of Eleventh Amendment law, decided it would drop coy hints but stop short of making its intention manifest. Rather, the salient point in our view is that it cannot be said with perfect confidence that Congress in fact intended in 1975 to abrogate sovereign immunity, and imperfect confidence will not suffice given the special constitutional concerns in this area. Cf. Johnson v. Robison, 415 U. S. 361, 373-374 (1974) (federal statute will not be construed to preclude judicial review of constitutional challenges absent clear and convincing evidence of congressional intent).
We now turn our attention to the proper focus of an inquiry into congressional abrogation of sovereign immunity, the language of the statute. We cannot agree that the textual provisions on which the Court of Appeals relied, or any other provisions of the EHA, demonstrate with unmistakable clarity that Congress intended to abrogate the States’ immunity from suit. The EHA makes no reference whatsoever to either the Eleventh Amendment or the States’ sovereign immunity. Cf. supra, at 228. Nor does any provision cited by the Court of Appeals address abrogation in even oblique terms, much less with the clarity Atascadero requires. The general statement of legislative purpose in the Act’s preamble simply has nothing to do with the States’ sovereign immunity. The 1986 amendment to the EHA deals only with attorney’s fees, and does not alter or speak to what parties are subject to suit. Respondent conceded as much at oral argument, acknowledging that “the 1986 EHA Amendments . . . are not directly relevant [here] because they concerned only attorney’s fees.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. Finally, 20 U. S. C. § 1415(e)(2), the centerpiece of the Court of Appeals’ textual analysis, provides judicial review for aggrieved parties, but in no way intimates that the States’ sovereign immunity is abrogated. As we made plain in Atascadero: “A general authorization for suit in federal court is not the kind of unequivocal statutory language sufficient to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment.” 473 U. S., at 246.
At its core, respondent’s attempt to distinguish this case from Atascadero appears to reduce to the proposition that the EHA “is replete with references to the states,” whereas in “Atascadero . . . the statutory language at issue did not include mention of states.” Brief for Respondent Muth 32-33. We recognize that the EHA’s frequent reference to the States, and its delineation of the States’ important role in securing an appropriate education for handicapped children, make the States, along with local agencies, logical defendants in suits alleging violations of the EHA. This statutory structure lends force to the inference that the States were intended to be subject to damages actions for violations of the EHA. But such a permissible inference, whatever its logical force, would remain just that: a permissible inference. It would not be the unequivocal declaration which, we reaffirm today, is necessary before we will determine that Congress intended to exercise its powers of abrogation.
I — I hH H
We hold that the statutory language of the EHA does not evince an unmistakably clear intention to abrogate the States’ constitutionally secured immunity from suit. The Eleventh Amendment bars respondent’s attempt to collect tuition reimbursement from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Petitioner concedes that the EHA was enacted pursuant to Congress’ authority under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that Congress has the power to abrogate the Eleventh Amendment with respect to the Act. Tr. of Oral Arg. 14-15; see Atascadero State Hospital v. Scanlon, 473 U. S. 234, 244-245, n. 4 (1985). We decide the case on these assumptions.
Respondent also offers us another avenue to affirm the result below, which is to overrule the longstanding holding of Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U. S. 1 (1890), that an unconsenting State is immune from liability for damages in a suit brought in federal court by one of its own citizens. We decline this most recent invitation to overrule our opinion in Hans.
Our grant of certiorari also embraced the question whether the EHA precluded petitioner from hearing administrative appeals. Since we conclude that the Commonwealth is not subject to suit under the EHA, and since the school district did not petition for review of the Court of Appeals decision, we have no occasion to reach this question.
After oral argument, respondent filed a motion to remand this suit to the District Court for consolidation with another related action. In light of our disposition today, respondent’s motion is denied.
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 Powell
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The State of Maine requires a defendant charged with murder to prove that he acted “in the heat of passion on sudden provocation” in order to reduce the homicide to manslaughter. We must decide whether this rule comports with the due process requirement, as defined in In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), that the prosecution prove beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime charged.
I
In June 1966 a jury found respondent Stillman E. Wilbur, Jr., guilty of murder. The case against him rested on his own pretrial statement and on circumstantial evidence showing that he fatally assaulted Claude Hebert in the latter’s hotel room. Respondent’s statement, introduced by the prosecution, claimed that he had attacked Hebert in a frenzy provoked by Hebert’s homosexual advance. The defense offered no evidence, but argued that the homicide was not unlawful since respondent lacked criminal intent. Alternatively, Wilbur’s counsel asserted that at most the homicide was manslaughter rather than murder, since it occurred in the heat of passion provoked by the homosexual assault.
The trial court instructed the jury that Maine law recognizes two kinds of homicide, murder and manslaughter, and that these offenses are not subdivided into different degrees. The common elements of both are that the homicide be unlawful — i. e., neither justifiable • nor excusable — and that it be intentional. The prosecution is required to prove these elements by proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and only if they are so proved is the jury to consider the distinction between murder and manslaughter.
In view of the evidence the trial court drew particular attention to the difference between murder and manslaughter. After reading the statutory definitions of both offenses, the court charged that “malice aforethought is an essential and indispensable element of the crime of murder,” App. 40, without which the homicide would be manslaughter. The iurv was further instructed, however, that if the prosecution established that the homicide was both intentional jand unlawful, malice aforethought was to be conclusively implied unless the defendant proved by a fair preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. The' court emphasized that “malice aforethought and heat of passion on sudden provocation are two inconsistent things,” id., at 62; thus, byjproving the latter the defendant would negate the former and reduce the homicide from murder to manslaughter. The court then concluded its charge with elaborate definitions of “heat of passion” and “sudden provocation.”
After retiring to consider its verdict, the jury twice returned to request further instruction. It first sought reinstruction on the doctrine of implied malice aforethought, and later on the definition of “heat of passion.” Shortly after the second reinstruction, the jury found respondent guilty of murder. »
Respondent appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, arguing that he had been denied due..process be-1 cause he was reqiliFed’TcT negate the element of malice; ^forethought by proving that he had acted in the hqat’..of passion on sudden provocation. He claimed that under Maine law malice aforethought was an essential element of the crime of murder — indeed that it was the sole element distinguishing murder from manslaughter, Respondent contended, therefore, that this Court’s decisión in Winship requires the prosecution to prove the existence of that element beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court rejected this contention, holding that in Maine Jhürd'ér and manslaughter are nofclistinct crimes but, rather, different degrees of the single generic offense of felonious homicide. State v. Wilbur, 278 A. 2d 139 (1971). The court further stated that for more than a century it repeatedly had held that the prosecution could rest on a presumption of implied malice aforethought and require the defendant to prove that he had acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation in order to reduce murder to manslaughter. With respect to Winship, which was decided aftér respondent’s trial, the court noted that it did not anticipate the application of the Winship principle to a factor such as the heat of passion on sudden provocation.
Respondent next successfully petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court. Wilbur v. Robbins, 349 F. Supp. 149 (Me. 1972). The District Court ruled that under the Maine statutes murder and manslaughter are distinct offenses, not different degrees of a single offense. The court further held that “[mjalice aforethought is made the distinguishing element of the offense of murder, and it is expressly excluded as an element of the offense of manslaughter.” Id., at 153. Thus, the District Court concluded. Winship requires the prosecution. to prom,malice__ aforethought beyond a reasonable doubt; it cannot rely on a presumption of implied malice, which requires the defendant to prove that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation.
The Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, subscribing in general to the District Court’s analysis and construction of Maine law. 473 F. 2d 943 (1973). Although recognizing that “within broad limits a state court must be the one to interpret its own laws,” the court nevertheless ruled that “a totally unsupportable construction which leads to an invasion of constitutional due process is a federal matter.” Id., at 945. The Court of Appeals equated malice aforethought with “premeditation,” id., at 947, and concluded that Winship requires the prosecution to prove this fact beyond a reasonable doubt.
Followingjhis decision, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court decided the casé of State v. Lafferty, 309 A. 2d 647 (1973), in which it sharply disputed the First Circuit’s view that it was entitled to make an independent determination of Maine law. The Maine court also reaffirmed its earlier opinion that murder and manslaughter are punishment categories of the single offense of felonious homicide.. Accordingly, if the prosecution, proves a felonious homicide the burden shifts to the defendant to prove that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation in order to receive the lesser penalty prescribed for manslaughter.
In view of the Lafferty decision we granted certiorari in this case and remanded to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration. 414 U. S. 1139 (1974). On remand, that court again applied Winship, this time to the Maine law as construed by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. 496 F. 2d 1303 (1974). Looking to the “substance” of that law, the court found thatthe presence or absence of the heat of passiorucm..sudden-provocation results in significant differences in the t)enalties...and stigma attaching to conviction. For these reasons. the Court of Appeals held that the principles enunciated in Winship control, and that to establish murder, the, prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant did not act in the. heat of passion on sudden provocation.
Because of the importance of the issues presented, we again granted certiorari. 419 U. S. 823 (1974). We now affirm.
II
We reject at the outset respondent’s position that we follow the analysis of the District Court and the initial opinion of the First Circuit, both of which held that murder and manslaughter are distinct crimes in Maine, and that malice aforethought is a fact essential to the former and absent in the latter. Respondent argues that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s construction of state law should not be deemed binding on this Court since it marks a radical departure from prior law, leads to internally inconsistent results, and is a transparent effort to circumvent Winship. This Court, however, repeatedly has held that state courts are the ultimate expositors of state law, see, e. g., Murdock v. City of Memphis, 20 Wall. 590 (1875); Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507 (1948), and that we are bound by their constructions except in extreme circumstances not present here. Accordingly, we accept as binding the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s construction of state homicide law.
Ill
The Maine law of homicide, as it bears on this case, can be stated succinctly: Absent justification or excuse, all intentional or criminally reckless killings are felonious homicides. Felonious homicide is punished as murder'— i. e., by life imprisonment — unless the defendant proves by a fair preponderance of the evidence that it was committed in the heat of passion on sudden provocation, in which case it is punished as manslaughter — i. e., by a fine not to exceed $1,000 or by imprisonment not to exceed 20 years. The issue is whether the Maine rule requiring the defendant to prove that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation accords with due process.
A
Our analysis may be illuminated if this issue is placed in historical context. At early common law only those homicides committed in the enforcement of justice were considered justifiable; all others were deemed unlawful and were punished by death. Gradually, however, the severity of the common-law punishment for homicide abated. Between the 13th and 16th centuries the class of justifiable homicides expanded to include, for example, accidental homicides and those committed in self-defense. Concurrently, the widespread use of capital punishment was ameliorated further by extension of the ecclesiastic jurisdiction. Almost any person able to read was eligible for “benefit of clergy,” a procedural device that effected a transfer from the secular to the ecclesiastic jurisdiction. And under ecclesiastic law a person who committed an unlawful homicide was not executed; instead he received a one-year sentence, had his thumb branded and was required to forfeit his goods. At the turn of the 16th century, English rulers, concerned with the accretion of ecclesiastic- jurisdiction at the expense of the secular, enacted a series of statutes eliminating the benefit of clergy in all cases of “murder of malice prepensed.” Unlawful homicides that were committed without such malice were designated “manslaughter,” and their perpetrators remained eligible for the benefit of clergy.
Even after ecclesiastic jurisdiction was eliminated for all secular offenses the distinction between murder and manslaughter persisted. It was said that “manslaughter, when voluntary,[] arises from the sudden heat of the passions, murder from the wickedness of the heart.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *190. Malice aforethought was designated as the element that distinguished the two crimes, but it was recognized that such malice could be implied by law as well as proved by evidence. Absent proof that an unlawful homicide resulted from “sudden and sufficiently violent provocation,” the homicide was “presumed to be malicious.” Id., at *201. In view of this presumption, the early English authorities, relying on the case of The King v. Oneby, 92 Eng. Rep. 465 (K. B. 1727), held that once the prosecution proved that the accused had committed the homicide, it was “incumbent upon the prisoner to make out, to the satisfaction of the court and jury” “all... circumstances of justification, excuse, or alleviation.” 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *201. See M. Foster, Crown Law 255 (1762). Thus, at common law the burden of proving heat of passion on sudden provocation appears to have rested on the defendant.
In this country the concept of malice aforethought took on two distinct meanings: in some jurisdictions it came to signify a substantive element of intent, requiring the prosecution to prove that the defendant intended to kill or to inflict great bodily harm; in other jurisdictions it remained a policy presumption, indicating only that absent proof to the contrary a homicide was presumed not to have occurred in the heat of passion. See State v. Rollins, 295 A. 2d 914, 918-919 (Me. 1972). See generally Perkins, A Re-Examination of Malice Aforethought, 43 Yale L. J. 537, 548-549, 566-568 (1934). In a landmark case, Commonwealth v. York, 50 Mass. 93 (1845), Chief Justice Shaw of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that the defendant was required to negate malice aforethought by proving by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion. Initially, York was adopted in Maine as well as in several other jurisdictions. In 1895, however, in the context of deciding a question of federal criminal procedure, this Court explicitly considered and unanimously rejected the general approach articulated in York. Davis v. United States, 160 U. S. 469. And, in the past half century, the large majority of States have abandoned York and now require the prosecution to prove the absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation beyond a reasonable doubt. See W. LaFave & A. Scott, Handbook on Criminal Law 539-540 (1972).
This historical review establishes two important points. First, the fact at issue here — the presence or absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation — has been, almost from the inception of the common law of homicide, the single most important factor in determining the degree of culpability attaching to an unlawful homicide. And, second, the clear trend has been toward requiring the prosecution to bear the ultimate burden of proving this fact. See generally Fletcher, supra, n. 16; H. Packer, The Limits of the Criminal Sanction 137-139 (1968).
B
Petitioners, the warden of the Maine Prison and the State., of Maine, argue that despite these considerations Winship should not be extended to the present case. They note that as a formal matter the absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation is not a “fact necessary to”constitute the crime” of felonious homicide ipMaine. In re Winship, 397 U. S., at 364 (emphasis supplied). This distinction is relevant, according to petitioners, because in TTms/wp the fact's at issue were essential to establish criminality in the first instance, whereas the fact in question here does not come into play until the)jury already has determined that the defendant is guilty and may be punished at least for manslaughter. In this situation, petitioners maintain, the defendant’s critical interests in liberty and reputation are no longer of paramount concern since, irrespective of the presence or absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation, he is likely to lose his liberty and certain to be stigmatized, In short, petitioners would limit IT whip to those facts which, if not proved,. would wholly exonerate the defendant
This analysis fails to recognize that the criminal law of Maine, like that of other jurisdictions, is concerned not only with guilt or innocence in the abstract but also with the degree of criminal culpability. Maine has chosen to distinguish those who kill in the heat of passion from those who kill in the absence of this factor. Because the former are less “blameworth[y],” State v. Lafferty, 309 A. 2d, at 671, 673 (concurring opinion), they are subject to substantially less severe penalties. By drawing this distinction, while refusing to require the prosecution to establish beyond a reasonable doubt the fact upon which it turns, Maine denigrates the interests found critical in Wins hip.
The safeguards of due process are not rendered unavailing simply because a determination may already have been reached that would stigmatize the defendant and that might lead to a significant impairment of personal liberty. The fact remains that the consequences resulting from, a verdict of murder, as compared with a verdict of manslaughter, differ significantly. Indeed, when viewed in terms oLthe-potential differencg in restrictions of personal liberty attendant to each conviction, the distinction established by Maine between murder and manslaughter may be of greater importance than the difference between guilt, or..innocence for many lesser crimes.
Moreover, if Winship were limited to those facts that constitute a crime as defined by state law, a State could undermine many of the interests that decision sought to protect without effecting any substantive change in its law. It would only be necessary to redefine the elements that constitute different crimes, characterizing them as factors that bear solely on the extent of punishment. An extreme example of this approach can be fashioned from the law challenged in this case. Maine divides the single generic offense of felonious homicide into three distinct punishment categories — murder, voluntary manslaughter, and involuntary manslaughter. Only the first two of these categories require that the homicidal act either be intentional or the result of criminally reckless conduct. See State v. Lafferty, supra, at 670-672 (concurring opinion). But under Maine law these facts of intent are not general elements of the crime of felonious homicide. See Brief for Petitioners 10 n. 5. Instead, they bear only on the appropriate punishment category. Thus, if petitioners’ argument were accepted, Maine could impose a life sentence for any felonious homicide — even one that traditionally might be considered involuntary manslaughter — unless the defendant was able to prove that his act was neither intentional nor criminally reckless.
Winship is concerned with substance rather than this kind of formalism. The rationale of that case requires an analysis that looks to the “operation and effect of the law as applied and enforced by the State,” St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Arkansas, 235 U. S. 350, 362 (1914), and to the interests of both the State and the defendant as affected by the allocation of the burden of proof.
In Winship the Court emphasized the societal interests in the reliability of jury verdicts:
“The requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt has [a] vital role in our criminal procedure for cogent reasons. The accused during a criminal prosecution has at stake interests of immense importance, both because of the possibility that he may lose his liberty upon conviction and because of the certainty that he would be stigmatized by the conviction....
“Moreover, use of the reasonable-doubt standard is indispensable to command the respect and confidence of the community in applications of the criminal law. It is critical that the moral force of the criminal law not be diluted by a standard of proof that leaves people in doubt whether innocent men are being condemned.” 397 U. S., at 363, 364.
These interests are implicated to a greater degree in this case than they were in Winship itself. Petitioner there faced an 18-month sentence, with a maximum possible extension of an additional four and one-half years, id., at 360, whereas respondent here faces a differential in sentencing ranging from a nominal fine to a mandatory life sentence. Both the stigma to the defendant ■ and the community’s confidence in the administration of the criminal law are also of greater consequence in this case, since the adjudication of delinquency involved in Winship was “benevolent” in intention, seeking to provide i “a generously conceived program of compassionate treat- / ment.” Id., at 376 (Burger, C. J., dissenting).
Not only are the interests underlying Winship implicated to..,*^ greater degree in this case, but in one respect the protection afforded those interests is less here. In Winship the ultimate burden of persuasion remained with the prosecution, although the standard had been reduced to proof by a fair preponderance of the evidence. In this case, by contrast, the State has affirmatively shifted the burden of proof to the defendant. The result, in a case such as this one where the defendant is required to prove the critical fact in dispute, is to increase further the likelihood of an erroneous murder_conviction. Such a result directly contravenes~the principle articulated in Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525-526 (1958):
“[Wjhere one party has at stake an interest of transcending value — as a criminal defendant his liberty — th[e] margin of error is reduced as to him by the process of placing on the [prosecution] the burden... of persuading the factfinder at the conclusion of the trial....”
See also In re Winship, 397 U. S., at 370-372 (Harlan, J., concurring).
C
It has been suggested, State v. Wilbur, 278 A. 2d, at 145, that because of the difficulties in negating an argument that the homicide was committed in the heat of passion the burden of proving this fact should rest on the defendant. No doubt this is often a heavy burden for the prosecution to satisfy. The same may be said of the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt of many controverted facts in a criminal trial. But this is the traditional burden which our system of criminal justice deems essential.
Indeed, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court itself acknowledged that most States require the prosecution to prove the absence of passion beyond a reasonable doubt. Id., at 146. Moreover, the difficulty of meeting such an exacting burden is mitigated in Maine where the fact at issue is largely an “objective, rather than a subjective, behavioral criterion.” State v. Rollins, 295 A. 2d, at 920. In this respect, proving that the defendant did not act in the heat of passion on sudden provocation is similar to proving any other element of intent; it may be established by adducing evidence of the factual circumstances( surrounding the commission of the homicide. And al-\ though intent is typically considered a fact peculiarly J within the knowledge of the defendant, this does not, as j, the Court has long recognized, justify shifting the burden ¡i to him. See Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 469 (1943); Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6, 45 (1969).
Nor is the requirement of proving a negative unique in our system of criminal jurisprudence. Maine itself requires the prosecution to prove the absence of self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. See State v. Millett, 273 A. 2d 504 (1971). Satisfying this burden imposes an obligation that, in all practical effect, is identical to the burden involved in negating the heat of passion on sudden provocation. Thus, we discern no unique hard- \ ship on the prosecution that would justify requiring the f defendant to carry the burden of proving a fact so critical { to criminal culpability.
IV
Maine law requires a defendant to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that he acted in the heat of passion on sudden provocation in order to reduce murder to manslaughter. Under this burden of proof a defendant can be given a life sentence when the evidence indicates that it is as likely as not that he deserves a significantly lesser sentence. This is an intolerable result in a society where, to paraphrase Mr. Justice Harlan, it is far worse to sentence one guilty only of manslaughter as a murderer than to sentence a murderer for the lesser crime of manslaughter. In re Winship, 397 U. S., at 372 (concurring opinion). We therefore hold that the Due Process Clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation when the issue is properly presented in a homicide case. Accordingly, the judgment below is
Affirmed.
As examples of justifiable or excusable homicides, the court mentioned a soldier in battle, a policeman in certain circumstances, and an individual acting in self-defense. App. 38.
The court elaborated that an intentional homicide required the jury to find “either that the defendant intended death, or that he intended an act which was calculated and should have been understood by [a] person of reason to be one likely to do great bodily harm and that death resulted.” Id., at 37.
The Maine murder statute, Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17, § 2651 (1964), provides:
“Whoever unlawfully kills a human being with malice aforethought, either express or implied, is guilty of murder and shall be punished by imprisonment for life.”
The manslaughter statute, Me. Rev. Stat. Ann., Tit. 17, §2551 (1964), in relevant part provides:
“Whoever unlawfully kills a human being in the heat of passion, on sudden provocation, without express or implied malice aforethought... shall be punished by a fine of not more than $1,000 or by imprisonment for not more than 20 years....”
The trial court also explained the concept of express malice aforethought, which required a “premeditated design to kill” thereby manifesting a “general malignancy and disregard for human life which proceeds from a heart void of social duty and fatally bent on mischief.” App. 40-42. Despite this instruction, the court repeatedly made clear that express malice need not be established since malice would be implied unless the defendant proved that he acted in the heat of passion. Hence, the instruction on express malice appears to have been wholly unnecessary, as the Maine Supreme Judicial Court subsequently held. State v. Lafferty, 309 A. 2d 647 (1973). See also n. 10, infra.
“Heat of passion... means that at the time of the act the' reason is disturbed or obscured by passion to an extent which might [make] ordinary men of fair, average disposition liable to act irrationally without due deliberation or reflection, and from passion rather than judgment.” App. 47.
“[H]eat of passion will not avail unless upon sudden provocation. Sudden means happening without previous notice or with very brief notice; coming unexpectedly, precipitated, or unlooked for.... It is not every provocation, it is not every rage of passion that will reduce a killing from murder to manslaughter. The provocation must be of such a character and so close upon the act of killing, that for a moment a person could be — that for a moment the defendant could be considered as not being the master of his own understanding.” Id., at 47-48.
Respondent did not object to the relevant instructions at trial. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court nevertheless found the issue cognizable on appeal because it had “constitutional implications.” State v. Wilbur, 278 A. 2d 139, 144 (1971).
The Maine court concluded that Winship should not be applied retroactively.. We subsequently decided, however, that Winship should be given complete retroactive effect. Ivan v. City of New York, 407 U. S. 203 (1972).
The Maine court emphasized that, contrary to the view of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, malice aforethought connotes no substantive fact (such as premeditation), but rather is solely a policy presumption. Under its interpretation of state law, the Maine court would require proof of the same element of intent for both murder and manslaughter, the distinction being that in the latter case the intent results from a sudden provocation which leads the defendant to act in the heat of passion. 309 A. 2d, at 670-671 (concurring opinion).
Respondent relies on Bowie v. City of Columbia, 378 U. S. 347 (1964). In that case a State Supreme Court’s reinterpretation of a criminal statute was so novel as to be "unforeseeable” and therefore deprived the defendants of fair notice of the possible criminality of their acts at the time they weré committed. Thus, the retroactive application of the new interpretation was itself a denial of due process. See also Brinkerkoff-Faris Co. v. Hill, 281 U. S. 673 (1930). In this case, as respondent apparently concedes, Brief for Respondent 12, there was no comparable prejudice to respondent since in Maine the burden of proving heat of passion has rested on the defendant for more than a century. See, e. g., State v. Knight, 43 Me. 11, 137-138 (1857). To be sure, the trial court instructed the jury on the concept of express malice aforethought, see n. 4, supra, a concept that was subsequently stripped of its vitality by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. But the trial court explicitly stated that express malice aforethought need not be shown since malice would be implied from the unlawful homicide. In considering these instructions as a whole, see Cupp v. Naughten, 414 U. S. 141, 147 (1973), we discern no prejudice to respondent.
On rare occasions the Court has re-examined a state-court interpretation of state law when it appears to be an “obvious subterfuge to evade consideration of a federal issue.” Radio Station WOW, Inc. v. Johnson, 326 U. S. 120, 129 (1945). See Ward v. Love County, 253 U. S. 17 (1920); Terre Haute & I. R. Co. v. Indiana ex rel. Ketcham, 194 U. S. 579 (1904). In this case the Maine court’s interpretation of state law, even assuming it to be novel, does not frustrate consideration of the due process issue, as the Maine court itself recognized, State v. Wilbur, 278 A. 2d, at 146, and as the remainder of this opinion makes clear. See generally Comment, Due Process and Supremacy as Foundations for the Adequacy Rule: The Remains of Federalism After Wilbur v. Mullaney, 26 Me. L. Rev. 37 (1974).
Much of this history was set out in the Court’s opinion in McGautha v. California, 402 U. S. 183, 197-198 (1971). See also 3 J. Stephen, A History of the Criminal Law of England 1-107 (1883); 2 F. Pollock & F. Maitland, The History of English Law 478-487 (2d ed. 1909).
12 Hen. 7, e. 7 (1496); 4 Hen. 8, c. 2 (1512); 23 Hen. 8, c. 1, §§ 3, 4 (1531); 1 Edw. 6, c. 12, § 10 (1547).
Blackstone also referred to a class of homicides called involuntary manslaughter. Such homicides were committed by accident in the course of perpetrating another unlawful, although not felonious, act. 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *192-193. This offense, with some modification and elaboration, generally has been recognized in this country. See R. Perkins, Criminal Law 70-77 (2d ed. 1969).
Thus it appears that the concept of express malice aforethought was surplusage since if the homicide resulted from sudden provocation it was manslaughter; otherwise it was murder. In this respect, Maine law appears to follow the old common law. See generally Comment, The Constitutionality of the Common Law Presumption of Malice in Maine, 54 B. U. L. Rev. 973, 986-999 (1974).
Fletcher, Two Kinds of Legal Rules: A Comparative Study of Burden-of-Persuasion Practices in Criminal Cases, 77 Yale L. J. 880, 904-907 (1968), disputes this copclusion, arguing that the reliance on Oneby’s case was misplaced. In Oneby the jury returned a special verdict making specific findings of fact. No finding was made with respect to provocation. Absent such a finding the court held that the homicide was murder. Fletcher maintains that in the context of a special verdict it is impossible to determine whether the defendant failed to satisfy his burden of going forward with “some evidence” or the ultimate burden of persuading the jury. See also n. 20, infra.
Several jurisdictions also divided murder into different degrees, typically limiting capital punishment to first-degree murder and requiring the prosecution to prove premeditation and deliberation in order to establish that offense. See Keedy, History of the Pennsylvania Statute Creating Degrees of Murder, 97 U. Pa. L. Rev. 759 (1949); Wechsler & Michael, A Rationale of the Law of Homicide: I, 37 Col. L. Rev. 701, 703-707 (1937).
Justice Wilde dissented, arguing that the Commonwealth was required to prove all facts necessary to establish murder, including malice aforethought, which in turn required it to negate the suggestion that the killing occurred in the heat of passion on sudden provocation. He also rejected the doctrine of implied malice on the ground that " [n] o malice can be inferred from the mere act of killing. Such a presumption, therefore, is arbitrary and unfounded.” 50 Mass., at 128.
State v. Knight, 43 Me. 11 (1857).
See cases cited in Fletcher, supra, n. 16, at 903 nn. 77-79. Some confusion developed, however, as to precisely what York required. Contemporary writers divide the general notion of “burden of proof” into a burden of producing some probative evidence on a particular issue and a burden of persuading the factfinder with respect to that issue by a standard such as proof beyond a reasonable doubt or by a fair preponderance of the evidence. See, e. g., E. Cleary, McCormick on Evidence §336 (2d ed. 1972). This distinction apparently was not well recognized at the time York was decided, and thus in some jurisdictions it was unclear whether the defendant was required to bear the production burden or the persuasion burden on the issue of heat of passion. See, e. g., cases discussed in People v. Morrin, 31 Mich. App. 301, 315-323, 187 N. W. 2d 434, 441-446 (1971). Indeed, 10 years after the. decision in York, Chief Justice Shaw explained that “the doctrine of York’s case was that where the killing is proved to have been committed by the defendant, and nothing further is shown, the presumption of law is that it was malicious and an act of murder.” Commonwealth v. Hawkins, 69 Mass. 463, 465 (1855) (emphasis in original). He further noted that this presumption did not govern when there was evidence indicating that the defendant might have acted in the heat of passion. In that situation, “if the jury, upon all the circumstances, are satisfied, beyond a reasonable doubt, that [the homicide] was done with malice, they will return a verdict of murder; otherwise, they will find the defendant guilty of manslaughter.” Id., at 466. Thus, even the author of York quickly limited its scope to require only that the accused produce some evidence on the issue of passion; that is, that he satisfy the production but not the persuasion burden. Other jurisdictions blurred the distinction between these two burdens by requiring the defendant to prove “to the satisfaction of the jury” that he acted in the heat of passion. See, e. g., State v. Willis, 63 N. C. 26 (1868).
In Leland v. Oregon, 343 U. S. 790 (1952), the Court declined to apply the specific holding of Davis — that the prosecution must prove sanity beyond a reasonable doubt — to the States.
See also State v. Cuevas, 488 P. 2d 322 (Haw. 1971) (Winship requires the prosecution to prove malice aforethought beyond a reasonable doubt). England also now requires the prosecution to negate heat of passion on sudden provocation by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Mancini v. Director of Public Prosecutions, [1942] A. C. 1; see Woolmington v. Director of Public Prosecutions, [1935] A.C. 462.
Relying on Williams v. New York, 337 U. S. 241 (1949), and McGautha v. California, 402 U. S., at 196, petitioners seek to buttress this contention by arguing that since the presence or absence of the heat of passion on sudden provocation affects only the extent of punishment it should be considered
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 White
announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I and II, and an opinion with respect to Parts III and IV, in which Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Stevens joined.
We granted certiorari in this case to review a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that held that Alaska’s requirement that timber taken from state lands be processed within the State prior to export was “implicitly authorized” by Congress and therefore does not violate the Commerce Clause. 464 U. S. 890 (1983). We hold that it was not authorized and reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
In September 1980, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources published a notice that it would sell approximately 49 million board-feet of timber in the area of Icy Cape, Alaska, on October 23, 1980. The notice of sale, the prospectus, and the proposed contract for the sale all provided, pursuant to 11 Alaska Admin. Code §76.130 (1974), that “[pjrimary manufacture within the State of Alaska will be required as a special provision of the contract.” App. 35a. Under the primary-manufacture requirement, the successful bidder must partially process the timber prior to shipping it outside of the State. The requirement is imposed by contract and does not limit the export of unprocessed timber not owned by the State. The stated purpose of the requirement is to “protect existing industries, provide for the establishment of new industries, derive revenue from all timber resources, and manage the State’s forests on a sustained yield basis.” Governor’s Policy Statement, App. 28a. When it imposes the requirement, the State charges a significantly lower price for the timber than it otherwise would. Brief for Respondents 6-7.
The major method of complying with the primary-manufacture requirement is to convert the logs into cants, which are logs slabbed on at least one side. In order to satisfy the Alaska requirement, cants must be either sawed to a maximum thickness of 12 inches or squared on four sides along their entire length.
Petitioner, South-Central Timber Development, Inc., is an Alaska corporation engaged in the business of purchasing standing timber, logging the timber, and shipping the logs into foreign commerce, almost exclusively to Japan. It does not operate a mill in Alaska and customarily sells unprocessed logs. When it learned that the primary-manufacture requirement was to be imposed on the Icy Cape sale, it brought an action in Federal District Court seeking an injunction, arguing that the requirement violated the negative implications of the Commerce Clause. The District Court agreed and issued an injunction. South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. LeResche, 511 F. Supp. 139 (Alaska 1981). The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, finding it unnecessary to reach the question whether, standing alone, the requirement would violate the Commerce Clause, because it found implicit congressional authorization in the federal policy of imposing a primary-manufacture requirement on timber taken from federal land in Alaska. South-Central Timber Development, Inc. v. LeResche, 693 F. 2d 890 (1982).
We must first decide whether the court was correct in concluding that Congress has authorized the challenged requirement. If Congress has not, we must respond to respondents’ submission that we should affirm the judgment on two grounds not reached by the Court of Appeals: (1) whether in the absence of congressional approval Alaska’s requirement is permissible because Alaska is acting as a market participant, rather than as a market regulator; and (2), if not, whether the local-processing requirement is forbidden by the Commerce Clause.
II
Although the Commerce Clause is by its text an affirmative grant of power to Congress to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, the Clause has long been recognized as a self-executing limitation on the power of the States to enact laws imposing substantial burdens on such commerce. See Lewis v. BT Investment Managers, Inc., 447 U. S. 27, 35 (1980); Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322, 326 (1979); H. P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336 U. S. 525, 534-538 (1949); Cooley v. Board of Wardens, 12 How. 299 (1852). It is equally clear that Congress may “redefine the distribution of power over interstate commerce” by “permitting] the states to regulate the commerce in a manner which would otherwise not be permissible.” Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761, 769 (1945). See also Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, 458 U. S. 941, 958-960 (1982); New England Power Co. v. New Hampshire, 455 U. S. 331 (1982); Western & Southern Life Insurance Co. v. State Board of Equalization, 451 U. S. 648, 652-655 (1981); Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin, 328 U. S. 408 (1946). The Court of Appeals held that Congress had done just that by consistently endorsing primary-manufacture requirements on timber taken from federal land. 693 F. 2d, at 893. Although the court recognized that cases of this Court have spoken in terms of express approval by Congress, it stated:
“But such express authorization is not always necessary. There will be instances, like the case before us, where federal policy is so clearly delineated that a state may enact a parallel policy without explicit congressional approval, even if the purpose and effect of the state law is to favor local interests.” Ibid.
We agree that federal policy with respect to federal land is “clearly delineated,” but the Court of Appeals was incorrect in concluding either that there is a clearly delineated federal policy approving Alaska’s local-processing requirement or that Alaska’s policy with respect to its timber lands is authorized by the existence of a “parallel” federal policy with respect to federal lands.
Since 1928, the Secretary of Agriculture has restricted the export of unprocessed timber cut from National Forest lands in Alaska. The current regulation, upon which the State places heavy reliance, provides:
“Unprocessed timber from National Forest System lands in Alaska may not be exported from the United States or shipped to other States without prior approval of the Regional Forester. This requirement is necessary to ensure the development and continued existence of adequate wood processing capacity in that State for the sustained utilization of timber from the National Forests which are geographically isolated from other processing facilities.” 36 CFR §223.10(c) (1983).
From 1969 to 1973, Congress imposed a maximum export limitation of 350 million board-feet of unprocessed timber from federal lands lying west of the 100th meridian (a line running from central North Dakota through central Texas). 16 U. S. C. § 617(a). Beginning in 1973, Congress imposed, by way of a series of annual riders to appropriation Acts, a complete ban on foreign exports of unprocessed logs from western lands except those within Alaska. See, e. g., Pub. L. 96-126, Tit. Ill, §301, 93 Stat. 979. These riders limit only foreign exports and do not require in-state processing before the timber may be sold in domestic interstate commerce. The export limitation with respect to federal land in Alaska, rather than being imposed by statute, was imposed by the above-quoted regulation, and applies to exports to other States, as well as to foreign exports.
Alaska argues that federal statutes and regulations demonstrate an affirmative expression of approval of its primary-manufacture requirement for three reasons: (1) federal timber export policy has, since 1928, treated federal timber land in Alaska differently from that in other States; (2) the Federal Government has specifically tailored its policies to ensure development of wood-processing capacity for utilization of timber from the National Forests; and (3) the regulation forbidding without prior approval the export from Alaska of unprocessed timber or its shipment to other States demonstrates that it is the Alaska wood-processing industry in particular, not the domestic wood-processing industry generally, that has been the object of federal concern.
Acceptance of Alaska’s three factual propositions does not mandate acceptance of its conclusion. Neither South-Central nor the United States challenges the existence of a federal policy to restrict the out-of-state shipment of unprocessed Alaska timber from federal lands. They challenge only the derivation from that policy of an affirmative expression of federal approval of a parallel policy with respect to state timber. They argue that our cases dealing with congressional authorization of otherwise impermissible state interference with interstate commerce have required an “express” statement of such authorization, and that no such authorization may be implied.
It is true that most of our cases have looked for an express statement of congressional policy prior to finding that state regulation is permissible. For example, in Sporhase v. Nebraska ex rel. Douglas, supra, the Court declined to find congressional authorization for state-imposed burdens on interstate commerce in ground water despite 37 federal statutes and a number of interstate compacts that demonstrated Congress’ deference to state water law. We noted that on those occasions in which consent has been found, congressional intent and policy to insulate state legislation from Commerce Clause attack have been “expressly stated.” 458 U. S., at 960. Similarly, in New England Power Co. v. New Hampshire, 455 U. S. 331 (1982), we rejected a claim by the State of New Hampshire that its restriction on the interstate flow of privately owned and produced electricity was authorized by § 201(b) of the Federal Power Act. That section provides that the Act “shall not. . . deprive a State or State commission of its lawful authority now exercised over the exportation of hydroelectric energy which is transmitted across a State line.” 16 U. S. C. § 824(b). We found nothing in the statute or legislative history “evinc[ing] a congressional intent ‘to alter the limits of state power otherwise imposed by the Commerce Clause.’” 455 U. S., at 341 (quoting United States v. Public Utilities Comm’n of California, 345 U. S. 295, 304 (1953)).
Alaska relies in large part on this Court’s recent opinion in White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., 460 U. S. 204 (1983), for its “implicit approval” theory. At issue in White was an executive order issued by the Mayor of Boston requiring all construction projects funded by the city or by funds that the city had authority to administer, to be performed by a work force consisting of at least 50% residents of the city. A number of the projects were funded in part with federal Urban Development Action Grants. The Court held that insofar as the city expended its own funds on the projects, it was a market participant unconstrained by the dormant Commerce Clause; insofar as the city expended federal funds, “the order was affirmatively sanctioned by the pertinent regulations of those programs.” Id., at 215. Alaska relies on the Court’s statements in White that the federal regulations “affirmatively permit” and “affirmatively sanctio[n]” the executive order and that the order “sounds a harmonious note” with the federal regulations, and it finds significance in the fact that the Court did not use the words “expressly stated.”
Rather than supporting the position of the State, we believe that White undermines it. If approval of state burdens on commerce could be implied from parallel federal policy, the Court would have had no reason to rely upon the market-participant doctrine to uphold the executive order. Instead, the order could have been upheld as being in harmony with federal policy as expressed in regulations governing the expenditure of federal funds.
There is no talismanic significance to the phrase “expressly stated,” however; it merely states one way of meeting the requirement that for a state regulation to be removed from the reach of the dormant Commerce Clause, congressional intent must be unmistakably clear. The requirement that Congress affirmatively contemplate otherwise invalid state legislation is mandated by the policies underlying dormant Commerce Clause doctrine. It is not, as Alaska asserts, merely a wooden formalism. The Commerce Clause was designed “to avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that had plagued relations among the Colonies and later among the States under the Articles of Confederation.” Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U. S. 322, 325 (1979). Unrepresented interests will often bear the brunt of regulations imposed by one State having a significant effect on persons or operations in other States. Thus, “when the regulation is of such a character that its burden falls principally upon those without the state, legislative action is not likely to be subjected to those political restraints which are normally exerted on legislation where it affects adversely some interests within the state.” South Carolina State Highway Dept. v. Barnwell Brothers, Inc., 303 U. S. 177, 185, n. 2 (1938); see also Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S., at 767-768, n. 2. On the other hand, when Congress acts, all segments of the country are represented, and there is significantly less danger that one State will be in a position to exploit others. Furthermore, if a State is in such a position, the decision to allow it is a collective one. A rule requiring a clear expression of approval by Congress ensures that there is, in fact, such a collective decision and reduces significantly the risk that unrepresented interests will be adversely affected by restraints on commerce.
The fact that the state policy in this case appears to be consistent with federal policy — or even that state policy furthers the goals we might believe that Congress had in mind — is an insufficient indicium of congressional intent. Congress acted only with respect to federal lands; we cannot infer from that fact that it intended to authorize a similar policy with respect to state lands. Accordingly, we reverse the contrary judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I — I HH
We now turn to the issues left unresolved by the Court of Appeals. The first of these issues is whether Alaska’s restrictions on export of unprocessed timber from state-owned lands are exempt from Commerce Clause scrutiny under the “market-participant doctrine.”
Our cases make clear that if a State is acting as a market participant, rather than as a market regulator, the dormant Commerce Clause places no limitation on its activities. See White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., 460 U. S., at 206-208; Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, 447 U. S. 429, 436-437 (1980); Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., 426 U. S. 794, 810 (1976). The precise contours of the market-participant doctrine have yet to be established, however, the doctrine having been applied in only three cases of this Court to date.
The first of the cases, Hughes v. Alexandria Scrap Corp., supra, involved a Maryland program designed to reduce the number of junked automobiles in the State. A “bounty” was established on Maryland-licensed junk cars, and the State imposed more stringent documentation requirements on out-of-state scrap processors than on in-state ones. The Court rejected a Commerce Clause attack on the program, although it noted that under traditional Commerce Clause analysis the program might well be invalid because it had the effect of reducing the flow of goods in interstate commerce. Id., at 805. The Court concluded that Maryland’s action was not “the kind of action with which the Commerce Clause is concerned,” ibid., because “[njothing in the purposes animating the Commerce Clause prohibits a State, in the absence of congressional action, from participating in the market and exercising the right to favor its own citizens over others.” Id., at 810 (footnote omitted).
In Reeves, Inc. v. Stake, supra, the Court upheld a South Dakota policy of restricting the sale of cement from a state-owned plant to state residents, declaring that “[t]he basic distinction drawn in Alexandria Scrap between States as market participants and States as market regulators makes good sense and sound law.” Id., at 436. The Court relied upon “‘the long recognized right of trader or manufacturer, engaged in an entirely private business, freely to exercise his own independent discretion as to parties with whom he will deal.’” Id., at 438-439 (quoting United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U. S. 300, 307 (1919)). In essence, the Court recognized the principle that the Commerce Clause places no limitations on a State’s refusal to deal with particular parties when it is participating in the interstate market in goods.
The most recent of this Court’s cases developing the market-participant doctrine is White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Employers, Inc., supra, in which the Court sustained against a Commerce Clause challenge an executive order of the Mayor of Boston that required all construction projects funded in whole or in part by city funds or city-administered funds to be performed by a work force of at least 50% city residents. The Court rejected the argument that the city was not entitled to the protection of the doctrine because the order had the effect of regulating employment contracts between public contractors and their employees. Id., at 211, n. 7. Recognizing that “there are some limits on a state or local government’s ability to impose restrictions that reach beyond the immediate parties with which the government transacts business,” the Court found it unnecessary to define those limits because “[e]veryone affected by the order [was], in a substantial if informal sense, ‘working for the city.’” Ibid. The fact that the employees were “working for the city” was “crucial” to the market-participant analysis in White. United Building and Construction Trades Council v. Mayor of Camden, 465 U. S. 208, 219 (1984).
The State of Alaska contends that its primary-manufacture requirement fits squarely within the market-participant doctrine, arguing that “Alaska’s entry into the market may be viewed as precisely the same type of subsidy to local interests that the Court found unobjectionable in Alexandria Scrap.” Brief for Respondents 24. However, when Maryland became involved in the scrap market it was as a purchaser of scrap; Alaska, on the other hand, participates in the timber market, but imposes conditions downstream in the timber-processing market. Alaska is not merely subsidizing local timber processing in an amount “roughly equal to the difference between the price the timber would fetch in the absence of such a requirement and the amount the state actually receives.” Ibid. If the State directly subsidized the timber-processing industry by such an amount, the purchaser would retain the option of taking advantage of the subsidy by processing timber in the State or forgoing the benefits of the subsidy and exporting unprocessed timber. Under the Alaska requirement, however, the choice is made for him: if he buys timber from the State he is not free to take the timber out of state prior to processing.
The State also would have us find Reeves controlling. It states that “Reeves made it clear that the Commerce Clause imposes no limitation on Alaska’s power to choose the terms on which it will sell its timber.” Brief for Respondents 25. Such an unrestrained reading of Reeves is unwarranted. Although the Court in Reeves did strongly endorse the right of a State to deal with whomever it chooses when it participates in the market, it did not — and did not purport to — sanction the imposition of any terms that the State might desire. For example, the Court expressly noted in Reeves that “Commerce Clause scrutiny may well be more rigorous when a restraint on foreign commerce is alleged,” 447 U. S., at 438, n. 9; that a natural resource “like coal, timber, wild game, or minerals,” was not involved, but instead the cement was “the end product of a complex process whereby a costly physical plant and human labor act on raw materials,” id., at 443-444; and that South Dakota did not bar resale of South Dakota cement to out-of-state purchasers, id., at 444, n. 17. In this case, all three of the elements that were not present in Reeves — foreign commerce, a natural resource, and restrictions on resale — are present.
Finally, Alaska argues that since the Court in White upheld a requirement that reached beyond “the boundary of formal privity of contract,” 460 U. S., at 211, n. 7, then, a fortiori, the primary-manufacture requirement is permissible, because the State is not regulating contracts for resale of timber or regulating the buying and selling of timber, but is instead “a seller of timber, pure and simple.” Brief for Respondents 28. Yet it is clear that the State is more than merely a seller of timber. In the commercial context, the seller usually has no say over, and no interest in, how the product is to be used after sale; in this case, however, payment for the timber does not end the obligations of the purchaser, for, despite the fact that the purchaser has taken delivery of the timber and has paid for it, he cannot do with it as he pleases. Instead, he is obligated to deal with a stranger to the contract after completion of the sale.
That privity of contract is not always the outer boundary of permissible state activity does not necessarily mean that the Commerce Clause has no application within the boundary of formal privity. The market-participant doctrine permits a State to influence “a discrete, identifiable class of economic activity in which [it] is a major participant.” White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Workers, Inc., 460 U. S., at 211, n. 7. Contrary to the State’s contention, the doctrine is not carte blanche to impose any conditions that the State has the economic power to dictate, and does not validate any requirement merely because the State imposes it upon someone with whom it is in contractual privity. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 35.
The limit of the market-participant doctrine must be that it allows a State to impose burdens on commerce within the market in which it is a participant, but allows it to go no further. The State may not impose conditions, whether by statute, regulation, or contract, that have a substantial regulatory effect outside of that particular market. Unless the “market” is relatively narrowly defined, the doctrine has the potential of swallowing up the rule that States may not impose substantial burdens on interstate commerce even if they act with the permissible state purpose of fostering local industry.
At the heart of the dispute in this case is disagreement over the definition of the market. Alaska contends that it is participating in the processed timber market, although it acknowledges that it participates in no way in the actual processing. Id., at 34. South-Central argues, on the other hand, that although the State may be a participant in the timber market, it is using its leverage in that market to exert a regulatory effect in the processing market, in which it is not a participant. We agree with the latter position.
There are sound reasons for distinguishing between a State’s preferring its own residents in the initial disposition of goods when it is a market participant and a State’s attachment of restrictions on dispositions subsequent to the goods coming to rest in private hands. First, simply as a matter of intuition a state market participant has a greater interest as a “private trader” in the immediate transaction than it has in what its purchaser does with the goods after the State no longer has an interest in them. The common law recognized such a notion in the doctrine of restraints on alienation. See Dr. Miles Medical Co. v. John D. Park & Sons Co., 220 U. S. 373, 404 (1911); but cf. Continental T.V., Inc. v. GTE Sylvania Inc., 433 U. S. 36, 53, n. 21 (1977). Similarly, the antitrust laws place limits on vertical restraints. It is no defense in an action charging vertical trade restraints that the same end could be achieved through vertical integration; if it were, there would be virtually no antitrust scrutiny of vertical arrangements. We reject the contention that a State’s action as a market regulator may be upheld against Commerce Clause challenge on the ground that the State could achieve the same end as a market participant. We therefore find it unimportant for present purposes that the State could support its processing industry by selling only to Alaska processors, by vertical integration, or by direct subsidy. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 34, 37, 45.
Second, downstream restrictions have a greater regulatory effect than do limitations on the immediate transaction. Instead of merely choosing its own trading partners, the State is attempting to govern the private, separate economic relationships of its trading partners; that is, it restricts the post-purchase activity of the purchaser, rather than merely the purchasing activity. In contrast to the situation in White, this restriction on private economic activity takes place after the completion of the parties’ direct commercial obligations, rather than during the course of an ongoing commercial relationship in which the city retained a continuing proprietary interest in the subject of the contract. In sum, the State may not avail itself of the market-participant doctrine to immunize its downstream regulation of the timber-processing market in which it is not a participant.
> HH
Finally, the State argues that even if we find that Congress did not authorize the processing restriction, and even if we conclude that its actions do not qualify for the market-participant exception, the restriction does not substantially burden interstate or foreign commerce under ordinary Commerce Clause principles. We need not labor long over that contention.
Viewed as a naked restraint on export of unprocessed logs, there is little question that the processing requirement cannot survive scrutiny under the precedents of the Court. For example, in Pike v. Bruce Church, Inc., 397 U. S. 137 (1970), we invalidated a requirement of the State of Arizona that all Arizona cantaloupes be packed within the State. The Court noted that the State’s purpose was “to protect and enhance the reputation of growers within the State,” a purpose we described as “surely legitimate.” Id., at 143. We observed:
“[T]he Court has viewed with particular suspicion state statutes requiring business operations to be performed in the home State that could more efficiently be performed elsewhere. Even where the State is pursuing a clearly legitimate local interest, this particular burden on commerce has been declared to be virtually per se illegal. Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1; Johnson v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 16; Toomer v. Witsell, 334 U. S. 385.” Id., at 145.
We held that if the Commerce Clause forbids a State to require work to be done within the State for the purpose of promoting employment, then, a fortiori, it forbids a State to impose such a requirement to enhance the reputation of its producers. Because of the protectionist nature of Alaska’s local-processing requirement and the burden on commerce resulting therefrom, we conclude that it falls within the rule of virtual per se invalidity of laws that “bloc[k] the flow of interstate commerce at a State’s borders.” City of Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 624 (1978).
We are buttressed in our conclusion that the restriction is invalid by the fact that foreign commerce is burdened by the restriction. It is a well-accepted rule that state restrictions burdening foreign commerce are subjected to a more rigorous and searching scrutiny. It is crucial to the efficient execution of the Nation’s foreign policy that “the Federal Government . . . speak with one voice when regulating commercial relations with foreign governments.” Michelin Tire Corp. v. Wages, 423 U. S. 276, 285 (1976); see also Japan Line, Ltd. v. County of Los Angeles, 441 U. S. 434 (1979). In light of the substantial attention given by Congress to the subject of export restrictions on unprocessed timber, it would be peculiarly inappropriate to permit state regulation of the subject. See Prohibit Export of Unprocessed Timber: Hearing on H. R. 639 before the Subcommittee on Forests, Family Farms, and Energy of the House Committee on Agriculture, 97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981).
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings consistent with the opinion of this Court.
It is so ordered.
Justice Marshall took no part in the decision of this case.
The proposed contract, which the successful bidder on the timber sale would have been required to sign, provided:
“Section 68. Primary Manufacture. Timber cut under this contract shall not be transported for primary manufacture outside the State of Alaska without written approval of the State.
“Primary Manufacture is defined under 11 AAC 76.130 and the Governor’s policy statement of May 1974.”
11 Alaska Admin. Code §76.130 (1974) (repealed 1982), which authorized the contractual provision in question, provided:
“PRIMARY MANUFACTURE
“(a) The director may require that primary manufacture of logs, cordwood, bolts or other similar products be accomplished within the State of Alaska. “(b) The term primary manufacture means manufacture which is first in order of time or development. When used in relation to sawmilling, it means
“(1) the breakdown process wherein logs have been reduced in size by a headsaw or gang saw to the extent that the residual cants, slabs, or planks can be processed by resaw equipment of the type customarily used in log processing plants; or
“(2) manufacture of a product for use without further processing, such as structural timbers (subject to a firm showing of an order or orders for this form of product).
“(c) Primary manufacture, when used in reference to pulp ventures, means the breakdown process to a point where the wood fibers have been separated. Chips made from timber processing wastes shall be considered to have received primary manufacture. With respect to veneer or plywood production, it means the production of green veneer. Poles and piling, whether treated or untreated, when manufactured to American National Institute Standards specifications are considered to have received primary manufacture.”
The local-processing requirement is now authorized by Alaska Admin. Code §§71.280, 71.910 (1982).
Current regulations require that the cants be no thicker than 83A inches unless slabs are taken from all four sides. 11 Alaska Admin. Code § 71.910 (1982).
Apparently, there is virtually no interstate market in Alaska timber because of the high shipping costs associated with shipment between American ports. Consequently, over 90% of Alaska timber is exported to Japan. Brief for Petitioner 14, n. 14.
Although it would appear at first blush that it would be economically more efficient to have the primary processing take place within Alaska, that is apparently not the case. Material appearing in the record suggests that the slabs removed from the log in the process of making cants are often quite valuable, but apparently cannot be used and are burned. Record, Exh. 11, p. 63. It appears that because of the wasted wood, cants are actually worth less than the unprocessed logs. An affidavit of a vice president of South-Central states in part:
“5. It is also my observation that within Alaska there is absolutely no market for domestic resawing of ‘cant’ or ‘square’ manufactured to State of Alaska specifications. In other words, a cant or square manufactured in Alaska would be virtually unsaleable within local Alaska sawmill markets. The reasons are:
“A. Any sawmill would prefer round logs for its sawmill operations and the small volume of round logs required would be readily available locally.
“B. Round logs are preferable because they can be stored in the water and moved in the water, whereas cants must be transported on land.
“C. Once a log is placed on the sawmill carriage and the costs of getting it there have been incurred, it produces more lumber for the costs involved than does a cant.
“D. Also the round log is much less subject to deterioration from weather and outside conditions.
“6. South-Central had experience with attempting to make a sale of cants inside the State of Alaska. We had some cants at Jakalof Bay which were manufactured to State specifications, but which were not loaded aboard ships during that season. We attempted to market those cants to a sawmill in Anchorage, but found that just costs of transporting the cants from Jakalof Bay to Anchorage exceeded the highest possible sales price of the cants. Accordingly no sale was made.
“7. Based on the above statements and my observations of the Alaska timber industry, it is my firm conclusion that a cant or a square manufactured to State of Alaska primary manufacture specifications is marketable only in foreign commerce and cannot be sold for use within Alaska. It is also my firm conclusion that no sawmill in Alaska will manufacture a cant or square for any domestic Alaska market.” App. 121a-122a.
The United States appears as amicus curiae in support of the position of South-Central.
The need for affirmative approval is heightened by the fact that Alaska’s policy has substantial ramifications beyond the Nation’s borders. The need for a consistent and coherent foreign policy, which is the exclusive responsibility of the Federal Government, enhances the necessity that congressional authorization not be lightly implied.
It is for that reason that we need not resolve the dispute between the parties about whether Congress’ purpose in applying the primary-manufacture requirement to federal lands was for the purpose of encouraging the Alaska wood-processing industry or whether it was merely to ensure adequate processing capacity to deal with federal timber. In either event, no congressional intent to permit a primary-manufacture requirement by the State appears.
It is worthy of note, although we do not rely upon it, that Congress has been requested to authorize the imposition by States of in-state processing requirements but has declined to do so. Prohibit Export of Unprocessed Timber: Hearing on H. R. 639 before the Subcommittee on Forests, Family Farms, and Energy of the House Committee on Agriculture, 97th Cong., 1st Sess., 18-19 (1981).
The facts of the present case resemble closely the facts of Foster-Fountain Packing Co. v. Haydel, 278 U. S. 1 (1928), in which the Court struck down a Louisiana law prohibiting export from the State of any shrimp from which the heads and hulls had not been removed. The Court rejected the claim that the fact that the shrimp were owned by the State authorized the State to impose such limitations. Although not directly controlling here, because of the Court’s recognition that “the State owns, or has power to control, the game and fish within its borders not absolutely or as proprietor or for its own use or benefit but in its sovereign capacity as representative of the people,” id., at 11, the Court’s reasoning is relevant. The Court noted that the State might have retained the shrimp for consumption and use within its borders, but “by permitting its shrimp to be taken and all the products thereof to be shipped and sold in interstate commerce, the State necessarily releases its hold and, as to the shrimp so taken, definitely terminates its control.” Id., at 13.
The view of the market-participant doctrine expressed by Justice Rehnquist, post, at 102-103, would validate under the Commerce Clause any contractual condition that the State had the economic power to impose, without regard to the relationship of the subject matter of the contract and the condition imposed. If that were the law, it would have been irrelevant that the employees in White v. Massachusetts Council of Construction Workers, Inc., 460 U. S. 204 (1983), were in effect “working for the city.” Id., at 211, n. 7. If the only question were whether the condition is imposed by contract, a residency requirement could have been imposed with respect to the work force on all projects of any employer doing business with the city.
This is not to say that the State could evade the reasoning of this opinion by merely including a provision in its contract that title does not pass until the processing is complete. It is the substance of the transaction, rather than the label attached to it, that governs Commerce Clause analysis.
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.
As a condition of obtaining access to classified information, employees in the Executive Branch are required to sign “nondisclosure agreements” that detail the employees’ obligation of confidentiality and provide for penalties in the event of unauthorized disclosure. Two such nondisclosure forms are at issue in this case. One, Standard Form 189, was devised by the Director of the Information Security Oversight Office (DISOO) (now appellee Garfinkel); the other, Form 4193, was created by the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) (now appellee Webster). Both of these forms forbade employees to reveal classified or “classifiable” information to persons not authorized to receive such information, App. 15, 19, and made clear that employees who disclosed information in violation of these agreements could lose their security clearances, their jobs, or both. Id., at 16, 21. Neither form defined the term “classifiable.” The DISOO eventually promulgated a regulation that defined the term “classifiable” in Form 189 to include only unmarked classified information or unclassified information that was “in the process of a classification determination.” Under this regulation, moreover, an employee would violate the nondisclosure agreement by disclosing unclassified information only if that employee “knows, or reasonably should know, that such information is in the process of a classification determination and requires interim protection.” 52 Fed. Reg. 48367 (1987). For those employees who signed Form 4193, however, the DCI did not attempt to define “classifiable.” More than half of the Federal Government’s civilian and military employees have signed either Form 189 or 4193. Brief for Appellants 5.
Section 630 of the Continuing Resolution for Fiscal Year 1988, Pub. L. 100-202, 101 Stat. 1329-432, enacted by Congress in 1987, prohibited the expenditure of funds in fiscal year 1988 for the implementation or enforcement of Form 189, Form 4193, or any other form that violated one of its five subsections. In response to this statute, appellee Garfinkel ordered agencies to cease using Form 189, but several agencies nevertheless required approximately 43,000 employees to sign the form after § 630 was enacted. Brief for Appellants 10. The DCI, in contrast, continued to require employees to sign Form 4193, but attached a paragraph to the form stating that the nondisclosure agreement would “be implemented and enforced in a manner consistent with” the statute of which § 630 was a part. App. 26-27. Three months after § 630 became law, the DCI replaced Form 4193 with Form 4355, which eliminated the term “classifiable.” National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States, 688 F. Supp. 671, 680, n. 11 (DC 1988).
Appellant American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) and several Members of Congress brought the present lawsuit challenging appellees’ use of Forms 189 and 4193 on the ground that they violated §630. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief that would (1) bar appellees from requiring employees to execute or sign Form 4193 during fiscal year 1988; (2) compel appellees to treat any Form 4193 agreement signed after December 22, 1987 (the effective date of § 630), as void; and (3) direct appellees to notify all employees who signed Form 189 or 4193 after December 22, 1987, that these agreements were void and that the terms of such forms signed before that date could not be enforced in fiscal year 1988. App. 10. This lawsuit was consolidated with two other cases, brought by the National Federation of Federal Employees and the American Federation of Government Employees, which sought to enjoin the use of Forms 189 and 4193 because, among other things, they violated § 630 and because the term “classifiable” was so vague and overbroad that it inhibited employees’ speech in violation of the First Amendment.
The District Court for the District of Columbia concluded that appellant AFSA had standing to challenge the nondisclosure forms on behalf of its members, but that the Members of Congress lacked standing to challenge the use of the forms. 688 F. Supp., at 678-682. The court then assumed that “the Executive’s actions since enactment of section 630 do not comply with the requirements of that legislation,” id., at 683, and n. 16, because the DCI had continued to require employees to sign Form 4193 for three months after enactment of § 630 despite § 630’s specific prohibition on the use of that form. Acknowledging that, during that time, the DCI had added a paragraph to Form 4193 stating that the agreement would be enforced in a manner consistent with § 630, the District Court nevertheless concluded that this action was not “‘true to the congressional mandate from which it derives authority,’” id., at 683-684, n. 16, quoting Farmers Union Central Exchange, Inc. v. FERC, 236 U. S. App. D. C. 203, 217, 734 F. 2d 1486, 1500 (1984), and that review of the Executive’s action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §706, “likely” would show that the Executive’s action was contrary to law, 688 F. Supp., at 684, n. 16. Having thus skirted the statutory question whether the Executive Branch’s implementation of Forms 189 and 4193 violated § 630, the court proceeded to address appellees’ argument that the lawsuit should be dismissed because §630 was an unconstitutional interference with the President’s authority to protect the national security. Concluding that § 630 “impermissibly restricts the President’s power to fulfill obligations imposed upon him by his express constitutional powers and the role of the Executive in foreign relations,” id., at 685, the court entered summary judgment in favor of appellees.
Appellants took a direct appeal from the District Court’s judgment pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 1252, and we noted probable jurisdiction, 488 U. S. 923 (1988). In spite of the importance of the constitutional question whether § 630 impermissibly intrudes upon the Executive’s authority to regulate the disclosure of national security information — indeed, partly because of it — we remand this case to the District Court without expressing an opinion on that issue.
Events occurring since the District Court issued its ruling place this case in a light far different from the one in which that court considered it. Since issuing the decision that we now review, the District Court has ruled on the constitutional challenge presented by the cases with which the present one was consolidated, and has decided that the unadorned term “classifiable” used in Forms 189 and 4193 is unconstitutionally vague. See National Federation of Federal Employees v. United States, 695 F. Supp. 1196, 1201-1203 (DC 1988). The court further held that the DISOO’s definition of the term “classifiable,” see supra, at 155, would remedy this vagueness, and ordered appellees to notify employees either that this definition was in force or that no penalties would be imposed for the disclosure of “classifiable” information. 695 F. Supp., at 1203-1204. Appellees thereafter deleted the word “classifiable” — a primary focus of appellants’ challenge to Forms 189 and 4193 — from all nondisclosure forms, and replaced it with the definition given in the DISOO’s regulation. They also furnished individualized notice of this change to employees who signed either Form 189 or Form 4193. 53 Fed. Reg. 38278 (1988); Motion to Affirm 13. According to appellants, however, appellees have notified only current employees of the refinement of the term “classifiable”; former employees, who signed Form 189 or 4193 but have left the employment of the Federal Government, have not received such notice. Brief for Appellants 15. The controversy as it exists today is, in short, quite different from the one that the District Court considered.
Indeed, appellees urge us to hold the case moot to the extent that it challenges the use of the term “classifiable” in Forms 189 and 4193. Brief for Appellees 31-32. As to current employees who have been notified that the term “classifiable” no longer controls their disclosure of information, the controversy is indeed moot. Appellants emphasize, however, that former employees have not been informed of the switch in terminology; as to them, the controversy whether they should have received notice of this change remains alive. Brief for Appellants 20. We decline to decide the merits of appellants’ request for individualized notice to these employees, however, because the questions whether individual notice is required by § 630 and whether appellants’ complaint can be read to request such notice for former employees, see Brief for Appellees 32, n. 24 (arguing that it cannot be so read), are questions best addressed in the first instance by the District Court.
A second reason why we remand this case for further proceedings rather than ordering it dismissed is that appellants argue that the definition of “classified information” now supplied by the DISOO, 53 Fed. Reg. 38279 (1988) (to be codified in 32 CFR § 2003.20(h)(3)), does not comply with § 630. They contend that the DISOO’s definition prohibits disclosure of information that an employee reasonably should have known was classified, whereas subsection (1) of § 630 refers only to information that is “known by the employee” to be classified or in the process of being classified. Brief for Appellants 19-20. In contrast, appellees and the Senate as amicus argue that there is no inconsistency between § 630(1) and this new definition. Brief for Appellees 39-41; Brief for United States Senate as Amicus Curiae 17-18. It appears that, in order to press this issue, appellants would be forced to amend their complaint in order to take into account the new definition of the term “classified.” Brief for Appellees 41. Because the decision whether to allow this amendment is one for the District Court, and because appellants’ argument raises a question of statutory interpretation not touched upon by the District Court, we leave these matters for that court to decide in the first instance.
In addition, there remains a question whether the forms comply with subsections (3), (4), and (5) of § 630, dealing with disclosure of classified information to Congress. Both appellants and appellees apparently agree that these subsections simply preserve pre-existing rights, rights guaranteed by other statutes and constitutional provisions. Brief for Appellants 38-40; Brief for Appellees 48. The only relief appellants request with respect to this portion of the case is notice to employees informing them that Forms 189 and 4193 did not alter those pre-existing rights. Brief for Appellants 38. No actual instance in which an employee sought to disclose information to Congress, and was prohibited from doing so, has been brought to our attention. There thus exists a substantial possibility that this last portion of the case is not ripe for decision, and this is exactly the argument pressed by several amici. Brief for American Civil Liberties Union as Amicus Curiae 28-48; Brief for Speaker and Leadership Group of House of Representatives as Amicus Curiae 12-16; Brief for United States Senate as Amicus Curiae 15-21. We are not, however, disposed to decide for ourselves whether this is so. Since the District Court analyzed the interaction between §630 and the Executive Branch’s nondisclosure policy only in abbreviated fashion, we do not have the benefit of a lower court’s interpretation of the statute and of Executive policy to help us decide whether the case is ready for decision or, if it is, to guide our own resolution of the merits. Again, therefore, we return these questions to the District Court to allow it to sort them out in the first instance.
Because part of the controversy has become moot but other parts of it may retain vitality, we vacate the judgment below and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. See, e. g., United States Dept. of Treasury v. Galioto, 477 U. S. 556, 560 (1986); United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36, 39-40 (1950). In doing so, we emphasize that the District Court should not pronounce upon the relative constitutional authority of Congress and the Executive Branch unless it finds it imperative to do so. Particularly where, as here, a case implicates the fundamental relationship between the Branches, courts should be extremely careful not to issue unnecessary constitutional rulings. On remand, the District Court should decide first whether the controversy is sufficiently live and concrete to be adjudicated and whether it is an appropriate case for equitable relief, and then decide whether the statute and forms are susceptible of a reconciling interpretation; if they are not, the court may turn to the constitutional question whether § 630 impermissibly intrudes upon the Executive Branch’s authority over national security information. See, e. g., Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 345-356 (1936) (Brandeis, J., concurring); Rescue Army v. Municipal Court of Los Angeles, 331 U. S. 549 (1947); Clark v. Jeter, 486 U. S. 456, 459 (1988).
The judgment of the District Court for the District of Columbia is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Seetion 630 provides:
“No funds appropriated in this or any other Act for fiscal year 1988 may be used to implement or enforce the agreements in Standard Forms 189 and 4193 of the Government or any other nondisclosure policy, form or agreement if such policy, form or agreement:
“(1) concerns information other than that specifically marked as classified; or, unmarked but known by the employee to be classified; or, unclassified but known by the employee to be in the process of a classification determination;
“(2) contains the term ‘classifiable’;
“(3) directly or indirectly obstructs, by requirement of prior written authorization, limitation of authorized disclosure, or otherwise, the right of any individual to petition or communicate with Members of Congress in a secure manner as provided by the rules and procedures of the Congress;
“(4) interferes with the right of the Congress to obtain executive branch information in a secure manner as provided by the rules and procedures of the Congress;
“(5) imposes any obligations or invokes any remedies inconsistent with statutory law: Provided, That nothing in this section shall affect the enforcement of those aspects of such nondisclosure policy, form or agreement that do not fall within subsections (1) — (5) of this section.”
Section 630 applied only to fiscal year 1988; however, § 619 of the Treasury, Postal Service and General Government Appropriations Act, 1989, Pub. L. 100-440, 102 Stat. 1756, includes restrictions on expenditures of funds during fiscal year 1989 that are identical to those contained in § 630.
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.
DECREE
The Court having exercised original jurisdiction over this controversy between two sovereign States; the issues raised having been heard in an evidentiary proceeding before the Special Master appointed by the Court; the Court having heard argument on the Final Report of the Special Master and the exceptions filed by the state parties; the Court having issued its opinion on the issues raised in the exceptions, which is reported at 523 U. S. 767 (1998); and the Special Master having submitted his Report Upon Recommittal;
It Is Hereby Ordered, Adjudged, and Decreed as Follows:
I
The State of New Jersey’s prayer that she be declared to be sovereign over the landfilled portions of Ellis Island added by the Federal Government after 1834 is granted and the State of New York is enjoined from enforcing her laws or asserting sovereignty over the portions of Ellis Island that lie within the State of New Jersey’s sovereign boundary as set forth in paragraph 4 of this decree.
HH HH
The sovereign boundary between the State of New Jersey and the State of New York is as set forth in Article First of the Compact of 1834, enacted into law in both States and approved by Congress.
1 — 1 HH 1 — 1
The State of New York remains sovereign under Article Second of the Compact of 1834 of and over the original Ellis Island, to the low-water mark, and the pier area built on landfill, as the Island and pier were structured in 1834, as more particularly depicted on the 1857 United States Coast Survey of New York Harbor.
IV
The boundary between the two States on Ellis Island is as depicted on the map of Ellis Island, Showing Boundary Between States of New Jersey and New York, dated December 1,1998, which is appended hereto, infra. The boundary between the two States, as depicted on the appended map, lies along the line described as follows:
Beginning at a point with North (NAD83) metric coordinates of North 207 180.7849 (latitude North 40 degrees 41 minutes 54.92285 seconds) and East 188 879.9657 (longitude West 74 degrees 02 minutes 23.75137 seconds), said point being (a) South 45 degrees 42 minutes 50 seconds East along the northeasterly granite block wall of the Ferry Slip about 502 feet from the northwesterly terminus of said wall and thence being (b) North 46 degrees 39 minutes 35.7 seconds East about 10 feet to said point of beginning; thence the following courses and distances:
(1) N 42 degrees 10 minutes 59.1 a 61.150 feet to a point; thence
(2) N 45 degrees 24 minutes 60.990 feet to a point; thence
(3) N 46 degrees 1.813 feet to a point; thence
(4) N 45 degrees 33 minutes 03.3 seconds a 9.193 feet to a point; thence
(5) N 45 degrees 42 minutes 35.4 seconds a 24.972 feet to a point; thence
(6) S 42 degrees 23 minutes 50.8 seconds E, a distance of
I.947 feet to a point; thence
(7) N 45 degrees 15 minutes 54.9 seconds E, a distance of 19.092 feet to a point; thence
(8) S 46 degrees 25 minutes 55.5 seconds E, a distance of 14.147 feet to a point; thence
(9) S 69 degrees 37 minutes 24.8 seconds E, a distance of 4.667 feet to a point; thence
(10) S 67 degrees 54 minutes 46.2 seconds E, a distance of 4.654 feet to a point; thence
(11) S 70 degrees 49 minutes 58.4 seconds E, a distance of 12.373 feet to a point; thence
(12) S 79 degrees 45 minutes 36.8 seconds E, a distance of 9.844 feet to a point; thence
(13) N 86 degrees 16 minutes 07.0 seconds E, a distance of
II.526 feet to a point; thence
(14) N 72 degrees 30 minutes 15.3 seconds E, a distance of 12.058 feet to a point; thence
(15) N 61 degrees 34 minutes 34.0 seconds E, a distance of 13.787 feet to a point; thence
(16) N 37 degrees 42 minutes 57.5 seconds E, a distance of 11.851 feet to a point; thence
(17) N 01 degrees 43 minutes 14.9 seconds E, a distance of 14.569 feet to a point; thence
(18) N 22 degrees 53 minutes 06.4 seconds W, a distance of 13.500 feet to a point; thence
(19) N 48 degrees 57 minutes 00.8 seconds W, a distance of 17.321 feet to a point; thence
(20) N 48 degrees 15 minutes 36.6 seconds W, a distance of 13.988 feet to a point; thence
(21) N 51 degrees 26 minutes 12.9 seconds W, a distance of 17.345 feet to a point; thence
(22) N 43 degrees 49 minutes 22.3 seconds W, a distance of 12.907 feet to a point; thence
(23) N 54 degrees 54 minutes 43.1 seconds W, a distance of 30.552 feet to a point; thence
(24) N 70 degrees 20 minutes 46.2 seconds W, a distance of 26.016 feet to a point; thence
(25) N 49 degrees 2B minutes 55.3 seconds W, a distance of 10.372 feet to a point; thence
(26) N 05 degrees 34 minutes 48.6 seconds W, a distance of 10.927 feet to a point; thence
(27) N 00 degrees 17 minutes 59.9 seconds W, a distance of 11.938 feet to a point; thence
(28) N 23 degrees 17 minutes 40.4 seconds W, a distance of 14.698 feet to a point; thence
(29) N 53 degrees 00 minutes 04.3 seconds W, a distance of 11.113 feet to a point; thence
(30) N 57 degrees 55 minutes 46.1 seconds W, a distance of 11.654 feet to a point; thence
(31) N 63 degrees 34 minutes 20.5 seconds W, a distance of 11.655 feet to a point; thence
(32) N 70 degrees 09 minutes 45.4 seconds W, a distance of 10.498 feet to a point; thence
(33) N 64 degrees 39 minutes 53.0 seconds W, a distance of 15.628 feet to a point; thence
(34) N 42 degrees 57 minutes 16.5 seconds W, a distance of 9.906 feet to a point; thence
(35) N 20 degrees 46 minutes 20.1 seconds W, a distance of 9.693 feet to a point; thence
(36) N 24 degrees 35 minutes 59.2 seconds W, a distance of 11.411 feet to a point; thence
(37) N 18 degrees 46 minutes 40.9 seconds W, a distance of 9.902 feet to a point; thence
(38) N 00 degrees 00 minutes 00.0 seconds E, a distance of 12.938 feet to a point; thence
(39) N 05 degrees 54 minutes 22.1 seconds W, a distance of 10.933 feet to a point; thence
(40) N 16 degrees 33 minutes 01.3 seconds W, a distance of 13.823 feet to a point; thence
(41) N 33 degrees 24 minutes 44.2 seconds W, a distance of 14.301 feet to a point; thence
(42) N 25 degrees 46 minutes 09.6 seconds W, a distance of 12.076 feet to a point; thence
(43) N 37 degrees 08 minutes 48.1 seconds W, a distance of 10.350 feet to a point; thence
• (44) N 32 degrees 03 minutes 52.4 seconds W, a distance of 12.833 feet to a point; thence
(45) N 31 degrees 19 minutes 03.9 seconds W, a distance of 12.144 feet to a point; thence
(46) N 17 degrees 53 minutes 21.4 seconds W, a distance of 10.377 feet to a point; thence
(47) N 06 degrees 53 minutes 43.1 seconds W, a distance of 13.535 feet to a point; thence
(48) N 03 degrees 03 minutes 10.4 seconds E, a distance of 9.388 feet to a point; thence
(49) N 11 degrees 29 minutes 11.7 seconds W, a distance of 11.926 feet to a point; thence
(50) N 34 degrees 52 minutes 31.2 seconds W, a distance of 10.056 feet to a point; thence
(51) N 30 degrees 47 minutes 02.9 seconds W, a distance of 10.258 feet to a point; thence
(52) N 17 degrees 53 minutes 21.4 seconds W, a distance of 10.377 feet to a point; thence
(53) N 00 degrees 21 minutes 53.8 seconds W, a distance of 9.813 feet to a point; thence
(54) N 18 degrees 34 minutes 20.5 seconds W, a distance of 8.242 feet to a point; thence
(55) N 06 degrees 10 minutes 47.7 seconds W, a distance of 9.870 feet to a point; thence
(56) N 04 degrees 25 minutes 03.0 seconds W, a distance of 14.606 feet to a point; thence
(57) N 21 degrees 57 minutes 38.0 seconds W, a distance of 8.356 feet to a point; thence
(58) N 28 degrees 19 minutes 29.9 seconds W, a distance of 10.011 feet to a point; thence
(59) N 23 degrees 19 minutes 03.8 seconds W, a distance of 3.947 feet to a point; thence
(60) N 24 degrees 12 minutes 42.3 seconds W, a distance of 10.211 feet to a point; thence
(61) N 09 degrees 17 minutes 00.8 seconds W, a distance of 13.173 feet to a point; thence
(62) N 26 degrees 15 minutes 31.2 seconds E, a distance of 10.454 feet to a point; thence
(63) N 48 degrees 14 minutes 50.4 seconds E, a distance of 12.483 feet to a point; thence
(64) S 87 degrees 53 minutes 19.2 seconds E, a distance of 13.572 feet to a point; thence
(65) S 64 degrees 54 minutes 13.5 seconds E, a distance of 10.905 feet to a point; thence
(66) S 68 degrees 55 minutes 21.0 seconds E, a distance of 12.861 feet to a point; thence
(67) S 70 degrees 10 minutes 04.3 seconds E, a distance of 12.159 feet to a point; thence
(68) S 59 degrees 59 minutes 42.3 seconds E, a distance of 10.248 feet to a point; thence
(69) S 65 degrees 02 minutes 32.3 seconds E, a distance of 10.961 feet to a point; thence
(70) S 56 degrees 22 minutes 33.9 seconds E, a distance of 15.011 feet to a point; thence
(71) S 65 degrees 01 minutes 07.5 seconds E, a distance of 12.135 feet to a point; thence
(72) S 72 degrees 23 minutes 43.3 seconds E, a distance of 13.639 feet to a point; thence
(73) N 72 degrees 50 minutes 17.1 seconds E, a distance of 13.344 feet to a point; thence
(74) N 77 degrees 08 minutes 45.2 seconds E, a distance of 9.552 feet to a point; thence
(75) S 86 degrees 40 minutes 12.7 seconds E, a distance of 17.217 feet to a point; thence
(76) S 66 degrees 15 minutes 01.8 seconds E, a distance of 10.242 feet to a point; thence
(77) S 71 degrees 54 minutes 34.2 seconds E, a distance of 9.863 feet to a point; thence
(78) S 87 degrees 15 minutes 10.449 feet to a point; thence 26.6 seconds E, a distance of
(79) S 54 degrees 29 minutes 11.516 feet to a point; thence 54.5 seconds E, a distance of
(80) S 57 degrees 20 minutes 8.686 feet to a point; thence 20.7 seconds E, a distance of
(81) S 47 degrees 36 minutes 48.0 seconds E, a distance of 10.662 feet to a point; thence
(82) S 43 degrees 13 minutes 26.2 seconds E, a distance of 11.407 feet to a point; thence
(83) S 45 degrees 24 minutes 22.8 seconds E, a distance of 12.463 feet to a point; thence
(84) S 63 degrees 26 minutes 05.8 seconds E, a distance of 10.482 feet to a point; thence
(85) S 63 degrees 56 minutes 07.2 seconds E, a distance of 12.802 feet to a point; thence
(86) S 68 degrees 51 minutes 36.6 seconds E, a distance of 10.051 feet to a point; thence
(87) S 83 degrees 55 minutes 39.2 seconds E, a distance of 11.816 feet to a point; thence
(88) S 87 degrees 14 minutes 27.2 seconds E, a distance of 10.387 feet to a point; thence
(89) S 47 degrees 05 minutes 24.6 seconds E, a distance of 12.117 feet to a point; thence
(90) S 33 degrees 17 minutes 23.9 seconds E, a distance of 12.412 feet to a point; thence
(91) S 36 degrees 11 minutes 13.6 seconds E, a distance of 11.538 feet to a point; thence
(92) S 62 degrees 43 minutes 23.7 seconds E, a distance of 13.501 feet to a point; thence
(93) S 84 degrees 13 minutes 03.4 seconds E,ta distance of 9.926 feet to a point; thence
(94) S 71 degrees 39 minutes 48.0 seconds E, a distance of 11.523 feet to a point; thence
(95) S 45 degrees 21 minutes 45.5 seconds E, a distance of 13.966 feet to a point; thence
(96) S 37 degrees 11 minutes 27.6 seconds E, a distance of 15.613 feet to a point; thence
(97) S 63 degrees 45 minutes 09.6 seconds E, a distance of 15.122 feet to a point; thence
(98) S 70 degrees 24 minutes 57.6 seconds E, a distance of 13.798 feet to a point; thence
(99) S 59 degrees 24 minutes 14.4 seconds E, a distance of 16.700 feet to a point; thence
(100) S 60 degrees 38 minutes 32.1 seconds E, a distance of 13.768 feet to a point; thence
(101) S 48 degrees 52 minutes 16.5 seconds E, a distance of 11.782 feet to a point; thence
(102) S 80 degrees 54 minutes 35.0 seconds E, a distance of 12.659 feet to a point; thence
(103) S 83 degrees 25 minutes 05.0 seconds E, a distance of 13.086 feet to a point; thence
(104) S 79 degrees 49 minutes 56.0 seconds E, a distance of 11.683 feet to a point; thence
(105) S 85 degrees 36 minutes 04.7 seconds E, a distance of 13.038 feet to a point; thence
(106) S 81 degrees 54 minutes 20.0 seconds E, a distance of 14.204 feet to a point; thence
(107) N 90 degrees 00 minutes 00.0 seconds E, a distance of 9.375 feet to a point; thence
(108) S 80 degrees 20 minutes 42.1 seconds E, a distance of 15.279 feet to a point; thence
(109) S 47 degrees 58 minutes 47.4 seconds E, a distance of 16.153 feet to a point; thence
(110) S 23 degrees 55 minutes 21.0 seconds E, a distance of 9.094 feet to a point; thence
(111) S 38 degrees 34 minutes 09.6 seconds E, a distance of 18.546 feet to a point; thence
(112) S 30 degrees 17 minutes 47.2 seconds E, a distance of 12.885 feet to a point; thence
(113) S 13 degrees 08 minutes 27.9 seconds E, a distance of 16.494 feet to a point; thence
(114) S 05 degrees 16 minutes 03.7 seconds E, a distance of 17.700 feet to a point; thence
(115) S 17 degrees 09 minutes 57.4 seconds E, a distance of 12.494 feet to a point; thence
(116) S 45 degrees 00 minutes 00.0 seconds E, a distance of 4.419 feet to a point; thence
(117) S 18 degrees 43 minutes 50.9 seconds E, a distance of 11.483 feet to a point; thence
(118) S 15 degrees 34 minutes 21.2 seconds E, a distance of 11.873 feet to a point; thence
(119) S 28 degrees 42 minutes 40.4 seconds E, a distance of 14.181 feet to a point; thence
(120) S 41 degrees 33 minutes 09.4 seconds E, a distance of 11.024 feet to a point; thence
(121) S 56 degrees 56 minutes 54.8 seconds E, a distance of 10.887 feet to a point; thence
(122) S 45 degrees 24 minutes 12.5 seconds E, a distance of 12.551 feet to a point; thence
(123) S 42 degrees 16 minutes 25.3 seconds E, a distance of 13.937 feet to a point; thence
(124) S 59 degrees 20 minutes 23.7 seconds E, a distance of 12.134 feet to a point; thence
(125) S 46 degrees 10 minutes 08.9 seconds E, a distance of 10.830 feet to a point; thence
(126) S 34 degrees 45 minutes 21.3 seconds E, a distance of 11.183 feet to a point; thence
(127) S 21 degrees 48 minutes 05.1 seconds E, a distance of 12.453 feet to a point; thence
(128) S 04 degrees 31 minutes 35.3 seconds W, a distance of 15.047 feet to a point; thence
(129) S 23 degrees 00 minutes 39.1 seconds E, a distance of 22.544 feet to a point; thence
(130) S 09 degrees 43 minutes 39.3 seconds E, a distance of 13.317 feet to a point; thence
(131) S 02 degrees 45 minutes 32.8 seconds W, a distance of 20.774 feet to a point; thence
(132) S 02 degrees 54 minutes 27.9 seconds W, a distance of 19.713 feet to a point; thence
(133) S 11 degrees 36 minutes 10.4 seconds E, a distance of 16.780 feet to a point; thence
(134) S 24 degrees 37 minutes 24.8 seconds E, a distance of 13.200 feet to a point; thence
(135) S 27 degrees 06 minutes 38.6 seconds E, a distance of 14.675 feet to a point; thenee
(136} S 23 degrees 53 minutes 42.6 seconds E, a distance of 10.801 feet to a point; thence
(137) S 39 degrees 13 minutes 03.4 seconds E, a distance of 7.018 feet to a point; thence
(138) S 18 degrees 39 minutes 13.1 seconds E, a distance of 10.357 feet to a point; thence
(139) S 09 degrees 11 minutes 48.0 seconds W, a distance of 6.648 feet to a point; thence
(140) S 78 degrees 18 minutes 38.3 seconds W, a distance of 5.553 feet to a point; thence
(141) S 89 degrees 32 minutes 03.1 seconds W, a distance of 7.688 feet to a point; thence
(142) N 58 degrees 58 minutes 45.6 seconds W, a distance of 10.794 feet to a point; thence
(143) N 61 degrees 57 minutes 19.1 seconds W, a distance of 7.577 feet to a point; thence
(144) N 62 degrees 20 minutes 12.3 seconds W, a distance of 8.750 feet to a point; thence
(145) N 60 degrees 15 minutes 18.4 seconds W, a distance of 7.054 feet to a point; thence
(146) N 60 degrees 42 minutes 51.3 seconds W, a distance of 13.544 feet to a point; thence
(147) S 65 degrees 42 minutes 51.0 seconds W, a distance of 11.245 feet to a point; thence
(148) S 32 degrees 24 minutes 24.0 seconds W, a distance of 8.513 feet to a point; thence
(149) S 36 degrees 24 minutes 59.0 seconds E, a distance of 9.475 feet to a point; thence
(150) S 67 degrees 50 minutes 01.2 seconds W, a distance of 5.467 feet to a point; thence
(151) S 66 degrees 40 minutes 56.2 seconds W, a distance of 3.947 feet to a point; thence
(152) S 73 degrees 02 minutes 40.9 seconds W, a distance of 5.358 feet to a point; thence
(153) S 82 degrees 11 minutes 37.0 seconds W, a distance of 7.822 feet to a point; thence
(154) S 75 degrees 34 minutes 45.2 seconds W, a distance of 9.035 feet to a point; thence
(155) S 54 degrees 44 minutes 03.2 seconds W, a distance of 10.717 feet to a point; thence
(156) S 87 degrees 27 minutes 47.7 seconds W, a distance of 9.885 feet to a point; thence
(157) S 71 degrees 24 minutes 08.2 seconds W, a distance of 13.914 feet to a point; thence
(158) S 71 degrees 06 minutes 50.1 seconds W, a distance of 15.061 feet to a point; thence
(159) S 83 degrees 21 minutes 17.0 seconds W, a distance of 12.962 feet to a point; thence
(160) S 65 degrees 16 minutes 21,7 seconds W, a distance of 10.459 feet to a point; thence
(161) S 87 degrees 31 minutes 20.6 seconds W, a distance of 13.012 feet to a point; thence
(162) N 86 degrees 13 minutes 02.5 seconds W, a distance of 15.158 feet to a point; thence
(163) S 83 degrees 50 minutes 33.1 seconds W, a distance of 15.150 feet to a point; thence
(164) N 86 degrees 04 minutes 18.1 seconds W, a distance of 14.597 feet to a point; thence
(165) N 73 degrees 38 minutes 51.4 seconds W, a distance of 10.878 feet to a point; thence
(166) N 71 degrees 39 minutes 48.0 seconds W, a distance of 11.523 feet to a point; thence
(167) N 60 degrees 04 minutes 59.0 seconds W, a distance of 12.907 feet to a point; thence
(168) N 36 degrees 49 minutes 18.7 seconds W, a distance of 14.912 feet to a point; thence
(169) N 44 degrees 13 minutes 20.2 seconds W, a distance of 9.768 feet to a point; thence
(170) N 36 degrees 01 minutes 38.5 seconds W, a distance of 11.051 feet to a point; thence
(171) N 21 degrees 30 minutes 05.2 seconds W, a distance of 8.867 feet to a point; thence
(172) N 77 degrees 42 minutes 17.0 seconds W, a distance of 9.979 feet to a point; thence
(173) N 84 degrees 45 minutes 45.1 seconds W, a distance of 7.531 feet to a point; thence
(174) N 61 degrees 55 minutes 39.0 seconds W, a distance of 9.563 feet to a point; thence
(175) N 29 degrees 24 minutes 45.0 seconds W, a distance of 10.690 feet to a point; thence
(176) N 80 degrees 08 minutes 03.1 seconds W, a distance of 5.83(3 feet to a point; thence
(177) N 72 degrees 52 minutes 01.2 seconds W, a distance of 8.698 feet to a point; thence
(178) N 85 degrees 37 minutes 20.1 seconds W, a distance of 13.101 feet to a point; thence
(179) S 88 degrees 52 minutes 55.8 seconds W, a distance of 12.815 feet to a point; thence
(180) N 90 degrees 00 minutes 00.0 seconds W, a distance of 4.313 feet to a point; thence
(181) S 49 degrees 21 minutes 03.9 seconds W, a distance of 8.155 feet to a point; thence
(182) S 46 degrees 39 minutes 35.7 seconds W, a distance of 99.169 feet to the point and place of beginning.
V
The Court retains jurisdiction to entertain such further proceedings, enter such orders, and issue such writs as may from time to time be considered necessary or desirable to give proper force and effect to this Decree or to effectuate the rights of the parties.
VI
The States of New Jersey and New York shall share equally in the compensation for the Special Master and his assistants, and for expenses of this litigation incurred by the Special Master in this controversy.
[Ellis Island Boundary map follows this page.]
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | K | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
MR. Justice Douglas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner was a seaman on the S. S. Escanaba Victory, a vessel owned by the United States and operated under an agreement between the War Shipping Administration and the American-South African Line, Inc., the provisions of which are unnecessary to relate here. He was injured while the vessel was docked at the port of San Francisco, California, and brought this suit in admiralty against the United States under the Suits in Admiralty Act. 41 Stat. 525, 46 U. S. C. § 742. The libel alleged that the United States maintains offices and principal places of business in the Northern District of California where the suit was brought, but it did not allege that petitioner was a resident of that district nor that the vessel was found there at the time suit was filed. The United States did not appear specially but answered to the merits, leaving all questions of jurisdiction to the court. The District Court raised the question of jurisdiction sua sponte and, being of opinion that jurisdiction was lacking, dismissed the libel. 75 F. Supp. 289.
Its opinion was dated August 5, 1946, and on the same day it entered an order reading as follows:
“It is ordered:
“That the libel herein is dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, and that respondents have judgment for costs.
“Counsel for respondents will submit findings of fact and conclusions of law in accordance with the rules of court and the opinion filed herewith.”
On October 14, 1946, it filed “Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” and a decree. The decree after formal recitals stated:
“Wherefore, by reason of the law and the evidence and the premises, and the findings of fact and conclusions of law, as aforesaid, it is ordered, adjudged and decreed that the above-entitled Court has no jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action, and that the libel be dismissed.”
On October 18, 1946, petitioner filed a petition for appeal stating that he was “aggrieved by the rulings, findings, judgment and decree made and entered herein on October 14, 1946.” The appeal was allowed on the same day.
The Court of Appeals by a divided vote dismissed the appeal, holding that the first order was the final one and that the decree of October 14, 1946, was not appealable. 165 F. 2d 504. The case is here on certiorari.
I. We find it unnecessary to determine whether the order of August 5 or that of October 14, 1946, was the final decision from which an appeal could be taken within the meaning of § 128 of the Judicial Code, 36 Stat. 1133, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 225; 62 Stat. 929, 28 U. S. C. § 1291. The appeal was taken within three months of the earlier of the two and was therefore timely. 43 Stat. 940, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 230. And although the petition for appeal referred solely to the second order and not to the first, that defect was of such a technical nature that the Court of Appeals should have disregarded it in accordance with the policy expressed by Congress in R. S. § 954, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 777.
The mandate of that statute is for a court to disregard niceties of form and to give judgment as the right of the cause shall appear to it. It seems to us hypertechnical to say that the appeal papers did not bring the sole issue of the case fairly before the Court of Appeals. Thus the assignments of error framed in the appeal attacked the basis of the first order as well as the second. What appellant sought to have reviewed was plain. The failure to use the words August 5, 1946, if that be taken as the date of the final decision, was as insubstantial as a misspelling of the words would have been, since the words used identified the rulings which were challenged, and in no way altered the scope of review. Cf. R. F. C. v. Prudence Group, 311 U. S. 579, 582; Georgia Lumber Co. v. Compania, 323 U. S. 334, 336.
II. The ruling of the District Court that the provisions of § 2 of the Suits in Admiralty Act, directing where suits shall be brought, were jurisdictional was in our view erroneous. Those provisions properly construed relate to venue.
The section relates not to libels in rem but to libels in personam. A similar provision in § 5 of the Tucker Act (24 Stat. 506, 28 U. S. C. (1946 ed.) § 762, 28 U. S. C. § 1402), was held to prescribe venue and hence could be and was waived by failure to object before pleading to the merits. United States v. Hvoslef, 237 U. S. 1, 11—12; Thames & Mersey Ins. Co. v. United States, 237 U. S. 19, 24. An analogous provision in the Jones Act, 41 Stat. 1007, 46 U. S. C. § 688, was construed the same way. Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375, 384-385. And we recently indicated that that was the correct construction of comparable provisions of § 2 of the Public Vessels Act, 43 Stat. 1112, 46 U. S. C. § 782 (Canadian Aviator, Ltd. v. United States, 324 U. S. 215, 224), an act which is similiar in purpose and design to the present one. See American Stevedores v. Porello, 330 U. S. 446, 452-453.
Congress, by describing the district where the suit was to be brought, was not investing the federal courts “with a general jurisdiction expressed in terms applicable alike to all of them.” See Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, supra, p. 384. It was dealing with the convenience of the parties in suing or being sued at the designated places. The purpose of the Act was to grant seamen relief against the United States in its own courts. The concepts of residence and principal place of business obviously can have no relevance when applied to the United States. It is ubiquitous throughout the land and, unlike private parties, is not centered at one particular place. The residence or principal place of business of the libelant and the place where the vessel or cargo is found may be the best measure of the convenience of the parties. But if the United States is willing to defend in a different place, we find nothing in the Act to prevent it.
The judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the District Court for further proceedings in conformity with this opinion.
Reversed.
The United States Maritime Commission now stands in its shoes. See 60 Stat. 501.
Other parties were also sued but they were dismissed from the case.
Section 2 of that Act provides in part:
“That in cases where if such vessel were privately owned or operated, or if such cargo were privately owned and possessed, a proceeding in admiralty could be maintained at the time of the commencement of the action herein provided for, a libel in personam may be brought against the United States or against such corporation, as the case may be, provided that such vessel is employed as a merchant vessel or is a tug boat operated by such corporation. Such suits shall be brought in the district court of the United States for the district in which the parties so suing, or any of them, reside or have their principal place of business in the United States, or in which the vessel or cargo charged with liability is found. . . . Upon application of either party the cause may, in the discretion of the court, be transferred to any other district court of the United States.”
The record shows the petitioner’s residence was in Oregon.
This is the kind of problem which could be appropriately handled through the rule making authority of the Court of Appeals. Cf. Commissioner v. Bedford, 325 U. S. 283, 288.
That section reads as follows:
“No summons, writ, declaration, return, process, judgment, or other proceedings in civil causes, in any court of the United States, shall be abated, arrested, quashed, or reversed for any defect or want of form; but such court shall proceed and give judgment according as the right of the cause and matter in law shall appear to it, without regarding any such defect, or want of form, except those which, in cases of demurrer, the party demurring specially sets down, together with his demurrer, as the cause thereof; and such court shall amend every such defect and want of form, other than those which the party demurring so expresses; and may at any time permit either of the parties to amend any defect in the process or pleadings, upon such conditions as it shall, in its discretion and by its rules, prescribe.”
After the dismissal of the appeal in this case, the foregoing section was repealed, effective September 1, 1948. 62 Stat. 992, § 39. And see Revision of Title 28, U. S. Code, H. Rep. No. 308, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., p. A 239. But the policy expressed in § 954 was preserved as respects cases pending at the time of the repeal, since the repealing statute provides that “Any rights or liabilities now existing under such sections or parts thereof shall not be affected by this repeal.” And see Rules 1, 15, 61, and 81, Rules of Civil Procedure.
See note 3, 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.
In 1950 the District Court for the Southern District of New York entered an amended consent decree in a government Sherman Act suit requiring ASCAP inter alia to “grant to any user making written application therefor a non-exclusive license to perform all of the compositions in the ASCAP repertory” subject to a reasonable license fee. On request of petitioners for a license ASCAP refused to fix a fee and, as provided by the amended consent decree, this application was filed for an order to fix a reasonable fee. The District Court found that the consent decree did not require ASCAP to issue the type of license petitioners requested and, therefore, dismissed the application. 208 F. Supp. 896. The petitioners took an appeal to the Court of Appeals and also perfected a direct one to this Court under § 2 of the Expediting Act. 15 U. S. C. § 29. We dismissed the appeal filed here for want of jurisdiction, 371 U. S. 540 (1963). Thereafter, the Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal perfected there, 317 F. 2d 90, on the ground that all appeals are “routed” to this Court by the Expediting Act and this petition brings that question here once again.
The dismissal that we heretofore entered was based on our unexpressed view that the appeal from an ancillary order of this type was not within the Expediting Act. Direct appeals to this Court are authorized by that Act only from final judgments where the United States is a complainant. The purpose of the Act is to expedite litigation of “great and general importance” where the Government is the aggrieved party. See 36 Cong. Rec. 1679 (1903). The controversy which is disposed of by the District Court’s order is entirely between private parties and is outside the mainstream of the litigation in which the Government is directly concerned. Compare Terminal R. R. Assn. v. United States, 266 U. S. 17; Aluminum Co. of America v. United States, 302 U. S. 230. In these circumstances, and the order being final rather than interlocutory, we believe that the appeal does lie under 28 U. S. C. § 1291. The petition is therefore granted and the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded to the Court of Appeals for consideration on its merits.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Black acquiesces in the Court’s judgment because of the holding in the prior appeal.
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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under Chapter 13 of the Bankruptcy Code (Code), a debtor may obtain a discharge of certain government-sponsored student loan debts only if failure to discharge that debt would impose an “undue hardship” on the debtor and his dependents. 11 U. S. C. §§ 523(a)(8), 1328. The Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure require bankruptcy courts to make this undue hardship determination in an adversary proceeding, see Rule 7001(6), which the party seeking the determination must initiate by serving a summons and complaint on his adversary, see Rules 7003, 7004, 7008. The debtor in this case filed a plan with the Bankruptcy Court that proposed to discharge a portion of his student loan debt, but he failed to initiate the adversary proceeding as required for such discharge. The creditor received notice of, but did not object to, the plan, and failed to file an appeal after the Bankruptcy Court subsequently confirmed the plan. Years later, the creditor filed a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4) asking the Bankruptcy Court to rule that its order confirming the plan was void because the order was issued in violation of the Code and Rules. We granted certiorari to resolve a disagreement among the Courts of Appeals as to whether an order that confirms the discharge of a student loan debt in the absence of an undue hardship finding or an adversary proceeding, or both, is a void judgment for Rule 60(b)(4) purposes.
I
Between 1988 and 1989, respondent Francisco Espinosa obtained four federally guaranteed student loans for a total principal amount of $13,250. In 1992, Espinosa filed a bankruptcy petition under Chapter 13. That chapter permits individual debtors to develop a plan to repay all or a portion of their debts over a period of time specified in the plan. See Nobelman v. American Savings Bank, 508 U. S. 324, 327 (1993); see also §§ 301(a), 1321; Fed. Rule Bkrtey. Proc. 3015(b). A proposed bankruptcy plan becomes effective upon confirmation, see §§ 1324,1325, and will result in a discharge of the debts listed in the plan if the debtor completes the payments the plan requires, see § 1328(a).
Espinosa’s plan listed his student loan debt as his only specific indebtedness. App. 15-18. The plan proposed to repay only the principal on that debt, stating that the remainder — the accrued interest — would be discharged once Espinosa repaid the principal. Id., at 26.
As the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure require, the clerk of the Bankruptcy Court mailed notice and a copy of. Espinosa’s plan to petitioner United Student Aid Funds, Inc. (United), the creditor to whom Espinosa owed the student loan debt. Id., at 34; see Rules 2002(b), (g)(2), 3015(d). In boldface type immediately below the caption, the plan stated: "WARNING IF YOU ARE A CREDITOR YOUR RIGHTS MAY BE IMPAIRED BY THIS PLAN.” Id., at 23. The plan also noted the deadlines for filing a proof of claim or an objection to the plan. Id., at 26-27.
United received this notice and, in response, filed a proof of claim for $17,832.15, an amount representing both the principal and the accrued interest on Espinosa’s student loans. Id., at 35. United did not object to the plan’s proposed discharge of Espinosa’s student loan interest without a determination of undue hardship, nor did it object to Espinosa’s failure to initiate an adversary proceeding to determine the dischargeability of that debt.
In May 1993, the Bankruptcy Court confirmed Espinosa’s plan without holding an adversary proceeding or making a finding of undue hardship. One month later, the Chapter 13 trustee mailed United a form notice stating that “[t]he amount of the claim filed differs from the amount listed for payment in the plan” and that “[y]our claim will be paid as listed in the plan.” Id., at 44. The form also apprised United that if United “wishe[d] to dispute the above stated treatment of the claim,” it had the “responsibility” to notify the trustee within 30 days. Ibid. United did not respond to that notice.
In May 1997, Espinosa completed the payments on his student loan principal, as required by the plan. Shortly thereafter, the Bankruptcy Court discharged Espinosa’s student loan interest.
In 2000, the United States Department of Education commenced efforts to collect the unpaid interest on Espinosa’s student loans. In response, Espinosa filed a motion in 2003 asking the Bankruptcy Court to enforce its 1997 discharge order by directing the Department and United to cease all efforts to collect the unpaid interest on his student loan debt.
United opposed that motion and filed a cross-motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4) seeking to set aside as void the Bankruptcy Court’s 1993 order confirming Espinosa’s plan. United made two arguments in support of its motion. First, United claimed that the provision of Espinosa’s plan authorizing the discharge of his student loan interest was inconsistent with the Code, which requires a court to find undue hardship before discharging a student loan debt, §§ 523(a)(8), 1328(a), and with the Bankruptcy Rules, which require the court to make the undue hardship finding in an adversary proceeding, see Rule 7001(6). Second, United argued that its due process rights had been violated because Espinosa failed to serve it with the summons and complaint the Bankruptcy Rules require as a prerequisite to an adversarial proceeding. See Rules 7003, 7004, 7008.
The Bankruptcy Court rejected both arguments, granted Espinosa’s motion in relevant part, denied United’s cross-motion, and ordered all claimants to cease and desist their collection efforts. United sought review in the District Court, which reversed. That court held that United was denied due process because the confirmation order was issued without service of the summons and complaint the Bankruptcy Rules require.
Espinosa appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which issued an initial per curiam opinion remanding the case to the Bankruptcy Court to consider correcting an apparent clerical error in its discharge order. 530 F. 3d 895, 899 (2008). The Bankruptcy Court corrected the error, after which the Court of Appeals resubmitted the case and reversed the judgment of the District Court. The Court of Appeals concluded that by confirming Espinosa’s plan without first finding undue hardship in an adversary proceeding, the Bankruptcy Court at most committed a legal error that United might have successfully appealed, but that any such legal error was not a basis for setting aside the confirmation order as void under Rule 60(b). 553 F. 3d 1193, 1198-1202 (2008). In addition, the Court of Appeals held that although Espinosa’s failure to serve United with a summons and complaint before seeking a discharge of his student loan debt violated the Bankruptcy Rules, this defect in service was not a basis upon which to declare the judgment void because United received actual notice of Espinosa’s plan and failed to object. See id., at 1202-1205.
We granted certiorari. 557 U. S. 908 (2009).
II
A discharge under Chapter 13 “is broader than the discharge received in any other chapter.” 8 Collier on Bankruptcy ¶ 1328.01, p. 1328-5 (rev. 15th ed. 2008). Chapter 13 nevertheless restricts or prohibits entirely the discharge of certain types of debts. As relevant here, § 1328(a) provides that when a debtor has completed the repayments required by a confirmed plan, a bankruptcy court “shall grant the debtor a discharge of all debts provided for by the plan or disallowed under section 502 of this title, except,” inter alia, “any debt... of the kind specified in [§ 523(a)(8)].” § 1328(a)(2). Section 523(a)(8), in turn, specifies certain student loan debts “unless excepting such debt from discharge... would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents.” As noted, the Bankruptcy Rules require a party seeking to determine the dischargeability of a student loan debt to commence an adversary proceeding by serving a summons and complaint on affeeted creditors. See supra, at 266. We must decide whether the Bankruptcy Court’s order confirming Espinosa’s plan is “void” under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(4) because the Bankruptcy Court confirmed the plan without complying with these requirements.
A
The Bankruptcy Court’s order confirming Espinosa’s proposed plan was a final judgment, see In re Optical Technologies, Inc., 425 F. 3d 1294, 1300 (CA11 2005), from which United did not appeal. Ordinarily, “the finality of [a] Bankruptcy Court’s orders following the conclusion of direct review” would “stan[d] in the way of challenging [their] enforceability.” Travelers Indemnity Co. v. Bailey, 557 U. S. 137, 140 (2009). Rule 60(b), however, provides an “exception to finality,” Gonzalez v. Crosby, 545 U. S. 524, 529 (2005), that “allows a party to seek relief from a final judgment, and request reopening of his case, under a limited set of circumstances,” id., at 528. Specifically, Rule 60(b)(4) — the provision under which United brought this motion — authorizes the court to relieve a party from a final judgment if “the judgment is void.”
A void judgment is a legal nullity. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1822 (3d ed. 1933); see also id., at 1709 (9th ed. 2009). Although the term “void” describes a result, rather than the conditions that render a judgment unenforceable, it suffices to say that a void judgment is one so affected by a fundamental infirmity that the infirmity may be raised even after the judgment becomes final. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments 22 (1980); see generally id., § 12. The list of such infirmities is exceedingly short; otherwise, Rule 60(b)(4)’s exception to finality would swallow the rule.
“A judgment is not void,” for example, “simply because it is or may have been erroneous.” Hoult v. Moult, 57 F. 3d 1, 6 (CA1 1995); 12 J. Moore et al., Moore’s Federal Practice §60.44[l][a], pp. 60-150 to 60-151 (3d ed. 2007) (hereinafter Moore’s). Similarly, a motion under Rule 60(b)(4) is not a substitute for a timely appeal. Kocher v. Dow Chemical Co., 132 F. 3d 1225, 1229 (CA8 1997); see Moore’s § 60.44[l][a], at 60-150. Instead, Rule 60(b)(4) applies only in the rare instance where a judgment is premised either on a certain type of jurisdictional error or on a violation of due process that deprives a party of notice or the opportunity to be heard. See United States v. Boch Oldsmobile, Inc., 909 F. 2d 657, 661 (CA1 1990); Moore’s §60.44[l][a]; 11 C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §2862, p. 331 (2d ed. 1995 and Supp. 2009); cf. Chicot County Drainage Dist. v. Baxter State Bank, 308 U. S. 371, 376 (1940); Stoll v. Gottlieb, 305 U. S. 165, 171-172 (1938). The error United alleges falls in neither category.
1
Federal courts considering Rule 60(b)(4) motions that assert a judgment is void because of a jurisdictional defect generally have reserved relief only for the exceptional case in whieh the court that rendered judgment lacked even an “arguable basis” for jurisdiction. Nemaizer v. Baker, 793 F. 2d 58, 65 (CA2 1986); see, e. g., Boch Oldsmobile, supra, at 661-662 (“[T]otal want of jurisdiction must be distinguished from an error in the exercise of jurisdiction, and... only rare instances of a clear usurpation of power will render a judgment void” (brackets and internal quotation marks omitted)).
This case presents no occasion to engage in such an “arguable basis” inquiry or to define the precise circumstances in which a jurisdictional error will render a judgment void because United does not argue that the Bankruptcy Court’s error was jurisdictional. Reply Brief for Petitioner 5,11. Such an argument would fail in any event. First, § 523(a)(8)’s statutory requirement that a bankruptcy court find undue hardship before discharging a student loan debt is a precondition to obtaining a discharge order, not a limitation on the bankruptcy court’s jurisdiction. See, e. g., Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 515-516 (2006). Second, the requirement that a bankruptcy court make this finding in an adversary proceeding derives from the Bankruptcy Rules, see Rule 7001(6), which are “procedural rules adopted by the Court for the orderly transaction of its business” that are “not jurisdictional.” Kontrick v. Ryan, 540 U. S. 443, 454 (2004) (internal quotation marks omitted).
2
Although United concedes that the Bankruptcy Court had jurisdiction to enter the order confirming Espinosa’s plan, United contends that the court’s judgment is void under Rule 60(b)(4) because United did not receive adequate notice of Espinosa’s proposed discharge of his student loan interest. Specifically, United argues that the Bankruptcy Court violated United’s due process rights by confirming Espinosa’s plan despite Espinosa’s failure to serve the summons and complaint the Bankruptcy Rules require for the commencement of an adversary proceeding. We disagree.
Espinosa’s failure to serve United with a summons and complaint deprived United of a right granted by a procedural rule. See Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 7004(b)(3). United could have timely objected to this deprivation and appealed from an adverse ruling on its objection. But this deprivation did not amount to a violation of United’s constitutional right to due process. Due process requires 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.” Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co., 339 U. S. 306, 314 (1950); see also Jones v. Flowers, 547 U. S. 220, 225 (2006) (“[D]ue process does not require actual notice... ”). Here, United received actual notice of the filing and contents of Espinosa’s plan. This more than satisfied United’s due process rights. Accordingly, on these facts, Espinosa’s failure to serve a summons and complaint does not entitle United to relief under Rule 60(b)(4).
B
Unable to demonstrate a jurisdictional error or a due process violation, United and the Government, as amicus, urge us to expand the universe of judgment defects that support Rule 60(b)(4) relief. Specifically, they contend that the Bankruptcy Court’s confirmation order is void because the court lacked statutory authority to confirm Espinosa’s plan absent a finding of undue hardship. In support of this contention, they cite the text of § 523(a)(8), which provides that student loan debts guaranteed by governmental units are not dischargeable “unless” a court finds undue hardship. (Emphasis added.) They argue that this language imposes a “‘self-executing’ limitation on the effect of a discharge order” that renders the order legally unenforceable, and thus void, if it is not satisfied. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18 (quoting Tennessee Student Assistance Corporation v. Hood, 541 U. S. 440, 450 (2004)); Brief for Petitioner 23-24. In addition, United cites § 1325(a)(1), which instructs bankruptcy courts to confirm only those plans that comply with “the... applicable provisions” of the Code. Reading these provisions in tandem, United argues that an order confirming a plan that purports to discharge a student loan debt without an undue hardship finding is “doubly beyond the court’s authority and therefore void.” Id., at 13.
We are not persuaded that a failure to find undue hardship in accordance with § 523(a)(8) is on par with the jurisdictional and notice failings that define void judgments that qualify for relief under Rule 60(b)(4). As noted, § 523(a)(8) does not limit the bankruptcy court’s jurisdiction over student loan debts. Supra, at 272; see Hood, 541 U. S., at 447 (noting that “[bankruptcy courts have exclusive jurisdiction over a debtor’s property”). Nor does the provision impose requirements that, if violated, would result in a denial of due process. Instead, § 523(a)(8) requires a court to make a certain finding before confirming the discharge of a student loan debt. It is true, as we explained in Hood, that this requirement is “‘self-executing.’” Id., at 450. But that means only that the bankruptcy court must make an undue hardship finding even if the creditor does not request one; it does not mean that a bankruptcy court’s failure to make the finding renders its subsequent confirmation order void for purposes of Rule 60(b)(4).
Given the Code’s clear and self-executing requirement for an undue hardship determination, the Bankruptcy Court’s failure to find undue hardship before confirming Espinosa’s plan was a legal error. See Part III, infra. But the order remains enforceable and binding on United because United had notice of the error and failed to object or timely appeal.
United’s response — that it had no obligation to object to Espinosa’s plan until Espinosa served it with the summons and complaint the Bankruptcy Rules require, Brief for Petitioner 33 — is unavailing. Rule 60(b)(4) does not provide a license for litigants to sleep on their rights. United had actual notice of the filing of Espinosa’s plan, its contents, and the Bankruptcy Court’s subsequent confirmation of the plan. In addition, United filed a proof of claim regarding Espinosa’s student loan debt, thereby submitting itself to the Bankruptcy Court’s jurisdiction with respect to that claim. See Langenkamp v. Culp, 498 U. S. 42, 44 (1990) (per curiam). United therefore forfeited its arguments regarding the validity of service or the adequacy of the Bankruptcy Court’s procedures by failing to raise a timely objection in that court.
Rule 60(b)(4) strikes a balance between the need for finality of judgments and the importance of ensuring that litigants have a full and fair opportunity to litigate a dispute. Where, as here, a party is notified of a plan’s contents and fails to object to confirmation of the plan before the time for appeal expires, that party has been afforded a full and fair opportunity to litigate, and the party’s failure to avail itself of that opportunity will not justify Rule 60(b)(4) relief. We thus agree with the Court of Appeals that the Bankruptcy Court’s confirmation order is not void.
III
In issuing its judgment, however, the Court of Appeals looked beyond the narrow question whether the Bankruptcy Court’s order confirming Espinosa’s plan was void under Rule 60(b)(4). It canvassed other bankruptcy court decisions within the Circuit that presented a different question— whether a bankruptcy court presented with a debtor’s plan that proposes to discharge a student loan debt, in the absence of an adversary proceeding to determine undue hardship, should confirm the plan despite its failure to comply with the Code and Rules. The Court of Appeals noted that some Bankruptcy Courts had declined to confirm such plans “even when the creditor fail[ed] to object to the plan.” 553 F. 3d, at 1205. The court disapproved that practice and overruled those cases, stating that bankruptcy courts must confirm a plan proposing the discharge of a student loan debt without a determination of undue hardship in an adversary proceeding unless the creditor timely raises a specific objection. Ibid. This, we think, was a step too far.
As Espinosa concedes, Tr. of Oral Arg. 31, 36, a Chapter 13 plan that proposes to discharge a student loan debt without a determination of undue hardship violates §§ 1328(a)(2) and 523(a)(8). Failure to comply with this self-executing requirement should prevent confirmation of the plan even if the creditor fails to object, or to appear in the proceeding at all. See Hood, 541 U. S., at 450. That is because § 1325(a)(1) instructs a bankruptcy court to confirm a plan only if the court finds, inter alia, that the plan complies with the “applicable provisions” of the Code. § 1325(a) (providing that a bankruptcy court “shall confirm a plan” if the plan “complies with the provisions of” Chapter 13 and with “other applicable provisions of this title”); see Johnson v. Home State Bank, 501U. S. 78, 87 (1991); see also § 105(a) (authorizing bankruptcy courts to issue “any order, process, or judgment that is necessary or appropriate to carry out” the Code’s provisions). Thus, contrary to the Court of Appeals’ assertion, the Code makes plain that bankruptcy courts have the authority — indeed, the obligation — to direct a debtor to conform his plan to the requirements of §§ 1328(a)(2) and 523(a)(8).
We are mindful that conserving assets is an important concern in a bankruptcy proceeding. We thus assume that, in some cases, a debtor and creditor may agree that payment of a student loan debt will cause the debtor an undue hardship sufficient to justify discharge. In such a case, there is no reason that compliance with the undue hardship requirement should impose significant costs on the parties or materially delay confirmation of the plan. Neither the Code nor the Rules prevent the parties from stipulating to the underlying facts of undue hardship, and neither prevents the creditor from waiving service of a summons and complaint. See Fed. Rule Bkrtey. Proc. 7004; Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(k). But, to comply with § 523(a)(8)’s directive, the bankruptcy court must make an independent determination of undue hardship before a plan is confirmed, even if the creditor fails to object or appear in the adversary proceeding. See supra, at 275.
IV
United argues that our failure to declare the Bankruptcy Court’s order void will encourage unscrupulous debtors to abuse the Chapter 13 process by filing plans proposing to dispense with the undue hardship requirement in the hopes the bankruptcy court will overlook the proposal and the creditor will not object. In the event the objectionable provision is discovered, United claims, the debtor can withdraw the plan and file another without penalty.
We acknowledge the potential for bad-faith litigation tactics. But expanding the availability of relief under Rule 60(b)(4) is not an appropriate prophylaxis. As we stated in Taylor v. Freeland & Kronz, 503 U. S. 638 (1992), “[d]ebtors and their attorneys face penalties under various provisions for engaging in improper conduct in bankruptcy proceedings,” id., at 644; see Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 9011. The specter of such penalties should deter bad-faith attempts to discharge student loan debt without the undue hardship finding Congress required. And to the extent existing sanctions prove inadequate to this task, Congress may enact additional provisions to address the difficulties United predicts will follow our decision.
* * *
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
United is a guaranty agency that administers the collection of federally guaranteed student loans in accordance -with regulations promulgated by the United States Department of Education. See, e. g., 34 CFR § 682.200 et seq. (2009).
The discharge order contained an apparent clerical error that the courts below considered and addressed in adjudicating these proceedings. See n. 4, infra.
After Espinosa completed payments under the plan, United assigned Espinosa’s loans to the Department under a reinsurance agreement. After these proceedings began, United requested and received a recall of the loans from the Department. App. to Pet. for Cert. 63.
The one-page discharge order contained a paragraph that purported to exclude “'any debt... for a student loan’” from the discharge. 530 F. 3d 895, 896 (CA9 2008). That provision appeared irreconcilable with the confirmation order, which contemplated the discharge of the interest on Espinosa’s student loan debt. Suggesting that the Bankruptcy Court may have automatically generated the discharge order without tailoring it to the terms of the confirmation order, the Court of Appeals remanded the case to the Bankruptcy Court to consider amending the discharge order to conform to the confirmation order. Id., at 899; see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 60(a) (authorizing a court to “correct a clerical mistake or a mistake arising from oversight or omission”). On remand, the Bankruptcy Court found that the text of its discharge order excepting Espinosa’s student loan debt from discharge “was inserted because of a clerical mistake” and struck that language from the order. App. 48.
Although certain amici press the point, United has not challenged the substance of the Bankruptcy Court’s amendment to the order or asked us to consider whether such amendment was proper under Rule 60(a). See Brief for Petitioner 42; Reply Brief for Petitioner 20. Thus, we express no view on those issues. See Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc., 500 U. S. 90, 97, n. 4 (1991) (noting that “we do not ordinarily address issues raised only by amici”).
In so doing, the Court of Appeals disagreed with two other Courts of Appeals. See In re Mersmann, 505 F. 3d 1033, 1047-1049 (CA10 2007) (en banc); Whelton v. Educational Credit Management Corp., 432 F. 3d 150, 154 (CA2 2005).
Three Courts of Appeals have reached the opposite conclusion on similar facts. See In re Ruehle, 412 F. 3d 679, 682-684 (CA6 2005); In re Hanson, 397 F. 3d 482, 486 (CA7 2005); In re Banks, 299 F. 3d 296, 302-303 (CA4 2002).
Section 523 provides:
“(a) A discharge under section 727,1141, 1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt—
“(8) unless excepting such debt from discharge under this paragraph would impose an undue hardship on the debtor and the debtor’s dependents, for—
“(A)(i) an educational benefit overpayment or loan made, insured, or guaranteed by a governmental unit, or made under any program funded in whole or in part by a governmental unit or nonprofit institution; or
“(ii) an obligation to repay funds received as an educational benefit, scholarship, or stipend; or
“(B) any other educational loan that is a qualified education loan, as defined in section 221(d)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, incurred by a debtor who is an individual.”
Because United brought this action on a motion for relief from judgment under Rule 60(b)(4), our holding is confined to that provision. We express no view on the terms upon which other provisions of the Bankruptcy Rules may entitle a debtor or creditor to postjudgment relief.
Subject to certain exceptions, Bankruptcy Rule 9024 makes Rule 60(b) applicable to Chapter 13 proceedings. One such exception provides that “a complaint to revoke an order confirming a plan may be filed only within the time allowed by” 11 U. S. C. § 1330. Fed. Rule Bkrtcy. Proc. 9024. Section 1330(a) imposes a 180-day time limit for a party to seek revocation of a confirmation order “procured by fraud.” Courts of Appeals disagree as to whether a Rule 60(b)(4) motion should be treated as a “complaint to revoke” a plan subject to § 1330’s time limit and substantive limitation to motions based on fraud. Compare Whelton, swpra, at 156, n. 2, with In re Fesq, 153 F. 3d 113, 119, and n. 8 (CA3 1998). We need not settle that question, however, because the parties did not raise it in the courts below. And even under a theory that would treat United’s Rule 60(b)(4) motion as a “complaint to revoke” the plan, United’s failure to file its motion within § 1330(a)’s 180-day deadline and its failure to seek relief on the basis of fraud did not deprive those courts — and does not deprive us — of authority to consider the motion on the merits because those limitations are not jurisdictional. See Arbaugh v. Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 515-516 (2006); Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick, ante, at 167.
Sections 1328(a) and 523(a)(8) provide that student loan debt is dis-chargeable in a Chapter 13 proceeding if a court makes a finding of undue hardship. In contrast, other provisions in Chapter 13 provide that certain other debts are not dischargeable under any circumstances. See, e. g., §§ 523(a)(1)(B), (C) (specified tax debts); § 523(a)(5) (domestic support obligations); § 523(a)(9) (debts “caused by” the debtor’s unlawful operation of a vehicle while intoxicated). We express no view on the conditions under which an order confirming the discharge of one of these types of debt could be set aside as void.
The Government suggests that § 523(a)(8)’s “self-executing” nature derives in part from the text of § 523(a), whieh states that “[a] discharge under section 727... or 1328(b) of this title does not discharge an individual debtor from any debt,” including the student loan debts specified in paragraph (8) (emphasis added); see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 18; see also Reply Brief for Petitioner 1-2. That is not what we concluded in Hood and, in this case, would be irrelevant in any event.
In Hood, we described as “ ‘self-executing’ ” paragraph (8)’s instruction that student loan debt not be discharged “unless” an undue hardship determination is made. 541 U. S., at 450. The “does not discharge” language in § 523(a), which applies generally to every enumerated paragraph in that section — and to which we never referred in Hood — was not relevant to our analysis. That is evident from the authority we cited to support our description of § 523(a)(8)’s condition as “ ‘self-executing.’ ” E. g., id., at 450 (citing S. Rep. No. 95-989, p. 79 (1978), whieh states that “[pjaragraph (8)... is intended to be self-executing” insofar as “the lender or institution is not required to file a complaint to determine the nondischargeability of any student loan” (emphasis added)).
In any event, the “does not discharge” language in § 523(a) is inapplicable to this case. Section 523(a) provides that “[a] discharge under section 727, 1141, 1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b) of [the Code] does not discharge an individual debtor from” the debts described in §523(a)’s enumerated paragraphs. But Espinosa did not seek a discharge under “section 727, 1141,1228(a), 1228(b), or 1328(b).” He sought a discharge under § 1328(a), which provides that, upon completion of a Chapter 13 plan, a bankruptcy court “shall grant the debtor a discharge of all debts provided for by the plan..., except any debt... of the kind specified in... paragraph... (5), (8), or (9) of section 523(a).” (Emphasis added.) Section 1328(a) thus incorporates by reference paragraph (8) of § 523(a), including that paragraph’s self-executing requirement for an undue hardship determination, but does not incorporate the “does not discharge” text of § 523(a) itself.
United relies on our decisions in United States ex rel. Wilson v. Walker, 109 U. S. 258 (1883), and Vallely v. Northern Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 254 U. S. 348 (1920), to argue otherwise. Those authorities are not controlling because they predate Rule 60(b)(4)’s enactment and because we interpreted the statutes at issue in those cases as stripping courts of jurisdiction — either over the parties, id., at 854-356, or the res, Wilson, supra, at 265-266 — and United concedes that the statutory limit in this ease is not jurisdictional. See supra, at 272.
This is essential to preserve the distinction between Congress’ treatment of student loan debts in § 523(a)(8) and debts listed elsewhere in § 523. Section 523(a)(8) renders student loan debt presumptively nondisehargeable “unless” a determination of undue hardship is made. In contrast, the debts listed in § 523(c), which include certain debts obtained by fraud or “willful and malicious injury by the debtor,” § 523(a)(6), are presumptively dischargeable “unless” the creditor requests a hearing to determine the debt’s dischargeability. The Court of Appeals’ approach would subject student loan debt to the same rules as the debts specified in § 523(e), notwithstanding the evident differences in the statutory framework for discharging the two types of debt.
In other contexts, we have held that courts have the discretion, but not the obligation, to raise on their own initiative certain nonjurisdictional barriers to suit. See Day v. McDonough, 547 U. S. 198, 202, 209 (2006) (statute of limitations); Granberry v. Greer, 481 U. S. 129, 134 (1987) (habeas corpus petitioner’s exhaustion of state remedies). Section 1325(a)
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.
The appellants are honorably discharged veterans of World War II who claimed the veterans’ property-tax exemption provided by Art. XIII, § 1%, of the California Constitution. Under California law applicants for such exemption must annually complete a standard form of application and file it with the local assessor. The form was revised in 1954 to add an oath by the applicant: “I do not advocate the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means, nor advocate the support of a foreign government against the United States in event of hostilities.” Each refused to subscribe the oath and struck it from the form which he executed and filed for the tax year 195A-1955. Each contended that the exaction of the oath as a condition of obtaining a tax exemption was forbidden by the Federal Constitution. The respective assessors denied the exemption solely for the refusal to execute the oath. The Supreme Court of California sustained the assessors’ actions against the appellants’ claims of constitutional invalidity. We noted probable jurisdiction of the appeals. 355 U. S. 880.
Article XX, § 19, of the California Constitution, adopted at the general election of November 4, 1952, provides as follows:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, no person or organization which advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or the State by force or violence or other unlawful means or who advocates the support of a foreign government against the United States in the event of hostilities shall:
“(b) Receive any exemption from any tax imposed by this State or any county, city or county, city, district, political subdivision, authority, board, bureau, commission or other public agency of this State.
“The Legislature shall enact such laws as may be necessary to enforce the provisions of this section.”
To effectuate this constitutional amendment the California Legislature enacted § 32 of the Revenue and Taxation Code, which requires the claimant, as a prerequisite to qualification for any property-tax exemption, to sign a statement on his tax return declaring that he does not engage in the activities described in the constitutional amendment. The California Supreme Court held that this declaration, like other statements required of those filing tax returns, was designed to relieve the tax assessor of “the burden ... of ascertaining the facts with reference to tax exemption claimants.” 48 Cal. 2d 419, 432, 311 P. 2d 508, 515. The declaration, while intended to provide a means of determining whether a claimant qualifies for the exemption under the constitutional amendment, is not conclusive evidence of eligibility. The assessor has the duty of investigating the facts underlying all tax liabilities and is empowered by § 454 of the Code to subpoena taxpayers for the purpose of questioning them about statements they have furnished. If the assessor believes that the claimant is not qualified in any respect, he may deny the exemption and require the claimant, on judicial review, to prove the incorrectness of the determination. In other words, the factual determination whether the taxpayer is eligible for the exemption under the constitutional amendment is made in precisely the same manner as the determination of any other fact bearing on tax liability.
The appellants attack these provisions, inter alia, as denying them freedom of speech without the procedural safeguards required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I.
It cannot be gainsaid that a discriminatory denial of a tax exemption for engaging in speech is a limitation on free speech. The Supreme Court of California recognized that these provisions were limitations on speech but concluded that “by no standard can the infringement upon freedom of speech imposed by section 19 of article XX be deemed a substantial one.” 48 Cal. 2d 419, 440, 311 P. 2d 508, 521. It is settled that speech can be effectively limited by the exercise of the taxing power. Grosjean v. American Press Co., 297 U. S. 233. To deny an exemption to claimants who engage in certain forms of speech is in effect to penalize them for such speech. Its deterrent effect is the same as if the State were to fine them for this speech. The appellees are plainly mistaken in their argument that, because a tax exemption is a “privilege” or “bounty,” its denial may not infringe speech. This contention did not prevail before the California courts, which recognized that conditions imposed upon the granting of privileges or gratuities must be “reasonable.” It has been said that Congress may not by withdrawal of mailing privileges place limitations upon the freedom of speech which if directly attempted would be unconstitutional. See Hannegan v. Esquire, Inc., 327 U. S. 146, 156; cf. Milwaukee Publishing Co. v. Burleson, 255 U. S. 407, 430-431 (Brandeis, J., dissenting). This Court has similarly rejected the contention that speech was not abridged when the sole restraint on its exercise was withdrawal of the opportunity to invoke the facilities of the National Labor Relations Board, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 U. S. 382, 402, or the opportunity for public employment, Wieman v. Updegraff, 344 U. S. 183. So here, the denial of a tax exemption for engaging in certain speech necessarily will have the effect of coercing the claimants to refrain from the proscribed speech. The denial is “frankly aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas.” American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra, at 402.
The Supreme Court of California construed the constitutional amendment as denying the tax exemptions only to claimants who engage in speech which may be criminally punished consistently with the free-speech guarantees of the Federal Constitution. The court defined advocacy of “the overthrow of the Government ... by force or violence or other unlawful means” and advocacy of “support of a foreign government against the United States in event of hostilities” as reaching only conduct which may constitutionally be punished under either the California Criminal Syndicalism Act, Cal. Stat. 1919, c. 188, see Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, or the Federal Smith Act, 18 U. S. C. § 2385. 48 Cal. 2d, at 428, 311 P. 2d, at 513. It also said that it would apply the standards set down by this Court in Dennis v. United States, 341 U. S. 494, in ascertaining the circumstances which would justify punishing speech as a crime. Of course the constitutional and statutory provisions here involved must be read in light of the restrictive construction that the California court, in the exercise of its function of interpreting state law, has placed upon them. For the purposes of this case we assume without deciding that California may deny tax exemptions to persons who engage in the proscribed speech for which they might be fined or imprisoned.
II.
But the question remains whether California has chosen a fair method for determining when a claimant is a member of that class to which the California court has said the constitutional and statutory provisions extend. When we deal with the complex of strands in the web of freedoms which make up free speech, the operation and effect of the method by which speech is sought to be restrained must be subjected to close analysis and critical judgment in the light of the particular circumstances to which it is applied. Kingsley Books, Inc., v. Brown, 354 U. S. 436, 441-442; Near v. Minnesota, 283 U. S. 697; cf. Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296, 305; Joseph Burstyn, Inc., v. Wilson, 343 U. S. 495; Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507; Niemotko v. Maryland, 340 U. S. 268; Staub v. City of Baxley, 355 U. S. 313.
To experienced lawyers it is commonplace that the outcome of a lawsuit — and hence the vindication of legal rights — depends more often on how the factfinder appraises the facts than on a disputed construction of a statute or interpretation of a line of precedents. Thus the procedures by which the facts of the case are determined assume an importance fully as great as the validity of the substantive rule of law to be applied. And the more important the rights at stake the more important must be the procedural safeguards surrounding those rights. Cf. Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 71. When the State undertakes to restrain unlawful advocacy it must provide procedures which are adequate to safeguard against infringement of constitutionally protected rights — rights which we value most highly and which are essential to the workings of a free society. Moreover r since only considerations of the greatest urgency can justify restrictions on speech, and since the validity of a restraint on speech in each case depends on careful analysis of the particular circumstances, cf. Dennis v. United States, supra; Whitney v. California, supra, the procedures by which the facts of the case are adjudicated are of special importance and the validity of the restraint may turn on the safeguards which they afford. Compare Kunz v. New York, 340 U. S. 290, with Feiner v. New York, 340 U. S. 315. It becomes essential, therefore, to scrutinize the procedures by which California has sought to restrain speech.
The principal feature of the California procedure, as the appellees themselves point out, is that the appellants, “as taxpayers under state law, have the affirmative burden of proof, in Court as well as before the Assessor. . . . [I] t is their burden to show that they are proper persons to qualify under the self-executing constitutional provision for the tax exemption in question — i. e., that they are not persons who advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or the State by force or violence or other unlawful means or who advocate the support of a foreign government against the United States in the event of hostilities. . . . [T]he burden is on them to produce evidence justifying their claim of exemption.” Not only does the initial burden of bringing forth proof of nonadvocacy rest on the taxpayer, but throughout the judicial and administrative proceedings the burden lies on the taxpayer of persuading the assessor, or the court, that he falls outside the class denied the tax exemption. The declaration required by § 32 is but a part of the probative process by which the State seeks to determine which taxpayers fall into the proscribed category. Thus the declaration cannot be regarded as having such independent significance that failure to sign it precludes review of the validity of the procedure of which it is a part. Cf. Staub v. City of Baxley, supra, at 318-319. The question for decision, therefore, is whether this allocation of the burden of proof, on an issue concerning freedom of speech, falls short of the requirements of due process.
It is of course within the power of the State to regulate procedures under which its laws are carried out, including the burden of producing evidence and the burden of persuasion, “unless in so doing it offends 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. “[O]f course the legislature may go a good way in raising . . . [presumptions] or in changing the burden of proof, but there are limits. ... [ I ] t is not within the province of a legislature to declare an individual guilty or presumptively guilty of a crime.” McFarland v. American Sugar Refining Co., 241 U. S. 79, 86. The legislature cannot “place upon all defendants in criminal cases the burden of going forward with the evidence. [It cannot] validly command that the finding of an indictment, or mere proof of the identity of the accused, should create a presumption of the existence of all the facts essential to guilt. This is not permissible.” Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 469. Of course, the burden of going forward with the evidence at some stages of a criminal trial may be placed on the defendant, but only after the State has “proved enough to make it just for the defendant to be required to repel what has been proved with excuse or explanation, or at least that upon a balancing of convenience or of the opportunities for knowledge the shifting of the burden will be found to be an aid to the accuser without subjecting the accused to hardship or oppression.” Morrison v. California, 291 U. S. 82, 88-89. In civil cases too this Court has struck down state statutes unfairly shifting the burden of proof. Western & A. R. Co. v. Henderson, 279 U. S. 639; cf. Mobile, J. & K. C. R. Co. v. Turnipseed, 219 U. S. 35, 43.
It is true that due process may not always compel the full formalities of a criminal prosecution before criminal advocacy can be suppressed or deterred, but it is clear that the State which attempts to do so must provide procedures amply adequate to safeguard against invasion speech which the Constitution protects. Kingsley Books, Inc., v. Brown, supra. It is, of course, familiar practice in the administration of a tax program for the taxpayer to carry the burden of introducing evidence to rebut the determination of the collector. Phillips v. Dime Trust Co., 284 U. S. 160, 167; Brown v. Helvering, 291 U. S. 193, 199. But while the fairness of placing the burden of proof on the taxpayer in most circumstances is recognized, this Court has not hesitated to declare a summary tax-collection procedure a violation of due process when the purported tax was shown to be in reality a penalty for a crime. Lipke v. Lederer, 259 U. S. 557; cf. Helwig v. United States, 188 U. S. 605. The underlying rationale of these cases is that where a person is to suffer a penalty for a crime he is entitled to greater procedural safeguards than when only the amount of his tax liability is in issue. Similarly it does not follow that because only a tax liability is here involved, the ordinary tax assessment procedures are adequate when applied to penalize speech.
It is true that in the present case the appellees purport to do no more than compute the amount of the taxpayer’s liability in accordance with the usual procedures, but in fact they have undertaken to determine whether certain speech falls within a class which constitutionally may be curtailed. As cases decided in this Court have abundantly demonstrated, the line between speech unconditionally guaranteed and speech which may legitimately be regulated, suppressed, or punished is finely drawn. Thomas v. Collins, 323 U. S. 516; cf. Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298. The separation of legitimate from illegitimate speech calls for more sensitive tools than California has supplied. In all kinds of litigation it is plain that where the burden of proof lies may be decisive of the outcome. Cities Service Oil Co. v. Dunlap, 308 U. S. 208; United States v. New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 355 U. S. 253; Sampson v. Channell, 110 F. 2d 754, 758. There is always in litigation a margin of error, representing error in factfinding, which both parties must take into account. Where one party has at stake an interest of transcending value — as a criminal defendant his liberty — this margin of error is reduced as to him by the process of placing on the other party the burden of producing a sufficiency of proof in the first instance, and of persuading the factfinder at the conclusion of the trial of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Due process commands that no man shall lose his liberty unless the Government has borne the burden of producing the evidence and convincing the factfinder of his guilt. Tot v. United States, supra. Where the transcendent value of speech is involved, due process certainly requires in the circumstances of this case that the State bear the burden of persuasion to show that the appellants engaged in criminal speech. Cf. Kingsley Books, Inc., v. Brown, supra.
The vice of the present procedure is that, where particular speech falls close to the line separating the lawful and the unlawful, the possibility of mistaken factfinding— inherent in all litigation — will create the danger that the legitimate utterance will be penalized. The man who knows that he must bring forth proof and persuade another of the lawfulness of his conduct necessarily must steer far wider of the unlawful zone than if the State must bear these burdens. This is especially to be feared when the complexity of the proofs and the generality of the standards applied, cf. Dennis v. United States, supra, provide but shifting sands on which the litigant must maintain his position. How can a claimant whose declaration is rejected possibly sustain the burden of proving the negative of these complex factual elements? In practical operation, therefore, this procedural device must necessarily produce a result which the State could not command directly. It can only result in a deterrence of speech which the Constitution makes free. “It is apparent that a constitutional prohibition cannot be transgressed indirectly by the creation of a statutory presumption any more than it can be violated by direct enactment. The power to create presumptions is not a means of escape from constitutional restrictions.” Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U. S. 219, 239.
The appellees, in controverting this position, rely on cases in which this Court has sustained the validity of loyalty oaths required of public employees, Garner v. Board of Public Works, 341 U. S. 716, candidates for public office, Gerende v. Board of Supervisors, 341 U. S. 56, and officers of labor unions, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, supra. In these cases, however, there was no attempt directly to control speech but rather to protect, from an evil shown to be grave, some interest clearly within the sphere of governmental concern. The purpose of the legislation sustained in the Douds case, the Court found, was to minimize the danger of political strikes disruptive of interstate commerce by discouraging labor unions from electing Communist Party members to union office. While the Court recognized that the necessary effect of the legislation was to discourage the exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment, this consequence was said to be only indirect. The congressional purpose was to achieve an objective other than restraint on speech. Only the method of achieving this end touched on protected rights and that only tangentially. The evil at which Congress had attempted to strike in that case was thought sufficiently grave to justify limited infringement of political rights. Similar considerations governed the other cases. Each case concerned a limited class of persons in or aspiring to public positions by virtue of which they could, if evilly motivated, create serious danger to the public safety. The principal aim of those statutes was not to penalize political beliefs but to deny positions to persons supposed to be dangerous because the position might be misused to the detriment of the public. The present legislation, however, can have no such justification. It purports to deal directly°with speech and the expression of political ideas. “Encouragement to loyalty to our institutions ... [is a doctrine] which the state has plainly promulgated and intends to foster.” 48 Cal. 2d, at 439, 311 P. 2d, at 520. The State argues that veterans as a class occupy a position of special trust and influence in the community, and therefore any veteran who engages in the proscribed advocacy constitutes a special danger to the State. But while a union official or public employee may be deprived of his position and thereby removed from the place of special danger, the State is powerless to erase the service which the veteran has rendered his country; though he be denied a tax exemption, he remains a veteran. The State, consequently, can act against the veteran only as it can act against any other citizen, by imposing penalties to 'deter the unlawful conduct.
Moreover, the oaths required in those cases performed a very different function from the declaration in issue here. In the earlier cases it appears that the loyalty oath, once signed, became conclusive evidence of the facts attested so far as the right to office was concerned. If the person took the oath he retained his position. The oath was not part of a device to shift to the officeholder the burden of proving his right to retain his position. The signer, of course, could be prosecuted for perjury, but only in accordance with the strict procedural safeguards surrounding such criminal prosecutions. In the present case, however, it is clear that the declaration may be accepted or rejected on the basis of incompetent information or no information at all. It is only a step in a process throughout which the taxpayer must bear the burden of proof.
Believing that the principles of those cases have no application here, we hold that when the constitutional right to speak is sought to be deterred by a State’s general taxing program due process demands that the speech be unencumbered until the State comes forward with sufficient proof to justify its inhibition. The State clearly has no such compelling interest at stake as to justify a short-cut procedure which must inevitably result in suppressing protected speech. Accordingly, though the validity of § 19 of Art. XX of the State Constitution be conceded arguendo, its enforcement through procedures which place the burdens of proof and persuasion on the taxpayer is a violation of due process. It follows from this that appellants could not be required to execute the declaration as a condition for obtaining a tax exemption or as a condition for the assessor proceeding further in determining whether they were entitled to such an exemption. Since the entire statutory procedure, by placing the burden of proof on the claimants, violated the requirements of due process, appellants were not obliged to take the first step in such a procedure.
The judgments are reversed and the causes are remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
Mr. Justice Burton concurs in the result.
The Chief Justice took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.
Appellant in No. 483 sued for declaratory relief in the Superior Court of Contra Costa County. Five judges sitting en banc held that both § 19 of Art. XX and § 32 of the Revenue and Taxation Code were invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment as restrictions on freedom of speech. The California Supreme Court reversed. 48 Cal. 2d 903, 311 P. 2d 546.
Appellant in No. 484 sued in the Superior Court for the City and County of San Francisco to recover taxes paid under protest and for declaratory relief. The court upheld the validity of both the constitutional provision and § 32 of the Code. The Supreme Court affirmed. 48 Cal. 2d 472, 311 P. 2d 544.
In both cases the Supreme Court adopted the reasoning of its opinion in First Unitarian Church v. County of Los Angeles, 48 Cal. 2d 419, 311 P. 2d 508, in which identical issues are discussed at length. Hereinafter we will refer to that opinion as expressing the views of the California Supreme Court in the present cases.
Section 32 provides:
“Any statement, return, or other document in which is claimed any exemption, other than the householder’s exemption, from any property tax imposed by this State or any county, city or county, city, district, political subdivision, authority, board, bureau, commission or other public agency of this State shall contain a declaration that the person or organization making the statement, return, or other document does not advocate the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of the State of California by force or violence or other unlawful means nor advocate the support of a foreign government against the United States in event of hostilities. If any such statement, return, or other document does not contain such declaration, the person or organization making such statement, return, or other document shall not receive any exemption from the tax to which the statement, return, or other document pertains. Any person or organization who makes such declaration knowing it to be false is guilty of a felony. This section shall be construed so as to effectuate the purpose of Section 19 of Article XX of the Constitution.”
This contention was raised in the complaint and is argued in the brief in this Court. The California Supreme Court rejected the contention as without merit. 48 Cal. 2d 472, 475, 311 P. 2d 544, 545-546.
Appellants also argue that these provisions are invalid (1) as invading liberty of speech protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; (2) as denying equal protection because the oath is required only as to property-tax and corporation-income-tax exemptions, but not as to the householder’s personal-income-tax, gift-tax, inheritance-tax, or sales-tax exemptions; and (3) as violating the Supremacy Clause because this legislation intrudes in a field of exclusive federal control, Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497. Our disposition of the cases makes considerations of these questions unnecessary.
The California Supreme Court construed these provisions as inapplicable to mere belief. On oral argument counsel for the taxing authorities further conceded that the provisions would not apply in the case of advocacy of mere "abstract doctrine.” See Yates v. United States, 354 U. S. 298, 312-327.
Appellants contend that under this Court’s decision in Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497, the State can no longer enforce its criminal statutes aimed at subversion. We need not decide whether this contention is sound; nor need we consider whether, if it is, it follows that California cannot deny tax exemptions to those who in fact are in violation of the federal and state sedition laws.
The California Supreme Court held that § 19 of Art. XX of the State Constitution was in effect self-executing. “[U]nder the tax laws of the state wholly apart from section 32 it is the duty of the assessor to ascertain the facts with reference to the taxability or exemption from taxation of property within his jurisdiction. And it is also the duty of the property owner to cooperate with the assessor and assist him in the ascertainment of these facts by declarations under oath.” 48 Cal. 2d, at 430, 311 P. 2d, at 514-515.
In all events, if the assessor “is satisfied from his investigations that the exemption should not be allowed he may assess the property as not exempt and if contested compel a determination of the facts in a suit to recover the tax paid under protest. In such a case it would be necessary for the claimant to allege and prove facts with reference to the nature, extent and character of the property which would justify the exemption and compliance with all valid regulations in the presentation and prosecution of the claim. In any event it is the duty of the assessor to ascertain the facts from any legal source available. In performing this task he is engaged in the assembly of facts which are to serve as a guide in arriving at his conclusion whether an exemption should or should not be allowed. That conclusion is in no wise a final determination that the claimant belongs to a class proscribed by section 19 of article XX or is.guilty of any activity there denounced. The presumption of innocence available to all in criminal prosecutions does not in a ease such as this relieve or prevent the assessor from making the investigation enjoined upon him by law to see that exemptions are not improperly' allowed. His administrative determination is not binding on the tax exemption claimant but it is sufficient to authorize him to tax the property as nonexempt and to place the burden on the claimant to test the validity of his administrative determination in an action at law.” 48 Cal. 2d, at 431-432, 311 P. 2d, at 515.
It is suggested that the opinion of the California Supreme Court be read as holding that “the filing, whether the oath be true or false, would conclusively establish the taxpayer’s eligibility for an exemption.” But the California court expressly states that “it is the duty of the assessor to see that exemptions are not allowed contrary to law and this of course includes those which are contrary to the prohibitions provided for in section 19 of article XX,” 48 Cal. 2d 419, 431, 311 P. 2d 508, 515, and that the “mandatory and prohibitory” provision of § 19 of Art. XX “applies to all tax exemption claimants.” 48 Cal. 2d, at 428, 311 P. 2d, at 513. Indeed, the tax authorities of California themselves point out that the signing of the declaration is not conclusive of the right to the tax exemption. The brief of the taxing authorities in the companion case, First Unitarian Church v. County of Los Angeles, post, p. 545, states, “Section 32 is an evidentiary provision. Its purpose and effect are to afford to the Assessor information to guide his compliance with and his enforcement of the Constitution’s prohibition . . . .” (Emphasis supplied.)
It is also suggested that this Court construe the California legislation contrary to the clearly expressed construction of the California Supreme Court and thus avoid decision of the question of procedural due process. But this construction would not avoid decision of constitutional questions but rather would create the necessity for decision of the broader constitutional question of the validity of § 19 of Art. XX. A more fundamental objection to the suggestion, of course, is that it does violence to the basic constitutional principle that the construction of state laws is the exclusive responsibility of the state courts.
Significantly, the New York statute which this Court upheld in Adler v. Board of Education, 342 U. S. 485, provided that public-school teachers could be dismissed on security grounds only after a hearing at which the official pressing the charges sustained his burden of proof by a fair preponderance of the evidence.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 Scalia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether workplace harassment can violate Title VII’s prohibition against “diserimina-t[ion]... because of... sex,” 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a)(I), when the harasser and the harassed employee are of the same sex.
I
The District Court having granted summary judgment for respondents, we must assume the facts to be as alleged by petitioner Joseph Oncale. The precise details are irrelevant to the legal point we must decide, and in the interest of both brevity and dignity we shall describe them only generally. In late October 1991, Oncale was working for respondent Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., on a Chevron U. S. A., Inc., oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico. He was employed as a roustabout on an eight-man crew which included respondents John Lyons, Danny Pippen, and Brandon Johnson. Lyons, the crane operator, and Pippen, the driller, had supervisory authority, App. 41, 77, 43. On several occasions, Oncale was forcibly subjected to sex-related, humiliating actions against him by Lyons, Pippen, and Johnson in the presence of the rest of the crew. Pippen and Lyons also physically assaulted Oncale in a sexual manner, and Lyons threatened him with rape.
Oneale’s complaints to supervisory personnel produced no remedial action; in fact, the company’s Safety Compliance Clerk, Valent Hohen, told Oncale that Lyons and Pippen “picked [on] him all the time too,” and called him a name suggesting homosexuality. Id., at 77. Oncale eventually quit — asking that his pink slip reflect that he “voluntarily left due to sexual harassment and verbal abuse.” Id., at 79. When asked at his deposition why he left Sundowner, Oncale stated: “I felt that if I didn’t leave my job, that I would be raped or forced to have sex.” Id., at 71.
Oncale filed a complaint against Sundowner in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, alleging that he was discriminated against in his employment because of his sex. Relying on the Fifth Circuit’s decision in Garcia v. Elf Atochem North America, 28 F. 3d 446, 451-452 (1994), the District Court held that “Mr. Oncale, a male, has no cause of action under Title VII for harassment by male co-workers.” App. 106. On appeal, a panel of the Fifth Circuit concluded that Garcia was binding Circuit precedent, and affirmed. 83 F. 3d 118 (1996). We granted certiorari. 520 U. S. 1263 (1997).
H-4 H-i
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides, in relevant part, that “[i]t shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer ... to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” 78 Stat. 255, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). We have held that this not only covers “terms” and “conditions” in the narrow contractual sense, but “evinces a congressional intent to strike at the entire spectrum of disparate treatment of men and women in employment.” Meritor Savings Bank, FSB v. Vinson, 477 U. S. 57, 64 (1986) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). “When the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abusive working environment, Title VII is violated.” Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U. S. 17, 21 (1993) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of . . . sex” protects men as well as women, Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. v. EEOC, 462 U. S. 669, 682 (1983), and in the related context of racial discrimination in the workplace we have rejected any conclusive presumption that an employer will not discriminate against members of his own race. “Because of the many facets of human motivation, it would be unwise to presume as a matter of law that human beings of one definable group will not discriminate against other members of their group.” Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U. S. 482, 499 (1977). See also id., at 515-516, n. 6 (Powell, J., joined by Burger, C. J., and Rehnquist, J., dissenting). In Johnson v. Transportation Agency, Santa Clara Cty., 480 U. S. 616 (1987), a male employee claimed that his employer discriminated against him because of his sex when it preferred a female employee for promotion. Although we ultimately rejected the claim on other grounds, we did not consider it significant that the supervisor who made that decision was also a man. See id., at 624-625. If our precedents leave any doubt on the question, we hold today that nothing in Title VII necessarily bars a claim of discrimination “because of... sex” merely because the plaintiff and the defendant (or the person charged with acting on behalf of the defendant) are of the same sex.
Courts have had little trouble with that principle in cases like Johnson, where an employee claims to have been passed over for a job or promotion. But when the issue arises in the context of a “hostile environment” sexual harassment claim, the state and federal courts have taken a bewildering variety of stances. Some, like the Fifth Circuit in this ease, have held that same-sex sexual harassment claims are never cognizable under Title VII. See also, e. g., Goluszek v. H. P. Smith, 697 F. Supp. 1452 (ND Ill. 1988). Other decisions say that such claims are actionable only if the plaintiff can prove that the harasser is homosexual (and thus presumably motivated by sexual desire). Compare McWilliams v. Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, 72 F. 3d 1191 (CA4 1996), with Wrightson v. Pizza Hut of America, 99 F. 3d 138 (CA4 1996). Still others suggest that workplace harassment that is sexual in content is always actionable, regardless of the harasser’s sex, sexual orientation, or motivations. See Doe v. Belleville, 119 F. 3d 563 (CA7 1997).
We see no justification in the statutory language or our precedents for a categorical rule excluding same-sex harassment claims from the coverage of Title VII. As some courts have observed, male-on-male sexual harassment in the workplace was assuredly not the principal evil Congress was concerned with when it enacted Title VII. But statutory prohibitions often go beyond the principal evil to cover reasonably comparable evils, and it is ultimately the provisions of our laws rather than the principal concerns of our legislators by which we are governed. Title VII prohibits “discrimina-t[ion].. . because of. .. sex” in the “terms” or “conditions” of employment. Our holding that this includes sexual harassment must extend to sexual harassment of any kind that meets the statutory requirements.
Respondents and their amici contend that recognizing liability for same-sex harassment will transform Title VII into a general civility code for the American workplace. But that risk is no greater for same-sex than for opposite-sex harassment, and is adequately met by careful attention to the requirements of the statute. Title VII does not prohibit all verbal or physical harassment in the workplace; it is directed only at “discrimination] . . . because of . . . sex.” We have never held that workplace harassment, even harassment between men and women, is automatically discrimination because of sex merely because the words used have sexual content or connotations. “The critical issue, Title VII’s text indicates, is whether members of one sex are exposed to disadvantageous terms or conditions of employment to which members of the other sex are not exposed.” Harris, supra, at 25 (Ginsburg, J., concurring).
Courts and juries have found the inference of discrimination easy to draw in most male-female sexual harassment situations, because the challenged conduct typically involves explicit or implicit proposals of sexual activity; it is reasonable to assume those proposals would not have been made to someone of the same sex. The same chain of inference would be available to a plaintiff alleging same-sex harassment, if there were credible evidence that the harasser was homosexual. But harassing conduct need not be motivated by sexual desire to support an inference of discrimination on the basis of sex. A trier of fact might reasonably find such discrimination, for example, if a female victim is harassed in such sex-specific and derogatory terms by another woman as to make it clear that the harasser is motivated by general hostility to the presence of women in the workplace. A same-sex harassment plaintiff may also, of course, offer direet comparative evidence about how the alleged harasser treated members of both sexes in a mixed-sex workplace. Whatever evidentiary route the plaintiff chooses to follow, he or she must always prove that the conduct at issue was not merely tinged with offensive sexual connotations, but actually constituted “discrimination] ... because of... sex.”
And there is another requirement that prevents Title VII from expanding into a general civility code: As we emphasized in Meritor and Harris, the statute does not reach genuine but innocuous differences in the ways men and women routinely interact with members of the same sex and of the opposite sex. The prohibition of harassment on the basis of sex requires neither asexuality nor androgyny in the workplace; it forbids only behavior so objectively offensive as to alter the “conditions” of the victim’s employment. “Conduct that is not severe or pervasive enough to create an objectively hostile or abusive work environment — an environment that a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive — is beyond Title VII’s purview.” Harris, 510 U. S., at 21, citing Meritor, 477 U. S., at 67. We have always regarded that requirement as crucial, and as sufficient to ensure that courts and juries do not mistake ordinary socializing in the workplace — such as male-on-male horseplay or intersexual flirtation — for discriminatory “conditions of employment.”
We have emphasized, moreover, that the objective severity of harassment should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, considering “all the circumstances.” Harris, supra, at 23. In same-sex (as in all) harassment cases, that inquiry requires careful consideration of the social context in which particular behavior occurs and is experienced by its target. A professional football player’s working environment is not severely or pervasively abusive, for example, if the coach smacks him on the buttocks as he heads onto the field — even if the same behavior would reasonably be experienced as abusive by the coach’s secretary (male or female) back at the office. The real social impact of workplace behavior often depends on a constellation of surrounding circumstances, expectations, and relationships which are not fully captured by a simple recitation of the words used or the physical acts performed. Common sense, and an appropriate sensitivity to social context, will enable courts and juries to distinguish between simple teasing or roughhousing among members of the same sex, and conduct which a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would find severely hostile or abusive.
III
Because we conclude that sex discrimination consisting of same-sex sexual harassment is actionable under Title VII, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed, and the ease 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: | 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 White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question of the degree of immunity accorded a defendant police officer in a damages action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 when it is alleged that the officer caused the plaintiffs to be unconstitutionally arrested by presenting a judge with a complaint and a supporting affidavit which failed to establish probable cause.
) — I
In December 1980, the Rhode Island State Police were conducting a court-authorized wiretap on the telephone of one Paul Driscoll, an acquaintance of respondents’ daughter. On December 20, the police intercepted a call to Driscoll from an unknown individual who identified himself as “Dr. Shogun.” The police logsheet summarizes the call as follows: “General conversation re. a party they went to last night. . . caller says I can’t believe I was token [sic] in front of Jimmy Briggs — caller states he passed it to Louisa . . . Paul says Nancy was sitting in his lap rolling her thing.” App. 78.
Petitioner Edward Malley (hereafter petitioner) was the Rhode Island state trooper in charge of the investigation of Driscoll. After reviewing the logsheet for December 20, petitioner decided that the call from “Dr. Shogun” was incriminating, because in drug parlance “toking” means smoking marihuana and “rolling her thing” refers to rolling a marihuana cigarette. Petitioner also concluded that another call monitored the same day showed that the party discussed by Driscoll and “Dr. Shogun” took place at respondents’ house. On the basis of these two calls, petitioner drew up felony complaints charging that respondents and Paul Driscoll “did unlawfully conspire to violate the uniform controlled substance act of the State of Rhode Island by having [marihuana] in their possession . . . .” Id., at 74. These complaints were presented to a State District Court Judge in February 1981, after the wiretap of Driscoll’s phone had been terminated. Accompanying the complaints were unsigned warrants for each respondent’s arrest, and supporting affidavits describing the two intercepted calls and petitioner’s interpretation of them. The judge signed warrants for the arrest of respondents and 20 other individuals charged by petitioner as a result of information gathered through the wiretap.
Respondents were arrested at their home shortly before six o’clock on the morning of March 19, 1981. They were taken to a police station, booked, held for several hours, arraigned, and released. Local and statewide newspapers published the fact that respondents, who are prominent members of their community, had been arrested and charged with drug possession. The charges against repondents were subsequently dropped when the grand jury to which the case was presented did not return an indictment.
Respondents brought an action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island charging, inter alia, that petitioner, in applying for warrants for their arrest, violated their rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The case was tried to a jury, and at the close of respondents’ evidence, petitioner moved for and was granted a directed verdict. The District Court’s primary justification for directing a verdict was that the act of the judge in issuing the arrest warrants for respondents broke the causal chain between petitioner’s filing of a complaint and respondents’ arrest. The court also stated that an officer who believes that the facts stated in his affidavit are true and who submits them to a neutral magistrate may thereby be entitled to immunity under the “objective reasonableness” standard of Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800 (1982).
The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed, holding that an officer who seeks an arrest warrant by submitting a complaint and supporting affidavit to a judge is not entitled to immunity unless the officer has an objectively reasonable basis for believing that the facts alleged in his affidavit are sufficient to establish probable cause. 748 F. 2d 715 (1984). We granted certiorari in order to review the First Circuit’s application of the “objective reasonableness” standard in this context. 471 U. S. 1124 (1985). We affirm.
II
Petitioner urges reversal on two grounds: first, that in this context, he is absolutely immune from liability for damages; second, that he is at least entitled to qualified immunity in this case. We reject both propositions and address first the absolute immunity issue.
A
Our general approach to questions of immunity under § 1983 is by now well established. Although the statute on its face admits of no immunities, we have read it “in harmony with general principles of tort immunities and defenses rather than in derogation of them.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409, 418 (1976). Our initial inquiry is whether an official claiming immunity under §1983 can point to a common-law counterpart to the privilege he asserts. Tower v. Glover, 467 U. S. 914 (1984). If “an official was accorded immunity from tort actions at common law when the Civil Rights Act was enacted in 1871, the Court next considers whether §1983’s history or purposes nonetheless counsel against recognizing the same immunity in § 1983 actions.” Id., at 920. Thus, while we look to the common law for guidance, we do not assume that Congress intended to incorporate every common-law immunity into §1983 in unaltered form.
Our cases also make plain that “[f]or executive officers in general, . . . qualified immunity represents the norm.” Harlow, supra, at 807. Like federal officers, state officers who “seek absolute exemption from personal liability for unconstitutional conduct must bear the burden of showing that public policy requires an exemption of that scope.” Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 506 (1978).
B
Although we have previously held that police officers sued under § 1983 for false arrest are qualifiedly immune, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 557 (1967), petitioner urges that he should be absolutely immune because his function in seeking an arrest warrant was similar to that of a complaining witness. The difficulty with this submission is that complaining witnesses were not absolutely immune at common law. In 1871, the generally accepted rule was that one who procured the issuance of an arrest warrant by submitting a complaint could be held liable if the complaint was made maliciously and without probable cause. Given malice and the lack of probable cause, the complainant enjoyed no immunity. The common law thus affords no support for petitioner.
Nor are we moved by petitioner’s argument that policy considerations require absolute immunity for the officer applying for a warrant. As the qualified immunity defense has evolved, it provides ample protection to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. At common law, in cases where probable cause to arrest was lacking, a complaining witness’ immunity turned on the issue of malice, which was a jury question. Under the Harlow standard, on the other hand, an allegation of malice is not sufficient to defeat immunity if the defendant acted in an objectively reasonable manner. The Harlow standard is specifically designed to “avoid excessive disruption of government and permit the resolution of many insubstantial claims on summary judgment,” and we believe it sufficiently serves this goal. Defendants will not be immune if, on an objective basis, it is obvious that no reasonably competent officer would have concluded that a warrant should issue; but if officers of reasonable competence could disagree on this issue, immunity should be recognized.
C
As an alternative ground for claiming absolute immunity, petitioner draws an analogy between an officer requesting a warrant and a prosecutor who asks a grand jury to indict a suspect. Like the prosecutor, petitioner argues, the officer must exercise a discretionary judgment based on the evidence before him, and like the prosecutor, the officer may not exercise his best judgment if the threat of retaliatory lawsuits hangs over him. Thus, petitioner urges us to read § 1983 as giving the officer the same absolute immunity enjoyed by the prosecutor. Cf. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409 (1976).
We reemphasize that our role is to interpret the intent of Congress in enacting § 1983, not to make a freewheeling policy choice, and that we are guided in interpreting Congress’ intent by the common-law tradition. In Imbler, supra, we concluded that at common law “[t]he general rule was, and is, that a prosecutor is absolutely immune from suit for malicious prosecution.” Id., at 437. We do not find a comparable tradition of absolute immunity for one whose complaint causes a warrant to issue. See n. 3, supra. While this observation may seem unresponsive to petitioner’s policy argument, it is, we believe, an important guide to interpreting § 1983. Since the statute on its face does not provide for any immunities, we would be going far to read into it an absolute immunity for conduct which was only accorded qualified immunity in 1871.
Even were we to overlook the fact that petitioner is inviting us to expand what was a qualified immunity at common law into an absolute immunity, we would find his analogy between himself and a prosecutor untenable. We have interpreted § 1983 to give absolute immunity to functions “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” Imbler, supra, at 430 (emphasis added), not from an exaggerated esteem for those who perform these functions, and certainly not from a desire to shield abuses of office, but because any lesser degree of immunity could impair the judicial process itself. Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U. S. 325, 334-335 (1983). We intend no disrespect to the officer applying for a warrant by observing that his action, while a vital part of the administration of criminal justice, is further removed from the judicial phase of criminal proceedings than the act of a prosecutor in seeking an indictment. Furthermore, petitioner’s analogy, while it has some force, does not take account of the fact that the prosecutor’s act in seeking an indictment is but the first step in the process of seeking a conviction. Exposing the prosecutor to liability for the initial phase of his prosecutorial work could interfere with his exercise of independent judgment at every phase of his work, since the prosecutor might come to see later decisions in terms of their effect on his potential liability. Thus, we shield the prosecutor seeking an indictment because any lesser immunity could impair the performance of a central actor in the judicial process.
In the case of the officer applying for a warrant, it is our judgment that the judicial process will on the whole benefit from a rule of qualified rather than absolute immunity. We do not believe that the Harlow standard, which gives ample room for mistaken judgments, will frequently deter an officer from submitting an affidavit when probable cause to make an arrest is present. True, an officer who knows that objectively unreasonable decisions will be actionable may be motivated to reflect, before submitting a request for a warrant, upon whether he has a reasonable basis for believing that his affidavit establishes probable cause. But such reflection is desirable, because it reduces the likelihood that the officer’s request for a warrant will be premature. Premature requests for warrants are at best a waste of judicial resources; at worst, they lead to premature arrests, which may injure the innocent or, by giving the basis for a suppression motion, benefit the guilty.
Furthermore, it would be incongruous to test police behavior by the “objective reasonableness” standard in a suppression hearing, see United States v. Leon, 468 U. S. 897 (1984), while exempting police conduct in applying for an arrest or search warrant from any scrutiny whatsoever in a § 1988 damages action. While we believe the exclusionary rule serves a necessary purpose, it obviously does so at a considerable cost to society as a whole, because it excludes evidence probative of guilt. On the other hand, a damages remedy for an arrest following an objectively unreasonable request for a warrant imposes a cost directly on the officer responsible for the unreasonable request, without the side effect of hampering a criminal prosecution. Also, in the case of the § 1983 action, the likelihood is obviously greater than at the suppression hearing that the remedy is benefiting the victim of police misconduct one would think most deserving of a remedy — the person who in fact has done no wrong, and has been arrested for no reason, or a bad reason. See Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U. S. 622, 653 (1980).
Accordingly, we hold that the same standard of objective reasonableness that we applied in the context of a suppression hearing in Leon, supra, defines the qualified immunity accorded an officer whose request for a warrant allegedly caused an unconstitutional arrest. Only where the warrant application is so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render official belief in its existence unreasonable, Leon, supra, at 923, will the shield of immunity be lost.
I — I f — H HH
We also reject petitioner’s argument that if an officer is entitled to only qualified immunity in cases like this, he is nevertheless shielded from damages liability because the act of applying for a warrant is per se objectively reasonable, provided that the officer believes that the facts alleged in his affidavit are true. Petitioner insists that he is entitled to rely on the judgment of a judicial officer in finding that probable cause exists and hence issuing the warrant. This view of objective reasonableness is at odds with our development of that concept in Harlow and Leon. In Leon, we stated that “our good-faith inquiry is confined to the objectively ascertainable question whether a reasonably well-trained officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the magistrate’s authorization.” 468 U. S., at 922, n. 23. The analogous question in this case is whether a reasonably well-trained officer in petitioner’s position would have known that his affidavit failed to establish probable cause and that he should not have applied for the warrant. If such was the case, the officer’s application for a warrant was not objectively reasonable, because it created the unnecessary danger of an unlawful arrest. It is true that in an ideal system an unreasonable request for a warrant would be harmless, because no judge would approve it. But ours is not an ideal system, and it is possible that a magistrate, working under docket pressures, will fail to perform as a magistrate should. We find it reasonable to require the officer applying for the warrant to minimize this danger by exercising reasonable professional judgment.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Respondents’ complaint also named the State of Rhode Island as a defendant. At the close of respondents’ evidence, Rhode Island moved for and was granted a directed verdict on Eleventh Amendment grounds. Respondents have not contested the propriety of the directed verdict for the State.
Harlow was a suit against federal, not state, officials, but as we stated in deciding the case, it is “ ‘untenable to draw a distinction for purposes of immunity law between suits brought against state officials under § 1983 and suits brought directly under the Constitution against federal officials.”’ 457 U. S., at 818, n. 30 (quoting Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 504 (1978)).
See, e. g., Dinsman v. Wilkes, 12 How. 390, 402 (1852); Randall v. Henry, 5 Stew. & P. 367, 378 (Ala. 1834); Bell v. Keepers, 37 Kan. 64, 14 P. 542 (1887); Finn v. Frink, 84 Me. 261, 24 A. 851 (1892); 4 W. Wait, Actions and Defenses 352-356 (1878). The same rule applied in the case of search warrants. See, e. g., Barker v. Stetson, 73 Mass. 53, 54 (1856); Carey v. Sheets, 67 Ind. 375, 378-379 (1879).
See 4 Wait, supra, at 345 (‘Whether malice is proved or not is a question of fact for the jury”).
The organized bar’s development and enforcement of professional standards for prosecutors also lessen the danger that absolute immunity will become a shield for prosecutorial misconduct. As we observed in Imbler, “a prosecutor stands perhaps unique, among officials whose acts could deprive persons of constitutional rights, in his amenability to professional discipline by an association of his peers. ” 424 U. S., at 429 (footnote omitted). The absence of a comparably well-developed and pervasive mechanism for controlling police misconduct weighs against allowing absolute immunity for the officer.
Although the case before us only concerns a damages action for an officer’s part in obtaining an allegedly unconstitutional arrest warrant, the distinction between a search warrant and an arrest warrant would not make a difference in the degree of immunity accorded the officer who applied for the warrant.
Petitioner has not pressed the argument that in a case like this the officer should not be liable because the judge’s decision to issue the warrant breaks the causal chain between the application for the warrant and the improvident arrest. It should be clear, however, that the District Court’s “no causation” rationale in this case is inconsistent with our interpretation of § 1983. As we stated in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U. S. 167, 187 (1961), § 1983 “should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions.” Since the common law recognized the causal link between the submission of a complaint and an ensuing arrest, we read § 1983 as recognizing the same causal link.
The question is not presented to us, nor do we decide, whether petitioner’s conduct in this case was in fact objectively reasonable. That issue must be resolved on remand.
Notwithstanding petitioner’s protestations, the rule we adopt in no way “requires the police officer to assume a role even more skilled . . . than the magistrate. ” Brief for Petitioners 33. It is a sound presumption that “the magistrate is more qualified than the police officer to make a probable cause determination,” ibid., and it goes without saying that where a magistrate acts mistakenly in issuing a warrant but -within the range of professional competence of a magistrate, the officer who requested the warrant cannot be held liable. But it is different if no officer of reasonable competence would have requested the warrant, i. e., his request is outside the range of the professional competence expected of an officer. If the magistrate issues the warrant in such a ease, his action is not just a reasonable mistake, but an unacceptable error indicating gross incompetence or neglect of duty. The officer then cannot excuse his own default by pointing to the greater incompetence of the magistrate.
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
[559 U.S. 319]
Justice Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Sixth Amendment secures to criminal defendants the right to be tried by an impartial jury drawn from sources reflecting a fair cross section of the community. See Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690 (1975). The question presented in this case is whether that right was accorded to respondent Diapolis Smith, an African-American convicted of second-degree murder by an all-white jury in Kent County, Michigan, in 1993. At the time of Smith’s trial, African-Americans constituted 7.28% of Kent County’s jury-eligible population, and 6% of the pool from which potential jurors were drawn.
In Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579 (1979), this Court described three showings a criminal defendant must make to establish a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement. He or she must show: “(1) that the group alleged to be excluded is a ‘distinctive’ group in the community; (2) that the representation of this group in venires from which juries are selected is not fair and reasonable in relation to the number of such persons in the community; and (3) that this underrepre-sentation is due to systematic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process.” Id., at 364, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. The first showing is, in most cases, easily made; the second and third are more likely to generate controversy.
The defendant in Duren readily met all three measures. He complained of the dearth of women in the Jackson County, Missouri, jury pool. To establish underrepresentation, he proved that women were 54% of the jury-eligible population, but accounted for only 26.7% of the persons summoned for jury service, and only 14.5% of the persons on the postsummons weekly venires from which jurors were drawn. To show the “systematic” cause of the underrepresentation, Du-ren pointed to Missouri’s law exempting women from jury service, and to the manner in which Jackson County administered the exemption. Concluding that no significant state interest could justify Missouri’s explicitly gender-based exemption,
[559 U.S. 320]
this Court held the law, as implemented in Jackson County, violative of the Sixth Amendment’s fair-cross-section requirement.
We here review the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit holding that Smith “sat-isf[ied] the prima facie test established by Duren,” and granting him habeas corpus relief, i.e., release from imprisonment absent a new trial commenced within 180 days of the Court of Appeals’ order. 543 F.3d 326, 336 (2008). Despite marked differences between Smith’s case and Duren’s, and a cogent Michigan Supreme Court decision holding that Smith “ha[d] not shown . . . systematic exclusion,” People v. Smith, 463 Mich. 199, 205, 615 N.W.2d 1, 3 (2000), the Sixth Circuit found the matter settled. Cognizant of the restrictions Congress placed on federal habeas review of state-court convictions, the Court of Appeals considered that a decision contrary to its own would “involv[e] an unreasonable application o[f] clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d)(1). 543 F.3d, at 335.
The Sixth Circuit erred in so ruling. No decision of this Court “clearly established]” Smith’s entitlement to federal-court relief. According to the Sixth Circuit, Smith had demonstrated that a Kent County prospective-juror-assignment procedure, which Smith calls “siphoning,” “systematic [ally] excluded]” African-Americans. Under this procedure, Kent County assigned prospective jurors first to local district courts, and, only after filling local needs, made remaining persons available to the countywide Circuit Court, which heard felony cases like Smith’s. The Michigan Supreme Court, however, had rejected Smith’s “siphoning” plea for lack of proof that the assignment procedure caused underrepresentation. Smith, 463 Mich., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. As that determination was not at all unreasonable, the Sixth Circuit had no warrant to disturb it. See § 2254(d)(2).
[559 U.S. 321]
In addition to renewal of his “siphoning” argument, Smith here urges that a host of factors combined to reduce systematically the number of African-Americans appearing on Kent County jury lists, for example, the Kent County court’s practice of excusing people without adequate proof of alleged hardship, and the refusal of Kent County police to enforce orders for prospective jurors to appear. Brief for Respondent 53-54. Our decisions do not address factors of the kind Smith urges. We have cautioned, however, that “[t]he fair-cross-section principle must have much leeway in application.” Taylor, 419 U.S., at 537-538, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690; see id., at 537, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690 (Court’s holding that Sixth Amendment is violated by systematic exclusion of women from jury service “does not augur or authorize the fashioning of detailed jury-selection codes by federal courts.”).
I
A
On November 7, 1991, Christopher Rumbley was shot and killed during a bar brawl in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The bar was crowded at the time of the brawl, with 200 to 300 people on the premises. All patrons of the bar were African-American. The State charged Smith with the murder in Kent County Circuit Court.
Voir dire for Smith’s trial took place in September 1993. The venire panel included between 60 and 100 individuals. The parties agree that, at most, three venire members were African-American. Smith unsuccessfully objected to the composition of the venire panel.
Smith’s case proceeded to trial before an all-white jury. The case for the prosecution turned on the identity of the man who shot Rumbley. Thirty-seven witnesses from the bar, including Smith, testified at the trial. Of those, two testified that Smith fired the gun. Five testified that the shooter was not Smith, and the remainder made no identifications of the shooter. The jury convicted Smith of second-degree
[559 U.S. 322]
murder and possession of a firearm during a felony, and the court sentenced him to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.
B
On first appeal, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Smith’s fair-cross-section claim. The hearing occurred in early 1998. Smith’s evidence showed that Grand Rapids, the largest city in Kent County, was home to roughly 37% of Kent County’s population, and to 85% of its African-American residents. Felony charges in Kent County were tried in a sole Circuit Court. Misdemeanors were prosecuted in 12 district courts, each covering a discrete geographical area. To fill the courts’ venires, Kent County sent questionnaires to prospective jurors. The Circuit Court Administrator testified that about 5% of the forms were returned as undeliverable, and another 15% to 20% were not answered. App. 13a. From the pool of prospective jurors who completed questionnaires, the County granted requests for hardship exemptions, e.g., for lack of transportation or child care. Id., at 21a. Kent County then assigned nonexempt prospective jurors to their local district courts’ venires. After filling the district courts’ needs, the County assigned the remaining prospective jurors to the Circuit Court’s panels. Id., at 20a, 22a.
The month after voir dire for Smith’s trial, Kent County reversed the assignment order. It did so, according to the Circuit Court Administrator, based on “[t]he belief. . . that the respective districts essentially swallowed up most of the minority jurors,” leaving the Circuit Court with a jury pool that “did not represent the entire county.” Id., at 22a. The Jury Minority Representation Committee, its co-chair testified, held the same view concerning the impact of choosing district court jurors first and not returning unused persons to the pool available for Circuit Court selections. Id., at 64a-65a.
[559 U.S. 323]
The trial court considered two means of measuring the extent of un-derrepresentation of African-Americans on Circuit Court venires: “absolute disparity” and “comparative disparity.” “Absolute disparity” is determined by subtracting the percentage of African-Americans in the jury pool (here, 6% in the six months leading up to Smith’s trial) from the percentage of African-Americans in the local, jury-eligible population (here, 7.28%). By an absolute disparity measure, therefore, African-Americans were underrepresented by 1.28%. “Comparative disparity” is determined by dividing the absolute disparity (here, 1.28%) by the group’s representation in the jury-eligible population (here, 7.28%). The quotient (here, 18%) showed that, in the six months prior to Smith’s trial, African-Americans were, on average, 18% less likely, when compared to the overall jury-eligible population, to be on the jury-service list. App. to Pet. for Cert. 215a.
Isolating the month Smith’s jury was selected, Smith’s statistics expert estimated that the comparative disparity was 34.8%. App. 181a. In the 11 months after Kent County discontinued the district-court-first assignment policy, the comparative disparity, on average, dropped from 18% to 15.1%. Id., at 102a-103a, 113a.
Smith also introduced the testimony of an expert in demographics and economics, who tied the under-representation to social and economic factors. In Kent County, the expert explained, these forces made African-Americans less likely than whites to receive or return juror-eligibility questionnaires, and more likely to assert a hardship excuse. Id., at 79a-80a.
The hearing convinced the trial court that African-Americans were underrepresented in Circuit Court ve-nires. App. to Pet. for Cert. 210a. But Smith’s evidence was insufficient, that court held, to prove that the juror-assignment order, or any other part of the jury-selection process, had systematically excluded African-Americans. Id., at 210a-212a.
[559 U.S. 324]
The court therefore rejected Smith’s fair-cross-section claim.
C
The Michigan Court of Appeals concluded that the juror-allocation system in place at the relevant time did result in the underrepresentation of African-Americans. Id., at 182a-183a. Reversing the trial court’s judgment, the intermediate appellate court ordered a new trial, with jurors selected under the Circuit-Court-first assignment order installed shortly after the voir dire in Smith’s case. Ibid.; see supra, at 322, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257.
The Michigan Supreme Court, in turn, reversed the Court of Appeals’ judgment, concluding that Smith “ha[d] not established a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment fair cross-section requirement.” Smith, 463 Mich., at 207, 615 N.W.2d, at 4. The Michigan high court observed, first, that this Court has specified “[no] preferred method for measuring whether representation of a distinctive group in the jury pool is fair and reasonable.” Id., at 203, 615 N.W.2d, at 2. The court then noted that lower federal courts had applied three different methods to measure fair and reasonable representation: the absolute and comparative disparity tests, described supra, at 323, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257, and “the standard deviation test.”
Recognizing that no single test was entirely satisfactory, the Michigan Supreme Court adopted a case-by-case approach allowing consideration of all three means of measuring un-derrepresentation. Smith, 463 Mich., at 204, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. Smith’s statistical evidence, the court found, “failed to establish a legally significant disparity under either the absolute or comparative disparity tests.” Id., at
[559 U.S. 325]
204-205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. (The parties had presented no expert testimony regarding application of the standard deviation test. Id., at 205, n. 1,615 N.W.2d, at 3, n. 1; supra, at 323, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257.)
Nevertheless “granting] [Smith] the benefit of the doubt on unfair and unreasonable underrepresentation,” the Michigan Supreme Court ultimately determined that “he ha[d] not shown systematic exclusion.” Smith, 463 Mich., at 203, 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 2, 3. Smith’s evidence, the court said, did not show “how the alleged siphoning of African-American jurors to district courts affected the circuit court jury pool.” Id., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. In particular, the court observed, “ [t]he record does not disclose whether the district court jury pools contained more, fewer, or approximately the same percentage of minority jurors as the circuit court jury pool.” Ibid. The court also ruled that “the influence of social and economic factors on juror participation does not demonstrate a systematic exclusion.” Id., at 206, 615 N.W.2d, at 3.
D
In February 2003, Smith filed a habeas corpus petition in the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, reasserting his fair-cross-section claim. Because Smith is “in custody pursuant to the judgment of a State court,” the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), § 2254, governed the District Court’s review of his application for federal habeas corpus relief. Under the controlling provision of AEDPA, codified in § 2254(d), a state prisoner’s application may not be granted as to “any claim . . . adjudicated ... in State court” unless the state court’s adjudication
“(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
[559 U.S. 326]
“(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.”
Applying these standards, the District Court dismissed Smith’s habeas petition. App. to Pet. for Cert. 40a-42a.
The Court of Appeals reversed. Where, as here, the allegedly excluded group is small, the Sixth Circuit ruled, courts should use the comparative disparity test to measure underrepresentation. 543 F.3d, at 338. In that court’s view, Smith’s comparative disparity statistics sufficed “to demonstrate that the representation of African American veniremen in Kent County . . . was unfair and unreasonable.” Ibid. As to systematic exclusion, the Sixth Circuit, in accord with the Michigan intermediate appellate court, believed that the juror-assignment order in effect when Smith’s jury was empaneled significantly reduced the number of African-Americans available for Circuit Court venires. Id., at 342. Smith was entitled to relief, the court concluded, because no important state interest supported that allocation system. Id., at 345.
The State petitioned for certiorari, attacking the Sixth Circuit’s decision on two principal grounds: First, the State charged that the federal appellate court erred in adopting the comparative disparity test to determine whether a distinctive group was underrepresented in the jury pool. Pet. for Cert. ii. Second, the State urged that, in any event,
[559 U.S. 327]
“there was no . . . systematic exclusion of African Americans from juries in Kent County, Michigan,” id., at 25, and no warrant for the Sixth Circuit’s contrary determination. We granted review, 557 U.S. 965, 130 S. Ct. 48, 174 L. Ed. 2d 631 (2009), and now reverse the Sixth Circuit’s judgment.
According to the Sixth Circuit, the Michigan Supreme Court’s rejection of Smith’s Sixth Amendment plea “involved an unreasonable application o[f] clearly established Federal law, as determined by [this Court in Duren].” § 2254(d)(1); see 543 F.3d, at 345. We disagree. As explained below, our Du-ren decision hardly establishes—no less “clearly” so—that Smith was denied his Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community.
II
To establish a prima facie violation of the fair-cross-section requirement, this Court’s pathmarking decision in Duren instructs, a defendant must prove that: (l)a group qualifying as “distinctive” (2) is not fairly and reasonably represented in jury veni-res, and (3) “systematic exclusion” in the jury-selection process accounts for the underrepresentation. 439 U.S., at 364, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579; see supra, at 319, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 254-255.
The defendant in Duren successfully challenged Jackson County’s administration of a Missouri exemption permitting any woman to opt out of jury service. 439 U.S., at 360, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. The Court explained why it was plain that defendant Duren had established a prima facie case. First, women in Jackson
[559 U.S. 328]
County were both “numerous and distinct from men.” Id., at 364 (quoting Taylor, 419 U.S., at 531, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690). Second, Duren’s “statistical presentation” showed gross underrepresentation: Women were over half the jury-eligible population; in stark contrast, they accounted for less than 15% of jury venires. 439 U.S., at 364-366, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579.
Duren also demonstrated systematic exclusion with particularity. He proved that women’s underrepresen-tation was persistent—occurring in every weekly venire for almost a year—and he identified the two stages of the jury-selection process “when . . . the systematic exclusion took place.” Id., at 366, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. First, questionnaires for prospective jurors stated conspicuously that women could opt out of jury service. Less than 30% of those summoned were female, suggesting that women in large numbers claimed the exemption at the questionnaire stage. Ibid. “Moreover, at the summons stage women were . . . given another opportunity to [opt out].” Id., at 366-367, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. And if a woman ignored the summons, she was deemed to have opted out; no further inquiry was made. Id., at 367, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. At this “final, venire, stage,” women’s representation plummeted to 14.5%. Ibid. In the Federal District Court serving the same territory, the Court noted, despite a women-only childcare exemption, women accounted for nearly 40% of those actually serving on juries. See ibid., n. 25.
The “disproportionate and consistent exclusion of women from the [Jackson County] jury wheel and at the venire stage,” the Court concluded, “was quite obviously due to the system by which juries were selected.” Id., at 367, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. “[A]ppropriately tailored” hardship exemptions, the Court added, would likely survive a fair-cross-section challenge if justified by an important state interest. Id., at 370, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. But no such interest, the Court held, could justify Missouri’s exemption for each and every woman—the altogether evident explanation for the un-derrepresentation. Id., at 369-370, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579.
[559 U.S. 329]
III
A
As the Michigan Supreme Court correctly observed, see supra, at 324, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257-258, neither Duren nor any other decision of this Court specifies the method or test courts must use to measure the representation of distinctive groups in jury pools. The courts below and the parties noted three methods employed or identified in lower federal court decisions: absolute disparity, comparative disparity, and standard deviation. See Smith, 463 Mich., at 204-205, 615 N.W.2d, at 2-3; Brief for Petitioner 3; Brief for Respondent 26; supra, at 324, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 258.
Each test is imperfect. Absolute disparity and comparative disparity measurements, courts have recognized, can be misleading when, as here, “members of the distinctive group comp [ose] [only] a small percentage of those eligible for jury service.” Smith, 463 Mich., at 203-204, 615 N.W.2d, at 2-3. And to our knowledge, “[n]o court . . . has accepted [a standard deviation analysis] alone as determinative in Sixth Amendment challenges to jury selection systems.” United States v. Rioux, 97 F.3d 648, 655 (CA2 1996).
On direct review, as earlier stated, the Michigan Supreme Court chose no single method “to measur[e] whether representation was fair and reasonable.” Smith, 463 Mich., at 204, 615 N.W.2d, at 3; see supra, at 324, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 258. Instead, it “adopt[ed] a case-by-case approach.” Smith, 463 Mich., at 204, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. “Provided that the parties proffer sufficient evidence,” that court said, “the results of all the tests [should be considered] .” Ibid. In contrast, the Sixth Circuit declared that “[w]here the distinctive group alleged to have been underrepresented is small, as is the case here, the comparative disparity test is the more appropriate measure of underrepresentation.” 543 F.3d, at 338.
Even in the absence of AEDPA’s constraint, see supra, at 325-326, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 258, we would have no cause to take sides today on the
[559 U.S. 330]
method or methods by which under-representation is appropriately measured. Although the Michigan Supreme Court concluded that “[Smith’s] statistical evidence failed to establish a legally significant disparity under either the absolute or comparative disparity tests,” Smith, 463 Mich., at 204-205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3, that court nevertheless gave Smith “the benefit of the doubt on underrepresentation,” id., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. It did so in order to reach the issue ultimately dispositive in Duren: To the extent underrepre-sentation existed, was it due to “systematic exclusion”? 463 Mich., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3; see Duren, 439 U.S., at 364, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579.
B
Addressing the ground on which the Sixth Circuit rested its decision, Smith submits that the district-court-first assignment order systematically excluded African-Americans from Kent County Circuit Court venires. Brief for Respondent 46-48. But as the Michigan Supreme Court not at all unreasonably concluded, Smith, 463 Mich., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3, Smith’s evidence scarcely shows that the assignment order he targets caused underrepresentation. Although
[559 U.S. 331]
the record established that some officials and others in Kent County believed that the assignment order created racial disparities, and the County reversed the order in response, supra, at 322, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257, the belief was not substantiated by Smith’s evidence.
Evidence that African-Americans were underrepresented on the Circuit Court’s venires in significantly higher percentages than on the Grand Rapids District Court’s could have indicated that the assignment order made a critical difference. But, as the Michigan Supreme Court noted, Smith adduced no evidence to that effect. See Smith, 463 Mich., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3. Nor did Smith address whether Grand Rapids, which had the County’s largest African-American population, “ha[d] more need for jurors per capita than [any other district in Kent County].” Tr. of Oral Arg. 26; id., at 18, 37. Furthermore, Smith did not endeavor to compare the African-American representation levels in Circuit Court venires with those in the Federal District Court venires for the same region. See id., at 46-47; Duren, 439 U.S., at 367, n. 25, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579.
Smith’s best evidence of systematic exclusion was offered by his statistics expert, who reported a decline in comparative underrepresentation, from 18% to 15.1%, after Kent County reversed the assignment order. See supra, at 323, 176 L. Ed. 2d, at 257. This evidence—particularly in view of AE-DPA’s instruction, § 2254(d)(2)—is insufficient to support Smith’s claim that the assignment order caused the underrepresentation. As Smith’s counsel recognized at oral argument, this decrease could not fairly be described as “a big change.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 51; see ibid, (the drop was “a step in the right direction”). In short, Smith’s evidence gave the Michigan Supreme Court little reason to conclude that the district-court-first assignment order had a significantly adverse impact on the representation of African-Americans on Circuit Court venires.
[559 U.S. 332]
c
To establish systematic exclusion, Smith contends, the defendant must show only that the underrepresentation is persistent and “produced by the method or ‘system’ used to select [jurors],” rather than by chance. Brief for Respondent 38, 40. In this regard, Smith catalogs a laundry list of factors in addition to the alleged “siphoning” that, he urges, rank as “systematic” causes of underrepresentation of African-Americans in Kent County’s jury pool. Id., at 53-54. Smith’s list includes the County’s practice of excusing people who merely alleged hardship or simply failed to show up for jury service, its reliance on mail notices, its failure to follow up on nonresponses, its use of residential addresses at least 15 months old, and the refusal of Kent County police to enforce court orders for the appearance of prospective jurors. Ibid.
No “clearly established” precedent of this Court supports Smith’s claim that he can make out a prima facie case merely by pointing to a host of factors that, individually or in combination, might contribute to a group’s underrepresentation. Smith recites a sentence in our Duren opinion that, he says, placed the burden of proving causation on the State. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 33, 35. The sentence reads: “Assuming, arguendo, that the exemptions mentioned by the court below [those for persons over 65, teachers, and government workers] would justify failure to achieve a fair community cross section on jury venires, the State must demonstrate that these exemptions [rather than the women’s exemption] caused the underrepre-sentation complained of.” 439 U.S., at 368-369, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. That sentence appears after the Court had already assigned to Du-ren—and found he had carried—the burden of proving that the underrep-resentation “was due to [women’s] systematic exclusion in the jury-selection process.” Id., at 366, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. The Court’s comment, which Smith clipped from its context, does not concern the demonstration
[559 U.S. 333]
of a prima face case. Instead, it addresses what the State might show to rebut the defendant’s prima facie case. The Michigan Supreme Court was therefore far from “unreasonable,” § 2254(d)(1), in concluding that Duren first and foremost required Smith himself to show that the underrepresentation complained of was “due to systematic exclusion.” Id., at 364, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579; see Smith, 463 Mich., at 205, 615 N.W.2d, at 3.
This Court, furthermore, has never “clearly established” that jury-selection-process features of the kind on Smith’s list can give rise to a fair-cross-section claim. In Taylor, we “recognized broad discretion in the States” to “prescribe relevant qualifications for their jurors and to provide reasonable exemptions.” 419 U.S., at 537-538, 95 S. Ct. 692, 42 L. Ed. 2d 690. And in Duren, the Court understood that hardship exemptions resembling those Smith assails might well “survive a fair-cross-section challenge,” 439 U.S., at 370, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579. In sum, the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision rejecting Smith’s fair-cross-section claim is consistent with Duren and “involved [no] unreasonable application o[f] clearly established Federal law,” § 2254(d)(1).
For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
. Standard deviation analysis seeks to determine the probability that the disparity between a group’s jury-eligible population and the group’s percentage in the qualified jury pool is attributable to random chance. See People v. Smith, 463 Mich. 199, 219-220, 615 N.W.2d 1, 9-10 (2000) (Cavanagh, J., concurring).
. The Sixth Circuit also found that the Michigan Supreme Court had unreasonably applied Duren v. Missouri, 439 U.S. 357, 99 S. Ct. 664, 58 L. Ed. 2d 579 (1979), when it declared that social and economic factors could not establish systematic exclusion. 543 F.3d, at 341-342. Because such factors disproportionately affect African-Americans, the Sixth Circuit said, Kent County’s routine grants of certain hardship exemptions “produced systematic exclusion within the meaning of Duren." Ibid. The Sixth Circuit held, however, that the hardship exemptions could not establish a fair-cross-section claim because the State ‘Ras a significant interest [in] avoiding undue burdens on individuals’’ by allowing such excuses. Id., at 345.
. Although the question presented by the State homes in on the proper measure for underrepresentation, it initially and more comprehensively inquires whether Smith was denied his right to a jury drawn from a fair cross section of the community. See Pet. for Cert, ii (asking “[w]hether the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit erred in concluding that the Michigan Supreme Court failed to apply ‘clearly established’ Supreme Court precedent under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 on the issue of the fair cross-section requirement under Duren . . . ’’). We therefore address that overarching issue.
. The State asks us to “adopt the absolute-disparity standard for measuring fair and reasonable representation’’ and to “requir[e] proof that the absolute disparity exceeds 10%’’ to make out a prima facie fair-cross-section violation. Brief for Petitioner 45-46. Under the rule the State proposes, “the Sixth Amendment offers no remedy for complete exclusion of distinct groups in communities where the population of the distinct group falls below the 10 percent threshold.’’ Brief for Respondent 35. We need not reach that issue.
. For similar conclusions, see, for example, United States v. Orange, 447 F.3d 792, 798-799, and n. 7 (CA10 2006) (absolute disparity of 3.57%; comparative disparities “rang[ing] from 38.17% to 51.22%’’); United States v. Royal, 174 F.3d 1, 10 (CA1 1999) (2.97% absolute disparity; 61.1% comparative disparity); United States v. Rioux, 97 F.3d 648, 657-658 (CA2 1996) (2.08% absolute disparity; 29% comparative disparity); State v. Gibbs, 254 Conn. 578, 591-593, 758 A.2d 327, 337-338 (2000) (2.49% absolute disparity; 37% comparative disparity).
. We have also never “clearly” decided, and have no need to consider here, whether the impact of social and economic factors can support a fair-cross-section claim. Compare Smith, 463 Mich., at 206, 615 N.W.2d, at 3 (“[T]he influence of social and economic factors on juror participation does not demonstrate a systematic exclusion of [a distinctive group].”), with 543 F.3d 326, 341 (CA6 2008) (case below) (“[T]he Sixth Amendment is concerned with social or economic factors when the particular system of selecting jurors makes such factors relevant to who is placed on the qualifying list and who is ultimately called to or excused from service on a venire panel.”).
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.
Mb. Justice Marshall
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case and United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., post, p. 580, involve the tax treatment of expenses incurred in certain appraisal litigation.
Taxpayers owned or controlled a majority of the common stock of the Telegraph-Herald, an Iowa-publishing corporation. The Telegraph-Herald was incorporated in 1901, and its charter was extended for 20-year periods in 1921 and 1941. On June 9, 1960, taxpayers voted their controlling share of the stock of the corporation in favor of a perpetual extension of the charter. A minority stockholder voted against the extension. Iowa law requires “those stockholders voting for such renewal . . . [to] purchase at its real value the stock voted against such renewal.” Iowa Code §491.25 (1966).
Taxpayers attempted to negotiate purchase of the dissenting stockholder’s shares, but no agreement could be reached on the “real value” of those shares. Consequently, in 1962 taxpayers brought an action in state court to appraise the value of the minority stock interest. The trial court fixed a value, which was slightly reduced on appeal by the Iowa Supreme Court, Woodward v. Quigley, 257 Iowa 1077, 133 N. W. 2d 38, on rehearing, 257 Iowa 1104, 136 N. W. 2d 280 (1965). In July 1965, taxpayers purchased the minority stock interest at the price fixed by the court.
During 1963, taxpayers paid attorneys’, accountants’, and appraisers’ fees of over $25,000, for services rendered in connection with the appraisal litigation. On their 1963 federal income tax returns, taxpayers claimed deductions for these expenses, asserting that they were “ordinary and necessary expenses paid ... for the management, conservation, or maintenance of property held for the production of income” deductible under § 212 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U. S. C. § 212. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue disallowed the deduction “because the fees represent capital expenditures incurred in connection with the acquisition of capital stock of a corporation.” The Tax Court sustained the Commissioner’s determination, with two dissenting opinions, 49 T. C. 377 (1968), and the Court of Appeals affirmed, 410 F. 2d 313 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1969). We granted certiorari, 396 U. S. 875 (1969), to resolve the conflict over the deductibility of the costs of appraisal proceedings between this decision and the decision of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., supra. We affirm.
Since the inception of the present federal income tax in 1913, capital expenditures have not been deductible. See Internal Revenue Code of 1954, § 263. Such expenditures are added to the basis of the capital asset with respect to which they are incurred, and are taken into account for tax purposes either through depreciation or by reducing the capital gain (or increasing the loss) when the asset is sold. If an expense is capital, it cannot be deducted as “ordinary and necessary,” either as a business expense under § 162 of the Code or as an expense of “management, conservation, or maintenance” under § 212.
It has long been recognized, as a general matter, that costs incurred in the acquisition or disposition of a capital asset are to be treated as capital expenditures. The most familiar example of such treatment is the capitalization of brokerage fees for the sale or purchase of securities, as explicitly provided by a longstanding Treasury regulation, Treas. Reg. on Income Tax § 1.263 (a)-2 (e), and as approved by this Court in Helvering v. Winmill, 305 U. S. 79 (1938), and Spreckels v. Commissioner, 315 U. S. 626 (1942). The Court recognized that brokers’ commissions are “part of the acquisition cost of the securities,” Helvering v. Winmill, supra, at 84, and relied on the Treasury regulation, which had been approved by statutory re-enactment, to deny deductions for such commissions even to a taxpayer for whom they were a regular and recurring expense in his business of buying and selling securities.
The regulations do not specify other sorts of acquisition costs, but rather provide generally that “[t]he cost of acquisition . . . of . . . property having a useful life substantially beyond the taxable year” is a capital expenditure. Treas. Reg. on Income Tax § 1.263 (a)-2 (a). Under this general provision, the courts have held that legal, brokerage, accounting, and similar costs incurred in the acquisition or disposition of such property are capital expenditures. See, e. g., Spangler v. Commissioner, 323 F. 2d 913, 921 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1963); United States v. St. Joe Paper Co., 284 F. 2d 430, 432 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1960). See generally 4A J. Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation §§ 25.25, 25.26, 25.40, 25A.15 (1966 rev.). The law could hardly be otherwise, for such ancillary expenses incurred in acquiring or disposing of an asset are as much part of the cost of that asset as is the price paid for it.
More difficult questions arise with respect to another class of capital expenditures, those incurred in “defending or perfecting title to property.” Treas. Reg. on Income Tax § 1.263 (a)-2 (c). In one sense, any lawsuit brought against a taxpayer may affect his title to property — money or other assets subject to lien. The courts, not believing that Congress meant all litigation expenses to be capitalized, have created the rule that such expenses are capital in nature only where the taxpayer’s “primary purpose” in incurring them is to defend or perfect title. See, e. g., Rassenfoss v. Commissioner, 158 F. 2d 764 (C. A. 7th Cir. 1946); Industrial Aggregate Co. v. United States, 284 F. 2d 639, 645 (C. A. 8th Cir. 1960). This test hardly draws a bright line, and has produced a melange of decisions, which, as the Tax Court has noted, “[i]t would be idle to suggest . . . can be reconciled.” Ruoff v. Commissioner, 30 T. C. 204, 208 (1958).
Taxpayers urge that this “primary purpose” test, developed in the context of cases involving the costs of defending property, should be applied to costs incurred in acquiring or disposing of property as well. And if it is so applied, they argue, the costs here in question were properly deducted, since the legal proceedings in which they were incurred did not directly involve the question of title to the minority stock, which all agreed was to pass to taxpayers, but rather was concerned solely with the value of that stock.
We agree with the Tax Court and the Court of Appeals that the “primary purpose” test has no application here. That uncertain and difficult test may be the best that can be devised to determine the tax treatment of costs incurred in litigation that may affect a taxpayer’s title to property more or less indirectly, and that thus calls for a judgment whether the taxpayer can fairly be said to be “defending or perfecting title.” Such uncertainty is not called for in applying the regulation that makes the “cost of acquisition” of a capital asset a capital expense. In our view application of the latter regulation to litigation expenses involves the simpler inquiry whether the origin of the claim litigated is in the process of acquisition itself.
A test based upon the taxpayer’s “purpose” in undertaking or defending a particular piece of litigation would encourage resort to formalisms and artificial distinctions. For instance, in this case there can be no doubt that legal, accounting, and appraisal costs incurred by taxpayers in negotiating a purchase of the minority stock would have been capital expenditures. See Atzingen-Whitehouse Dairy Inc. v. Commissioner, 36 T. C. 173 (1961). Under whatever test might be applied, such expenses would have clearly been “part of the acquisition cost” of the stock. Helvering v. Winmill, supra. Yet the appraisal proceeding was no more than the substitute that state law provided for the process of negotiation as a means of fixing the price at which the stock was to be purchased. Allowing deduction of expenses incurred in such a proceeding, merely on the ground that title was not directly put in question in the particular litigation, would be anomalous.
Further, a standard based on the origin of the claim litigated comports with this Court's recent ruling on the characterization of litigation expenses for tax purposes in United States v. Gilmore, 372 U. S. 39 (1963). This Court there held that the expense of defending a divorce suit was a nondeductible personal expense, even though the outcome of the divorce case would affect the taxpayer’s property holdings, and might affect his business reputation. The Court rejected a test that looked to the consequences of the litigation, and did not even consider the taxpayer’s motives or purposes in undertaking defense of the litigation, but rather examined the origin and character of the claim against the taxpayer, and found that the claim arose out of the personal relationship of marriage.
The standard here pronounced may, like any standard, present borderline cases, in which it is difficult to determine whether the origin of particular litigation lies in the process of acquisition. This is not such a borderline case. Here state law required taxpayers to “purchase” the stock owned by the dissenter. In the absence of agreement on the price at which the purchase was to be made, litigation was required to fix the price. Where property is acquired by purchase, nothing is more clearly part of the process of acquisition than the establishment of a purchase price. Thus the expenses incurred in that litigation were properly treated as part of the cost of the stock that the taxpayers acquired.
Affirmed.
Other federal court decisions on the point are in conflict. Compare Boulder Building Corp. v. United States, 125 F. Supp. 512 (D. C. W. D. Okla. 1954) (holding appraisal proceeding costs capital expenditures), with Smith Hotel Enterprises, Inc. v. Nelson, 236 F. Supp. 303 (D. C. E. D. Wis. 1964) (holding such costs deductible as ordinary and necessary business expense). And see Heller v. Commissioner, 2 T. C. 371 (1943), aff’d, 147 F. 2d 376 (C. A. 9th Cir. 1945) (holding dissenting stockholder’s appraisal costs deductible under predecessor to § 212).
See also Naylor v. Commissioner, 203 F. 2d 346 (C. A. 5th Cir. 1953), in which expenses of litigation to fix the purchase price of stock sold pursuant to an option to purchase it at its net asset value on a certain date were held deductible under the predecessor of § 212.
See § IIB of the Income Tax Act of 1913, 38 Stat. 167.
The two sections are in pari materia with respect to the capital-ordinary distinction, differing only in, that § 212 allows deductions for the ordinary and necessary expenses of nonbusiness profitmaking activities. See United States v. Gilmore, 372 U. S. 39, 44-45 (1963). Heller v. Commissioner, n. 1, supra, may have been based in part on the premise that the predecessor of § 212 permitted the deduction of some expenses that would have been capitalized if incurred in the conduct of a trade or business.
See Hochschild v. Commissioner, 161 F. 2d 817, 820 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1947) (Frank, J., dissenting).
A large number of these decisions are collected in 4A Mertens, supra, §§ 25.24, 25A.16.
Taxpayers argue at length that under Iowa law title to the stock passed before the appraisal proceeding. The Court of Appeals viewed Iowa law differently, and it seems to us that it was correct in so doing. See United States v. Hilton Hotels Corp., post, at 583-584, n. 2. But resolution of this question of state law makes no difference and is not necessary for decision of the case, since, as we hold in Hilton Hotels, the sequence in which title passes and price is determined is irrelevant for purposes of the tax question involved here.
See, e. g., Petschek v. United States, 335 F. 2d 734 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1964), for a borderline case of whether legal expenses were incurred in the disposition of property.
Taxpayers argue that “purchase” analysis cannot properly be applied to the appraisal situation, because the transaction is an involuntary one from their point of view — an argument relied upon by the District Court in the Smith Hotel Enterprises case, supra, n. 1. In the first place, the transaction is in a sense voluntary, since the majority holders know that under state law they will have to buy out any dissenters. More fundamentally, however, wherever a capital asset is transferred to a new owner in exchange for value either agreed upon or determined by law to be a fair quid pro quo, the payment itself is a capital expenditure, and there is no reason why the costs of determining the amount of that payment should be considered capital in the case of the negotiated price and yet considered deductible in the case of the price fixed by law. See Isaac G. Johnson & Co. v. United States, 149 F. 2d 851 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1945) (expenses of litigating amount of fair compensation in condemnation proceeding held capital expenditures).
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 Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Appellant’s employer discharged her when she refused to work certain scheduled hours because of sincerely held religious convictions adopted after beginning employment. The question to be decided is whether Florida’s denial of unemployment compensation benefits to appellant violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the Constitution, as applied to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment.
h-l
Lawton and Company (Lawton), a Florida jeweler, hired appellant Paula Hobbie in October 1981. She was employed by Lawton for 214 years, first as a trainee and then as assistant manager of a retail jewelry store. In April 1984, Hobbie informed her immediate supervisor that she was to be baptized into the Seventh-day Adventist Church and that, for religious reasons, she would no longer be able to work on her Sabbath, from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. The supervisor devised an arrangement with Hobbie: she agreed to work evenings and Sundays, and he agreed to substitute for her whenever she was scheduled to work on a Friday evening or a Saturday.
This arrangement continued until the general manager of Lawton learned of it in June 1984. At that time, after a meeting with Hobbie and her minister, the general manager informed appellant that she could either work her scheduled shifts or submit her resignation to the company. When Hobbie refused to do either, Lawton discharged her.
On June 4, 1984, appellant filed a claim for unemployment compensation with the Florida Department of Labor and Employment Security. Under Florida law, unemployment compensation benefits are available to persons who become “unemployed through no fault of their own.” Fla. Stat. §443.021 (1985). Lawton contested the payment of benefits on the ground that Hobbie was “disqualified for benefits” because she had been discharged for “misconduct connected with [her] work.” §443.101(l)(a).
A claims examiner for the Bureau of Unemployment Compensation denied Hobbie’s claim for benefits, and she appealed that determination. Following a hearing before a referee, the Unemployment Appeals Commission (Appeals Commission) affirmed the denial of benefits, agreeing that Hobbie’s refusal to work scheduled shifts constituted “misconduct connected with [her] work.” App. 3.
Hobbie challenged the Appeals Commission’s order in the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal. On September 10, 1985, that court summarily affirmed the Appeals Commission. We postponed jurisdiction, 475 U. S. 1117 (1985), and we now reverse.
II
Under our precedents, the Appeals Commission’s disqualification of appellant from receipt of benefits violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment. Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963); Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981). In Sherbert we considered South Carolina’s denial of unemployment compensation benefits to a Sabbatarian who, like Hobbie, refused to work on Saturdays. The Court held that the State’s disqualification of Sherbert
“force[d] her to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, on the one hand, and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work, on the other hand. Governmental imposition of such a choice puts the same kind of burden upon the free exercise of religion as would a fine imposed against [her] for her Saturday worship.” 374 U. S., at 404.
We concluded that the State had imposed a burden upon Sherbert’s free exercise rights that had not been justified by a compelling state interest.
In Thomas, too, the Court held that a State’s denial of unemployment benefits unlawfully burdened an employee’s right to free exercise of religion. Thomas, a Jehovah’s Witness, held religious beliefs that forbade his participation in the production of armaments. He was forced to leave his job when the employer closed his department and transferred him to a division that fabricated turrets for tanks. Indiana then denied Thomas unemployment compensation benefits. The Court found that the employee had been “put to a choice between fidelity to religious belief or cessation of work” and that the coercive impact of the forfeiture of benefits in this situation was undeniable:
“ ‘Not only is it apparent that appellant’s declared ineligibility for benefits derives solely from the practice of . . . religion, but the pressure upon [the employee] to forego that practice is unmistakable.”’ Thomas, supra, at 717 (quoting Sherbert, supra, at 404).
We see no meaningful distinction among the situations of Sherbert, Thomas, and Hobbie. We again affirm, as stated in Thomas:
‘Where the state conditions receipt of an important benefit upon conduct proscribed by a religious faith, or where it denies such a benefit because of conduct mandated by religious belief, thereby putting substantial pressure on an adherent to modify his behavior and to violate his beliefs, a burden upon religion exists. While the compulsion may be indirect, the infringement upon free exercise is nonetheless substantial.” 450 U. S., at 717-718 (emphasis added).
Both Sherbert and Thomas held that such infringements must be subjected to strict scrutiny and could be justified only by proof by the State of a compelling interest. The Appeals Commission does not seriously contend that its denial of benefits can withstand strict scrutiny; rather it urges that we hold that its justification should be determined under the less rigorous standard articulated in Chief Justice Burger’s opinion in Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693, 707-708 (1986): “[T]he Government meets its burden when it demonstrates that a challenged requirement for governmental benefits, neutral and uniform in its application, is a reasonable means of promoting a legitimate public interest.” Five Justices expressly rejected this argument in Roy. See id., at 715-716 (Blackmun, J., concurring in part); id., at 728 (O’Connor, J., joined by Brennan and Marshall, JJ., concurring in part and dissenting in part); id., at 733 (White, J., dissenting). We reject the argument again today. As Justice O’Connor pointed out in Roy, “[s]uch a test has no basis in precedent and relegates a serious First Amendment value to the barest level of minimal scrutiny that the Equal Protection Clause already provides.” Id., at 727. See also Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 215 (1972) (“[O]nly those interests of the highest order and those not otherwise served can overbalance legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion”).
The Appeals Commission also suggests two grounds upon which we might distinguish Sherbert and Thomas from the present case. First, the Appeals Commission points out that in Sherbert the employee was deemed completely ineligible for benefits under South Carolina’s unemployment insurance scheme because she would not accept work that conflicted with her Sabbath. The Appeals Commission contends that, under Florida law, Hobbie faces only a limited disqualification from receipt of benefits, and that once this fixed term has been served, she will again “be on an equal footing with all other workers, provided she avoids employment that conflicts with her religious beliefs.” Brief for Appellee Appeals Commission 12. The Appeals Commission argues that such a disqualification provision is less coercive than the ineligibility determination in Sherbert, and that the burden it imposes on free exercise is therefore permissible.
This distinction is without substance. The immediate effects of ineligibility and disqualification are identical, and the disqualification penalty is substantial. Moreover, Sherbert was given controlling weight in Thomas, which involved a disqualification provision similar in all relevant respects to the statutory section implicated here. See Thomas, 450 U. S., at 709-710, n. 1.
The Appeals Commission also attempts to distinguish this case by arguing that, unlike the employees in Sherbert and Thomas, Hobbie was the “agent of change” and is therefore responsible for the consequences of the conflict between her job and her religious beliefs. In Sherbert and Thomas, the employees held their respective religious beliefs at the time of hire; subsequent changes in the conditions of employment made by the employer caused the conflict between work and belief. In this case, Hobbie’s beliefs changed during the course of her employment, creating a conflict between job and faith that had not previously existed. The Appeals Commission contends that “it is . . . unfair for an employee to adopt religious beliefs that conflict with existing employment and expect to continue the employment without compromising those beliefs” and that this “intentional disregard of the employer’s interests . . . constitutes misconduct.” Brief for Appellee Appeals Commission 20-21.
In effect, the Appeals Commission asks us to single out the religious convert for different, less favorable treatment than that given an individual whose adherence to his or her faith precedes employment. We decline to do so. The First Amendment protects the free exercise rights of employees who adopt religious beliefs or convert from one faith to another after they are hired. The timing of Hobbie’s conversion is immaterial to our determination that her free exercise rights have been burdened; the salient inquiry under the Free Exercise Clause is the burden involved. In Sherbert, Thomas, and the present case, the employee was forced to choose between fidelity to religious belief and continued employment; the forfeiture of unemployment benefits for choosing the former over the latter brings unlawful coercion to bear on the employee’s choice.
Finally, we reject the Appeals Commission’s argument that the awarding of benefits to Hobbie would violate the Establishment Clause. This Court has long recognized that the government may (and sometimes must) accommodate religious practices and that it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause. See, e. g., Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205 (1972) (judicial exemption of Amish children from compulsory attendance at high school); Walz v. Tax Comm’n, 397 U. S. 664 (1970) (tax exemption for churches). As in Sherbert, the accommodation at issue here does not entangle the State in an unlawful fostering of religion:
“In holding as we do, plainly we are not fostering the ‘establishment’ of the Seventh-day Adventist religion in South Carolina, for the extension of unemployment benefits to Sabbatarians in common with Sunday worshipers reflects nothing more than the governmental obligation of neutrality in the face of religious differences, and does not represent the involvement of religious with secular institutions which it is the object of the Establishment Clause to forestall.” 374 U. S., at 409.
1 — 1 1 — \ HH
We conclude that Florida s refusal to award unemployment compensation benefits to appellant violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. Here, as in Sherbert and Thomas, the State may not force an employee “to choose between following the precepts of her religion and forfeiting benefits, . . . and abandoning one of the precepts of her religion in order to accept work.” Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 404. The judgment of the Florida Fifth District Court of Appeal is therefore
Reversed.
An employer’s duty to accommodate the religious beliefs of employees is governed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. Hobbie has not sought relief pursuant to Title VII in this action.
It is undisputed that appellant’s conversion was bona fide and that her religious belief is sincerely held. See Record 70, 100.
The Florida statute defines “misconduct” as follows:
“ ‘Misconduct’ includes, but is not limited to, the following, which shall not be construed in pari materia with each other:
“(a) Conduct evincing such willful or wanton disregard of an employer’s interests as is found in deliberate violation or disregard of standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect of his employee; or
“(b) Carelessness or negligence of such a degree or recurrence as to manifest culpability, wrongful intent, or evil design or to show an intentional and substantial disregard of the employer’s interests or of the employee’s duties and obligations to his employer.” Fla. Stat. §443.036(24) (1985).
The Fifth District Court of Appeal issued an order stating: “PER CU-RIAM. AFFIRMED.” App. 6. See 475 So. 2d 711 (1985). Under Florida law, a per curiam affirmance issued without opinion cannot be appealed to the State Supreme Court. See Fla. Rule App. Proc. 9.030(a)(2)(A)(i-iv). Hobbie therefore sought review directly in this Court.
The parties initially disagreed about whether an appeal lay under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2). The Appeals Commission maintained that the decision of the Fifth District Court of Appeal did not draw into question the constitutionality of the state statute and, therefore, that an appeal did not lie. See Motion to Dismiss or Affirm 7-11. However, the Appeals Commission now concedes that the appeal is proper. Brief for Appellee Appeals Commission 4-6. See R. Stem, E. Gressman, & S. Shapiro, Supreme Court Practice 112 (6th ed. 1986) (appeal lies under 28 U. S. C. § 1257(2) even if the state court has not been explicit in its rejection of the constitutional claim raised); cf. Lawrence v. State Tax Comm’n, 286 U. S. 276, 282-283 (1932).
See Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U. S. 296 (1940); Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U. S. 203 (1948).
In Bowen v. Roy, 476 U. S. 693 (1986), the Court considered a free exercise challenge to the statutory requirement that a Social Security number be supplied by any applicant seeking certain welfare benefits. In his opinion Chief Justice Burger expressly reaffirmed Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U. S. 398 (1963), and Thomas v. Review Bd. of Indiana Employment Security Div., 450 U. S. 707 (1981), and distinguished those cases from Roy. He observed that the statutes at issue in Sherbert and Thomas provided:
“[A] person was not eligible for unemployment compensation benefits if, ‘without good cause,’ he had quit work or refused available work. The ‘good cause’ standard created a mechanism for individualized exemptions. If a state creates such a mechanism, its refusal to extend an exemption to an instance of religious hardship suggests a discriminatory intent. Thus, as was urged in Thomas, to consider a religiously motivated resignation to be ‘without good cause’ tends to exhibit hostility, not neutrality, towards religion. ... In those cases, therefore, it was appropriate to require the State to demonstrate a compelling reason for denying the requested exemption.” 476 U. S., at 708 (citations omitted).
Thus, even if the Court had accepted the reasoning of the Chief Justice’s opinion in Roy — which it did not — we would apply strict scrutiny in this ease. Although the purpose of the statute is to provide benefits to those persons who become “unemployed through no fault of their own,” Fla. Stat. §443.021 (1985), Florida nonetheless views a religiously motivated choice which leads to dismissal as “misconduct connected with . . . work.” §443.101. This scheme — which labels and penalizes behavior dictated by religious belief as intentional misconduct — exhibits greater hostility toward religion than one deeming such resignations to be “without good cause.”
When an employee voluntarily leaves a position without good cause attributable to the employer, he or she is disqualified from receipt of benefits for the week of the departure and until he or she becomes reemployed and earns 17 times the weekly benefit amount. §443.101(l)(a)(l). The penalty for discharge due to misconduct connected with work — the relevant provision here — is identical to that for voluntary departure, except that an additional penalty of a specified number of weeks may be added depending upon the severity of the employee’s offense. § 443.101(l)(a)(2).
Cf. United States v. Ballard, 322 U. S. 78, 87 (1944) (In applying the Free Exercise Clause, courts may not inquire into the truth, validity, or reasonableness of a claimant’s religious beliefs); Callahan v. Woods, 658 F. 2d 679, 687 (CA9 1981) (“If judicial inquiry into the truth of one’s religious beliefs would violate the free exercise clause, an inquiry into one’s reasons for adopting those beliefs is similarly intrusive. So long as one’s faith is religiously based at the time it is asserted, it should not matter, for constitutional purposes, whether that faith derived from revelation, study, upbringing, gradual evolution, or some source that appears entirely incomprehensible”) (citation omitted).
In the unemployment benefits context, the majorities and those dissenting have concluded that, were a State voluntarily to provide benefits to individuals in Hobbie’s situation, such an accommodation would not violate the Establishment Clause. See Thomas, 450 U. S., at 719-720 (quoting Sherbert, 374 U. S., at 409); 450 U. S., at 723 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Sherbert, supra, at 422-423 (Harlan, J., dissenting).
The Appeals Commission contends that this Court’s recent decision in Estate of Thornton v. Caldor, Inc., 472 U. S. 703 (1985), reveals that the accommodation sought by Hobbie would constitute an unlawful establishment of religion. In Thornton, we held that a Connecticut statute that provided employees with an absolute right not to work on their Sabbath violated the Establishment Clause. The Court determined that the State’s “unyielding weighting in favor of Sabbath observers over all other interests . . . ha[d] a primary effect that impermissibly advance[d] a particular religious practice,” id., at 710, and placed an unacceptable burden on employers and co-workers because it provided no exceptions for special circumstances regardless of the hardship resulting from the mandatory accommodation.
In contrast, Florida’s provision of unemployment benefits to religious observers does not single out a particular class of such persons for favorable treatment and thereby have the effect of implicitly endorsing a particular religious belief. Rather, the provision of unemployment benefits generally available within the State to religious observers who must leave their employment due to an irreconcilable conflict between the demands of work and conscience neutrally accommodates religious beliefs and practices, without endorsement.
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 Thomas
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971), we implied a cause of action for damages against federal agents who allegedly violated the Constitution. Today we are asked to imply a similar cause of action directly against an agency of the Federal Government. Because the logic of Bivens itself does not support such an extension, we decline to take this step.
I
On April 13, 1982, the California Savings and Loan Commissioner seized Fidelity Savings and Loan Association (Fidelity), a California-chartered thrift institution, and appointed the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC) to serve as Fidelity’s receiver under state law. That same day, the Federal Home Loan Bank Board appointed FSLIC to serve as Fidelity’s receiver under federal law. In its capacity as receiver, FSLIC had broad authority to “take such action as may be necessary to put [the thrift] in a sound solvent condition.” 48 Stat. 1259, as amended, 12 U. S. C. § 1729(b)(l)(A)(ii) (repealed 1989). Pursuant to its general policy of terminating the employment of a failed thrift’s senior management, FSLIC, through its special representative Robert L. Pattullo, terminated respondent John H. Meyer, a senior Fidelity officer.
Approximately one year later, Meyer filed this lawsuit against a number of defendants, including FSLIC and Pattullo, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. At the time of trial, Meyer’s sole claim against FSLIC and Pattullo was that his summary discharge deprived him of a property right (his right to continued employment under California law) without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment. In making this claim, Meyer relied upon Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, supra, which implied a cause of action for damages against federal agents who allegedly violated the Fourth Amendment. The jury returned a $130,000 verdict against FSLIC, but found in favor of Pattullo on qualified immunity grounds.
Petitioner Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), FSLIC’s statutory successor, appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which affirmed. 944 F. 2d 562 (1991). First, the Court of Appeals determined that the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA or Act), 28 U. S. C. §§ 1346(b), 2671-2680, did not provide Meyer’s exclusive remedy. 944 F. 2d, at 568-572. Although the FTCA remedy is “exclusive” for all “claims which are cognizable under section 1346(b),” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a), the Court of Appeals decided that Meyer’s claim was not cognizable under § 1346(b). 944 F. 2d, at 567, 572. The court then concluded that the “sue- and-be-sued” clause contained in FSLIC’s organic statute, 12 U. S. C. § 1725(c)(4) (repealed 1989), constituted a waiver of sovereign immunity for Meyer’s claim and entitled him to maintain an action against the agency. 944 F. 2d, at 566, 572. Finally, on the merits, the court affirmed the jury’s conclusion that Meyer had been deprived of due process when he was summarily discharged without notice and a hearing. Id., at 572-575. We granted certiorari to consider the validity of the damages award against FSLIC. 507 U. S. 983 (1993).
II
Absent a waiver, sovereign immunity shields the Federal Government and its agencies from suit. Loeffler v. Frank, 486 U. S. 549, 554 (1988); Federal Housing Administration v. Burr, 309 U. S. 242, 244 (1940). Sovereign immunity is jurisdictional in nature. Indeed, the “terms of [the United States’] consent to be sued in any court define that court’s jurisdiction to entertain the suit.” United States v. Sherwood, 312 U. S. 584, 586 (1941). See also United States v. Mitchell, 463 U. S. 206, 212 (1983) (“It is axiomatic that the United States may not be sued without its consent and that the existence of consent is a prerequisite for jurisdiction”). Therefore, we must first decide whether FSLIC’s immunity has been waived.
A
When Congress created FSLIC in 1934, it empowered the agency “[t]o sue and be sued, complain and defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction.” 12 U. S. C. § 1725(c)(4) (repealed 1989). By permitting FSLIC to sue and be sued, Congress effected a “broad” waiver of FSLIC’s immunity from suit. United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S. 30, 34 (1992). In 1946, Congress passed the FTCA, which waived the sovereign immunity of the United States for certain torts committed by federal employees. 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b). In order to “place torts of ‘suable’ agencies . . . upon precisely the same footing as torts of ‘nonsuable’ agencies,” Loeffler, supra, at 562 (internal quotation marks omitted), Congress, through the FTCA, limited the scope of sue- and-be-sued waivers such as that contained in FSLIC’s organic statute. The FTCA limitation provides:
“The authority of any federal agency to sue and be sued in its own name shall not be construed to authorize suits against such federal agency on claims which are cognizable under section 1346(b) of this title, and the remedies provided by this title in such eases shall be exclusive.” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a).
Thus, if a suit is “cognizable” under § 1346(b) of the FTCA, the FTCA remedy is “exclusive” and the federal agency cannot be sued “in its own name,” despite the existence of a sue-and-be-sued clause.
The first question, then, is whether Meyer’s claim is “cognizable” under § 1346(b). The term “cognizable” is not defined in the Act. In the absence of such a definition, we construe a statutory term in accordance with its ordinary or natural meaning. Smith v. United States, 508 U. S. 223, 228 (1993). Cognizable ordinarily means “[c]apable of being tried or examined before a designated tribunal; within [the] jurisdiction of [a] court or power given to [a] court to adjudicate [a] controversy.” Black’s Law Dictionary 259 (6th ed. 1990). Under this definition, the inquiry focuses on the jurisdictional grant provided by § 1346(b).
Section 1346(b) grants the federal district courts jurisdiction over a certain category of claims for which the United States has waived its sovereign immunity and “rendered]” itself liable. Richards v. United States, 369 U. S. 1, 6 (1962). This category includes claims that are:
“[1] against the United States, [2] for money damages, ... [3] for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death [4] caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government [5] while acting within the scope of his office or employment, [6] 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 or omission occurred.” 28 U. S. C. § 1346(b).
A claim comes within this jurisdictional grant — and thus is “cognizable” under § 1346(b) — if it is actionable under § 1346(b). And a claim is actionable under § 1346(b) if it alleges the six elements outlined above. See Loeffler, supra, at 562 (§ 2679(a) limits the scope of sue-and-be-sued waivers “in the context of suits for which [Congress] provided a cause of action under the FTCA” (emphasis added)).
Applying these principles to this case, we conclude that Meyer’s constitutional tort claim is not “cognizable” under § 1346(b) because it is not actionable under § 1346(b) — that is, § 1346(b) does not provide a cause of action for such a claim. As noted above, to be actionable under § 1346(b), a claim must allege, inter alia, that the United States “would be liable to the claimant” as “a private person” “in accordance with the law of the place where the act or omission occurred.” A constitutional tort claim such as Meyer’s could not contain such an allegation. Indeed, we have consistently held that § 1346(b)’s reference to the “law of the place” means law of the State — the source of substantive liability under the FTCA. See, e. g., Miree v. DeKalb County, 433 U. S. 25, 29, n. 4 (1977); United States v. Muniz, 374 U. S. 150, 153 (1963); Richards, supra, at 6-7, 11; Rayonier Inc. v. United States, 352 U. S. 315, 318 (1957). By definition, federal law, not state law, provides the source of liability for a claim alleging the deprivation of a federal constitutional right. To use the terminology of Richards, the United States simply has not rendered itself liable under § 1346(b) for constitutional tort claims. Thus, because Meyer’s constitutional tort claim is not cognizable under § 1346(b), the FTCA does not constitute his “exclusive” remedy. His claim was therefore properly brought against FSLIC “in its own name.” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a).
FDIC argues that by exposing a sue-and-be-sued agency to constitutional tort claims, our interpretation of “cognizability” runs afoul of Congress’ understanding that § 2679(a) would place the torts of “suable” and “nonsuable” agencies on the same footing. See Loeffler, 486 U. S., at 562. FDIC would deem all claims “sounding in tort” — including constitutional torts — “cognizable” under § 1346(b). Under FDIC’s reading of the statute, only the portion of § 1346(b) that describes a “tort” — i. e., “claims against the United States, for money damages,... for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee of the Government” — would govern cognizability. The remaining portion of § 1346(b) would simply describe a “limitation” on the waiver of sovereign immunity.
We reject this reading of the statute. As we have already noted, § 1346(b) describes the scope of jurisdiction by reference to claims for which the United States has waived its immunity and rendered itself liable. FDIC seeks to uncouple the scope of jurisdiction under § 1346(b) from the scope of the waiver of sovereign immunity under § 1346(b). Under its interpretation, the jurisdictional grant would be broad (covering all claims sounding in tort), but the waiver of sovereign immunity would be narrow (covering only those claims for which a private person would be held liable under state law). There simply is no basis in the statutory language for the parsing FDIC suggests. Section 2679(a)’s reference to claims “cognizable” under § 1346(b) means cognizable under the whole of § 1346(b), not simply a portion of it.
B
Because Meyer’s claim is not cognizable under § 1346(b), we must determine whether FSLIC’s sue-and-be-sued clause waives sovereign, immunity for the claim. FDIC argues that the scope of the sue-and-be-sued waiver should be limited to cases in which FSLIC would be subjected to liability as a private entity. A constitutional tort claim such as Meyer’s, FDIC argues, would fall outside the sue-and-be-sued waiver because the Constitution generally does not restrict the conduct of private entities. In essence, FDIC asks us to engraft a portion of the sixth element of § 1346(b) — liability “under circumstances where the United States, if a private person, would be liable to the claimant” — onto the sue-and-be-sued clause.
On its face, the sue-and-be-sued clause contains no such limitation. To the contrary, its terms are simple and broad: FSLIC “shall have power . . . [t]o sue and be sued, complain and defend, in any court of competent jurisdiction in the United States.” 12 U. S. C. § 1725(c)(4) (repealed 1989). In the past, we have recognized that such sue-and-be-sued waivers are to be “liberally construed,” Federal Housing Administration v. Burr, 309 U. S., at 245, notwithstanding the general rule that waivers of sovereign immunity are to be read narrowly in favor of the sovereign. See United States v. Nordic Village, Inc., 503 U. S., at 34. Burr makes it clear that sue-and-be-sued clauses cannot be limited by implication unless there has been a
“clea[r] showing] that certain types of suits are not consistent with the statutory or constitutional scheme, that an implied restriction of the general authority is necessary to avoid grave interference with the performance of a governmental function, or that for other reasons it was plainly the purpose of Congress to use the ‘sue and be sued’ clause in a narrow sense.” 309 U. S., at 245 (footnote omitted).
See also Loeffler, 486 U. S., at 561; Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Postal Service, 467 U. S. 512, 517-518 (1984). Absent such a showing, agencies “authorized to ‘sue and be sued’ are presumed to have fully waived immunity.” International Primate Protection League v. Administrators of Tulane Ed. Fund, 500 U. S. 72, 86, n. 8 (1991) (describing the holding in Burr).
FDIC does not attempt to make the “clear” showing of congressional purpose necessary to overcome the presumption that immunity has been waived. Instead, it bases its argument solely on language in our cases suggesting that federal agencies should bear the burdens of suit borne by private entities. Typical of these cases is Burr, which stated that “when Congress launche[s] a governmental agency into the commercial world and endow[s] it with authority to ‘sue or be sued,’ that agency is not less amenable to judicial process than a private enterprise under like circumstances would be.” 309 U. S., at 245 (emphasis added). See also Franchise Tax Bd., supra, at 520 (“[U]nder Burr not only must we liberally construe the sue-and-be-sued clause, but also we must presume that the [Postal] Service’s liability is the same as that of any other business”) (emphasis added); Loeffler, supra, at 557 (through a sue-and-be-sued clause, “Congress waived [the Postal Service’s] immunity from interest awards, authorizing recovery of interest from the Postal Service to the extent that interest is recoverable against a private party as a norma! incident of suit” (emphasis added)).
When read in context, however, it is clear that Burr, Franchise Tax Board, and Loeffler do not support the limitation FDIC proposes. In these cases, the claimants sought to subject the agencies to a particular suit or incident of suit to which private businesses are amenable as a matter of course. In Burr, for example, the claimant, who had obtained a judgment against an employee of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), served the FHA with a writ to garnish the employee’s wages. 309 U. S., at 243, 248, n. 11. Similarly, in Franchise Tax Board, the claimant directed the United States Postal Service to withhold amounts of delinquent state income taxes from the wages of four Postal Service employees. 467 U. S., at 513. And in Loeffier, the claimant, who was discharged from his employment as a rural letter carrier, sought prejudgment interest as an incident of his successful suit against the Postal Service under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e et seq. 486 U. S., at 551-552.
Because the claimant in each of these cases was seeking to hold the agency liable just like “any other business,” Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 520, it was only natural for the Court to look to the liability of private businesses for guidance. It stood to reason that the agency could not escape the liability a private enterprise would face in similar circumstances. Here, by contrast, Meyer does not seek to hold FSLIC liable just like any other business. Indeed, he seeks to impose on FSLIC a form of tort liability — tort liability arising under the Constitution — that generally does not apply to private entities. Burr, Franchise Tax Board, and Loeffier simply do not speak to the issue of sovereign immunity in the context of such a constitutional tort claim.
Moreover, nothing in these decisions suggests that the liability of a private enterprise should serve as the outer boundary of the sue-and-be-sued waiver. Rather, those cases “merely involve[d] a determination of whether or not [the particular suit or incident of suit] [came] within the scope of” the sue-and-be-sued waiver. Burr, supra, at 244. When we determined that the particular suit or incident of suit fell within the sue-and-be-sued waiver, we looked to the liability of a private enterprise as a floor below which the agency’s liability could not fall. In the present case, by contrast, FDIC argues that a sue-and-be-sued agency’s liability should never be greater than that of a private entity; that is, it attempts to use the liability of a private entity as a ceiling. Again, nothing in Burr, Franchise Tax Board, or Loeffler supports such a result.
Finally, we hesitate to engraft language from § 1346(b) onto the sue-and-be-sued clause when Congress, in § 2679(a), expressly set out how the former provision would limit the latter. As provided in § 2679(a), § 1346(b) limits sue-and-be-sued waivers for claims that are “cognizable” under § 1346(b). Thus, § 2679(a) contemplates that a sue-and-be-sued waiver could encompass claims not cognizable under § 1346(b) and render an agency subject to suit unconstrained by the express limitations of the FTC A. FDIC’s construction — taken to its logical conclusion — would not permit this result because it would render coextensive the scope of the waivers contained in § 1346(b) and sue-and-be-sued clauses generally. Had Congress wished to achieve that outcome, it surely would not have employed the language it did in § 2679(a). See Connecticut Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U. S. 249, 253-254 (1992) (“[C]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there”). Because “[n]o showing has been made to overcome [the] presumption” that the sue-and-be-sued clause “fully waived” FSLIC’s immunity in this instance, Franchise Tax Board, supra, at 520; International Primate Protection League, 500 U. S., at 86, n. 8, we hold that FSLIC’s sue-and-be-sued clause waives the agency’s sovereign immunity for Meyer’s constitutional tort claim.
Ill
Although we have determined that Meyer’s claim falls within the sue-and-be-sued waiver, our inquiry does not end at this point. Here we part ways with the Ninth Circuit, which determined that Meyer had a cause of action for damages against FSLIC because there had been a waiver of sovereign immunity. 944 F. 2d, at 572. The Ninth Circuit’s reasoning conflates two “analytically distinct” inquiries. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U. S., at 218. The first inquiry is whether there has been a waiver of sovereign immunity. If there has been such a waiver, as in this case, the second inquiry comes into play — that is, whether the source of substantive law upon which the claimant relies provides an avenue for relief. Id., at 216-217. It is to this second inquiry that we now turn.
Meyer bases his due process claim on our decision in Bivens, which held that an individual injured by a federal agent’s alleged violation of the Fourth Amendment may bring an action for damages against the agent. 403 U. S., at 397. In our most recent decisions, we have “responded cautiously to suggestions that Bivens remedies be extended into new contexts.” Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U. S. 412, 421 (1988). In this case, Meyer seeks a significant extension of Bivens: He asks us to expand the category of defendants against whom Bivens-tyige actions may be brought to include not only federal agents, but federal agencies as well.
We know of no Court of Appeals decision, other than the Ninth Circuit’s below, that has implied a Bivens-type cause of action directly against a federal agency. Meyer recognizes the absence of authority supporting his position, but argues that the “logic” of Bivens would support such a remedy. We disagree. In Bivens, the petitioner sued the agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics who allegedly violated his rights, not the Bureau itself. 403 U. S., at 389-390. Here, Meyer brought precisely the claim that the logic of Bivens supports — a Bivens claim for damages against Pattullo, the FSLIC employee who terminated him.
An additional problem with Meyer’s “logic” argument is the fact that we implied a cause of action against federal officials in Bivens in part because a direct action against the Government was not available. Id., at 410 (Harlan, J., concurring in judgment). In essence, Meyer asks us to imply a damages action based on a decision that presumed the absence of that very action.
Meyer’s real complaint is that Pattullo, like many Bivens defendants, invoked the protection of qualified immunity. But Bivens clearly contemplated that official immunity would be raised. Id., at 397 (noting that “the District Court [had] ruled that... respondents were immune from liability by virtue of their official position”). More importantly, Meyer’s proposed “solution” — essentially the circumvention of qualified immunity — would mean the evisceration of the Bivens remedy, rather than its extension. It must be remembered that the purpose of Bivens is to deter the officer. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U. S. 14, 21 (1980) (“Because the Bivens remedy is recoverable against individuals, it is a more effective deterrent than the FTCA remedy against the United States”). If we were to imply a damages action directly against federal agencies, thereby permitting claimants to bypass qualified immunity, there would be no reason for aggrieved parties to bring damages actions against individual officers. Under Meyer’s regime, the deterrent effects of the Bivens remedy would be lost.
Finally, a damages remedy against federal agencies would be inappropriate even if such a remedy were consistent with Bivens. Here, unlike in Bivens, there are “special factors counselling hesitation” in the creation of a damages remedy. Bivens, 403 U. S., at 396. If we were to recognize a direct action for damages against federal agencies, we would be creating a potentially enormous financial burden for the Federal Government. Meyer disputes this reasoning and argues that the Federal Government already expends significant resources indemnifying its employees who are sued under Bivens. Meyer’s argument implicitly suggests that the funds used for indemnification could be shifted to cover the direct liability of federal agencies. That may or may not be true, but decisions involving “ ‘federal fiscal policy’ ” are not ours to make. Ibid, (quoting United States v. Standard Oil Co. of Cal., 332 U. S. 301, 311 (1947)). We leave it to Congress to weigh the implications of such a significant expansion of Government liability.
IV
An extension of Bivens to agencies of the Federal Government is not supported by the logic of Bivens itself. We therefore hold that Meyer had no Bivens cause of action for damages against FSLIC. Accordingly, the judgment below is reversed.
So ordered.
See 12 U. S. C. § 1821(d) (1988 ed., Supp. IV). After FSLIC was abolished by the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA), Pub. L. 101-73, 103 Stat. 183, FDIC was substituted for FSLIC in this suit.
Meyer filed a cross-appeal challenging the jury’s finding that Pattullo was protected by qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit affirmed this finding. 944 F. 2d, at 575-577. We declined to review this aspect of the case. Meyer v. Pattullo, 507 U. S. 984 (1993).
The statute governing FDIC contains a nearly identical sue-and-be-sued clause. See 12 U. S. C. § 1819(a) Fourth (1988 ed., Supp. IV) (FDIC “shall have power . . . [t]o sue and be sued, and complain and defend, in any court of law or equity, State or Federal”).
Section 1.346(b) provides:
“[T]he district courts . . . shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States, for money damages,... for injury or loss of property, or personal injury or death caused by the negligent or wrongful act or omission 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 or omission occurred.”
Because we were not asked to define “eognizability” in Loeffler, our language was a bit imprecise. The question is not whether a claim is cognizable under the FTCA generally, as Loeffler suggests, but rather whether it is “cognizable under section 1846(b).” 28 U. S. C. § 2679(a) (emphasis added).
FDIC relies upon United States v. Smith, 499 U. S. 160 (1991), for its interpretation of the term “cognizable.” In Smith, the “foreign country” exception, 28 U. S. C. § 2680(k), barred plaintiffs’ recovery against the Federal Government for injuries allegedly caused by the negligence of a Government employee working abroad. 499 U. S., at 165. We held that the FTCA provided plaintiffs’ “exclusive remedy,” even though the FTCA itself did not provide a means of recovery. Id., at 166. Smith did not involve § 2679(a), the provision at issue in this case, but rather § 2679(b)(1), which provides that the FTCA remedy is “exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding for money damages . . . against the employee whose, act or omission gave rise to the claim.” The Court-had no occasion in Smith to address the meaning of the term “cognizable” because § 2679(b)(1) does not contain the term. We therefore find Smith unhelpful in this regard.
Nothing in our decision in Hubsch v. United States, 338 U. S. 440 (1949) (per curiam), is to the contrary. In Hubsch, the parties submitted to this Court for approval a settlement agreement under 28 U. S. C. § 2677 (1946 ed., Supp. IV), which at the time provided that the Attorney General, “with the approval of the court,” could “settle any claim cognizable under section 1346(b).” 338 U. S., at 440 (emphasis added). We construed § 2677 “as imposing on the District Court the authority and responsibility for passing on proposed compromises,” notwithstanding the fact that it had found that the claimant failed to prove the Government employee acted within the scope of his authority (the fifth element of § 1346(b) mentioned above). Id., at 441. See also Hubsch v. United States, 174 F. 2d 7 (CA5 1949). Our holding in the case recognized that a claim does not lose its cognizability simply because there has been a failure of proof on an element of the claim. In this case there has been no failure of proof; rather, Meyer’s claim does not fall within the terms of § 1346(b) in the first instance.
In its brief discussion of the sue-and-be-sued clause, FDIC does not mention — let alone attempt to overcome — the presumption of waiver. See Brief for Petitioner 12-13.
For example, a Bivens action alleging a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment may be appropriate in some contexts, but not in others. Compare Davis v. Passman, 442 U. S. 228, 248-249 (1979) (implying Bivens action under the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause in the context of alleged gender discrimination in employment), with Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U. S., at 429 (refusing to imply Bivens action for alleged due process violations in the denial of Social Security disability benefits on the ground that a damages remedy was not included in the elaborate remedial scheme devised by Congress).
Although not critical to our analysis, we note that in addition to the Bivens claim against Pattullo, Meyer initially brought a contractual claim against FSLIC, which he later dropped. Meyer also could have filed a claim with FSLIC as receiver for the value of any contractual rights he believed were violated. See 12 U. S. C. § 1729(d) (repealed 1989); 12 CFR §§569a.6, 569a.7 (1982); Coit Independence Joint Venture v. FSLIC, 489 U. S. 561, 580-581 (1989).
In this regard, we note that Congress has considered several proposals that would have created a Bivens-type remedy directly against the Federal Government. See, e. g., H. R. 440, 99th Cong., 1st Sess. (1985); H. R. 595,98th Cong., 1st Sess. (1983); S. 1775,97th Cong., 1st Sess. (1981); H. R. 2659, 96th Cong., 1st Sess. (1979).
Because we find that Meyer had no Bivens action against FSLIC, we do not reach the merits of his due process claim.
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.
During the argument of this case, counsel for respondents stated that after the decree below was entered the Atlanta Board of Education adopted additional provisions authorizing free transfers with certain limitations in the city’s high schools. At our invitation both parties filed supplemental memoranda dealing with this aspect of the case. It appears therefrom that since the argument the Atlanta Board of Education on April 8, 1964, adopted and promulgated a new formal resolution stating the present policy of the Board and the factors it will consider in making initial assignments of pupils and in permitting transfers for the school year 1964-1965. Petitioners deny that this resolution meets the constitutional standards and assert that with respect to students in the elementary schools the plan will not achieve desegregation until sometime in the 1970’s.
In light of the developments at and since the argument, we deem it appropriate that the nature and effect of the Board’s resolution of April 8, 1964, be appraised by the District Court in a proper evidentiary hearing. To this end we vacate the judgment and remand the cause to the District Court for further proceedings.
Although Atlanta’s commendable effort to effect desegregation is recognized, the District Court on remand must, of course, test the entire Atlanta plan by the considerations discussed in Watson v. City of Memphis, 373 U. S. 526, 529; Goss v. Board of Education, 373 U. S. 683; and Griffin v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, ante, at 218, decided subsequent to the District Court’s approval of the plan. In Goss, supra, at 689, we said:
“[W]e are not unmindful of the deep-rooted problems involved. Indeed, it was consideration for the multifarious local difficulties and ‘variety of obstacles’ which might arise in this transition that led this Court eight years ago to frame its mandate in Brown in such language as ‘good faith compliance at the earliest practicable date’ and ‘all deliberate speed.’ Brown v. Board of Education, 349 U. S., at 300, 301. Now, however, eight years after this decree was rendered and over nine years after the first Brown decision, the context in which we must interpret and apply this language to plans for desegregation has been significantly altered. Compare Watson v. City of Memphis, supra.”
Vacated and remanded.
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 Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner William Lloyd Hill pleaded guilty in the Arkansas trial court to charges of first-degree murder and theft of property. More than two years later he sought federal ha-beas relief on the ground that his court-appointed attorney had failed to advise him that, as a second offender, he was required to serve one-half of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas denied relief without a hearing, and the en banc Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed by an equally divided court. We granted certiorari because of the difference between the result reached in the present case and that reached by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Strader v. Garrison, 611 F. 2d 61 (1979). 470 U. S. 1049 (1985). We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit because we conclude that petitioner failed to allege the kind of prejudice from the allegedly incompetent advice of counsel that would have entitled him to a hearing.
Under Arkansas law, the murder charge to which petitioner pleaded guilty carried a potential sentence of 5 to 50 years or life in prison, along with a fine of up to $15,000. Ark. Stat. Ann. §§41-1502(3), 41-901(l)(a), 41-1101(l)(a) (1977). Petitioner’s court-appointed attorney negotiated a plea agreement pursuant to which the State, in return for petitioner’s plea of guilty to both the murder and theft charges, agreed to recommend that the trial judge impose concurrent prison sentences of 35 years for the murder and 10 years for the theft. Petitioner signed a written “plea statement” indicating that he understood the charges against him and the consequences of pleading guilty, that his plea had not been induced “by any force, threat, or promise” apart from the plea agreement itself, that he realized that the trial judge was not bound by the plea agreement and retained the sole “power of sentence,” and that he had discussed the plea agreement with his attorney and was satisfied with his attorney’s advice. The last two lines of the “plea statement,” just above petitioner’s signature, read: “I am aware of everything in this document. I fully understand what my rights are, and I voluntarily plead guilty because I am guilty as charged.”
Petitioner appeared before the trial judge at the plea hearing, recounted the events that gave rise to the charges against him, affirmed that he had signed and understood the written “plea statement,” reiterated that no “threats or promises” had been made to him other than the plea agreement itself, and entered a plea of guilty to both charges. The trial judge accepted the guilty plea and sentenced petitioner in accordance with the State’s recommendations. The trial judge also granted petitioner credit for the time he had already served in prison, and told petitioner that “[y]ou will be required to serve at least one-third of your time before you are eligible for parole.”
More than two years later petitioner filed a federal habeas corpus petition alleging, inter alia, that his guilty plea was involuntary by reason of ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney had misinformed him as to his parole eligibility date. According to petitioner, his attorney had told him that if he pleaded guilty he would become eligible for parole after serving one-third of his prison sentence. In fact, because petitioner previously had been convicted of a felony in Florida, he was classified under Arkansas law as a “second offender” and was required to serve one-half of his sentence before becoming eligible for parole. Ark. Stat. Ann. §43-2829B(3) (1977). Petitioner asked the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas to reduce his sentence to a term of years that would result in his becoming eligible for parole in conformance with his original expectations.
The District Court denied habeas relief without a hearing. The court noted that neither Arkansas nor federal law required that petitioner be informed of his parole eligibility date prior to pleading guilty, and concluded that, even if petitioner was misled by his attorney’s advice, parole eligibility “is not such a consequence of [petitioner’s] guilty plea that such misinformation renders his plea involuntary.” The court also held that “even if an attorney’s advice concerning such eligibility is not wholly accurate, such advice does not render that attorney’s performance constitutionally inadequate.”
A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed, holding that parole eligibility is a collateral rather than a direct consequence of a guilty plea, of which a defendant need not be informed, and that the District Court did not err in declining to hold a hearing on petitioner’s claims. 731 F. 2d 568, 570-573 (1984). One judge dissented, arguing that a hearing should have been held to determine whether the attorney’s alleged mistake in informing petitioner about “the applicable law” constituted ineffective assistance of counsel and warranted vacating the guilty plea. Id., at 573-574 (Heaney, J., dissenting). On rehearing, the en banc Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the District Court by an equally divided court. 764 F. 2d 1279 (1985).
The longstanding test for determining the validity of a guilty plea is “whether the plea represents a voluntary and intelligent choice among the alternative courses of action open to the defendant.” North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U. S. 25, 31 (1970); see Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U. S. 238, 242 (1969); Machibroda v. United States, 368 U. S. 487, 493 (1962). Here petitioner does not contend that his plea was “involuntary” or “unintelligent” simply because the State through its officials failed to supply him with information about his parole eligibility date. We have never held that the United States Constitution requires the State to furnish a defendant with information about parole eligibility in order for the defendant’s plea of guilty to be voluntary, and indeed such a constitutional requirement would be inconsistent with the current rules of procedure governing the entry of guilty pleas in the federal courts. See Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11(c); Advisory Committee’s Notes on 1974 Amendment to Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 11, 18 U. S. C. App., p. 22 (federal courts generally are not required to inform defendant about parole eligibility before accepting guilty plea). Instead, petitioner relies entirely on the claim that his plea was “involuntary” as a result of ineffective assistance of counsel because his attorney supplied him with information about parole eligibility that was erroneous. Where, as here, a defendant is represented by counsel during the plea process and enters his plea upon the advice of counsel, the voluntariness of the plea depends on whether counsel’s advice “was within the range of competence demanded of attorneys in criminal cases.” McMann v. Richardson, 397 U. S. 759, 771 (1970). As we explained in Tollett v. Henderson, 411 U. S. 258 (1973), a defendant who pleads guilty upon the advice of counsel “may only attack the voluntary and intelligent character of the guilty plea by showing that the advice he received from counsel was not within the standards set forth in McMann. ” Id., at 267.
Our concern in McMann v. Richardson with the quality of counsel’s performance in advising a defendant whether to plead guilty stemmed from the more general principle that all “defendants facing felony charges are entitled to the effective assistance of competent counsel.” 397 U. S., at 771, and n. 14; see Reece v. Georgia, 350 U. S. 85, 90 (1955); Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45 (1932). Two Terms ago, in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), we adopted a two-part standard for evaluating claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. There, citing McMann, we reiterated that “[w]hen a convicted defendant complains of the ineffectiveness of counsel’s assistance, the defendant must show that counsel’s representation fell below an objective standard of reasonableness.” 466 U. S., at 687-688. We also held, however, that “[t]he defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Id., at 694. This additional “prejudice” requirement was based on our conclusion that “[a]n error by counsel, even if professionally unreasonable, does not warrant setting aside the judgment of a criminal proceeding if the error had no effect on the judgment.” Id., at 691.
Although our decision in Strickland v. Washington dealt with a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel in a capital sentencing proceeding, and was premised in part on the similarity between such a proceeding and the usual criminal trial, the same two-part standard seems to us applicable to ineffective-assistance claims arising out of the plea process. Certainly our justifications for imposing the “prejudice” requirement in Strickland v. Washington are also relevant in the context of guilty pleas:
“The government is not responsible for, and hence not able to prevent, attorney errors that will result in reversal of a conviction or sentence. Attorney errors come in an infinite variety and are as likely to be utterly harmless in a particular case as they are to be prejudicial. They cannot be classified according to likelihood of causing prejudice. Nor can they be defined with sufficient precision to inform defense attorneys correctly just what conduct to avoid. Representation is an art, and an act or omission that is unprofessional in one case may be sound or even brilliant in another. Even if a defendant shows that particular errors of counsel were unreasonable, therefore, the defendant must show that they actually had an adverse effect on the defense.” Id., at 693.
In addition, we believe that requiring a showing of “prejudice” from defendants who seek to challenge the validity of their guilty pleas on the ground of ineffective assistance of counsel will serve the fundamental interest in the finality of guilty pleas we identified in United States v. Timmreck, 441 U. S. 780 (1979):
“‘Every inroad on the concept of finality undermines confidence in the integrity of our procedures; and, by increasing the volume of judicial work, inevitably delays and impairs the orderly administration of justice. The impact is greatest when new grounds for setting aside guilty pleas are approved because the vast majority of criminal convictions result from such pleas. Moreover, the concern that unfair procedures may have resulted in the conviction of an innocent defendant is only rarely raised by a petition to set aside a guilty plea.’” Id., at 784 (quoting United States v. Smith, 440 F. 2d 521, 528-529 (CA7 1971) (Stevens, J., dissenting)).
We hold, therefore, that the two-part Strickland v. Washington test applies to challenges to guilty pleas based on ineffective assistance of counsel. In the context of guilty pleas, the first half of the Strickland v. Washington test is nothing more than a restatement of the standard of attorney competence already set forth in Tollett v. Henderson, supra, and McMann v. Richardson, supra. The second, or “prejudice,” requirement, on the other hand, focuses on whether counsel’s constitutionally ineffective performance affected the outcome of the plea process. In other words, in order to satisfy the “prejudice” requirement, the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.
In many guilty plea cases, the “prejudice” inquiry will closely resemble the inquiry engaged in by courts reviewing ineffective-assistance challenges to convictions obtained through a trial. For example, where the alleged error of counsel is a failure to investigate or discover potentially exculpatory evidence, the determination whether the error “prejudiced” the defendant by causing him to plead guilty rather than go to trial will depend on the likelihood that discovery of the evidence would have led counsel to change his recommendation as to the plea. This assessment, in turn, will depend in large part on a prediction whether the evidence likely would have changed the outcome of a trial. Similarly, where the alleged error of counsel is a failure to advise the defendant of a potential affirmative defense to the crime charged, the resolution of the “prejudice” inquiry will depend largely on whether the affirmative defense likely would have succeeded at trial. See, e. g., Evans v. Meyer, 742 F. 2d 371, 375 (CA7 1984) (“It is inconceivable to us . . . that [the defendant] would have gone to trial on a defense of intoxication, or that if he had done so he either would have been acquitted or, if convicted, would nevertheless have been given a shorter sentence than he actually received”). As we explained in Strickland v. Washington, supra, these predictions of the outcome at a possible trial, where necessary, should be made objectively, without regard for the “idiosyncrasies of the particular decisionmaker.” Id., at 695.
In the present case the claimed error of counsel is erroneous advice as to eligibility for parole under the sentence agreed to in the plea bargain. App. 31. We find it unnecessary to determine whether there may be circumstances under which erroneous advice by counsel as to parole eligibility may be deemed constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel, because in the present case we conclude that petitioner’s allegations are insufficient to satisfy the Strickland v. Washington requirement of “prejudice.” Petitioner did not allege in his habeas petition that, had counsel correctly informed him about his parole eligibility date, he would have pleaded not guilty and insisted on going to trial. He alleged no special circumstances that might support the conclusion that he placed particular emphasis on his parole eligibility in deciding whether or not to plead guilty. Indeed, petitioner’s mistaken belief that he would become eligible for parole after serving one-third of his sentence would seem to have affected not only his calculation of the time he likely would serve if sentenced pursuant to the proposed plea agreement, but also his calculation of the time he likely would serve if he went to trial and were convicted.
Because petitioner in this case failed to allege the kind of “prejudice” necessary to satisfy the second half of the Strickland v. Washington test, the District Court did not err in declining to hold a hearing on petitioner’s ineffective assistance of counsel claim. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is therefore
Affirmed.
Several Courts of Appeals have adopted this general approach. See Thomas v. Lockhart, 738 F. 2d 304, 307 (CA8 1984); accord, United States v. Gavilan, 761 F. 2d 226, 228 (CA5 1985); Beans v. Black, 757 F. 2d 933, 936-937 (CA8 1985); Mitchell v. Scully, 746 F. 2d 951, 957 (CA2 1984); Evans v. Meyer, 742 F. 2d 371, 374-375 (CA7 1984).
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 Ginsburg
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Fair Housing Act (FHA or Act) prohibits discrimination in housing against, inter alijos, persons with handicaps. Section 807(b)(1) of the Act entirely exempts from the FHA’s compass “any reasonable local, State, or Federal restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling.” 42 U. S. C. § 3607(b)(1). This case presents the question whether a provision in petitioner City of Edmonds’ zoning code qualifies for §3607(b)(l)’s complete exemption from FHA scrutiny. The provision, governing areas zoned for single-family dwelling units, defines “family” as “persons [without regard to number] related by genetics, adoption, or marriage, or a group of five or fewer [unrelated] persons.” Edmonds Community Development Code (ECDC) §21.30.010 (1991).
The defining provision at issue describes who may compose a family unit; it does not prescribe “the maximum number of occupants” a dwelling unit may house. We hold that § 3607(b)(1) does not exempt prescriptions of the family-defining kind, i. e., provisions designed to foster the family character of a neighborhood. Instead, § 3607(b)(l)’s absolute exemption removes from the FHA’s scope only total occupancy limits, i. e., numerical ceilings that serve to prevent overcrowding in living quarters.
I
In the summer of 1990, respondent Oxford House opened a group home in the City of Edmonds, Washington (City), for 10 to 12 adults recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. The group home, called Oxford House-Edmonds, is located in a neighborhood zoned for single-family residences. Upon learning that Oxford House had leased and was operating a home in Edmonds, the City issued criminal citations to the owner and a resident of the house. The citations charged violation of the zoning code rule that defines who may live in single-family dwelling units. The occupants of such units must compose a “family,” and family, under the City’s defining rule, “means an individual or two or more persons related by genetics, adoption, or marriage, or a group of five or fewer persons who are not related by genetics, adoption, or marriage.” ECDC §21.30.010. Oxford House-Edmonds houses more than five unrelated persons, and therefore does not conform to the code.
Oxford House asserted reliance on the Fair Housing Act, 102 Stat. 1619, 42 U. S. C. §3601 et seq., which declares it unlawful “[t]o discriminate in the sale or rental, or to otherwise make unavailable or deny, a dwelling to any buyer or renter because of a handicap of . . . that buyer or renter.” § 3604(f)(1)(A). The parties have stipulated, for purposes of this litigation, that the residents of Oxford House-Edmonds “are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts and are handicapped persons within the meaning” of the Act. App. 106.
Discrimination covered by the FHA includes “a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford [handicapped] person[s] equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.” § 3604(f)(3)(B). Oxford House asked Edmonds to make a “reasonable accommodation” by allowing it to remain in the single-family dwelling it had leased. Group homes for recovering substance abusers, Oxford urged, need 8 to 12 residents to be financially and therapeutically viable. Edmonds declined to permit Oxford House to stay in a single-family residential zone, but passed an ordinance listing group homes as permitted uses in multifamily and general commercial zones.
Edmonds sued Oxford House in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, seeking a declaration that the FHA does not constrain the City’s zoning code family definition rule. Oxford House counterclaimed under the FHA, charging the City with failure to make a “reasonable accommodation” permitting maintenance of the group home in a single-family zone. The United States filed a separate action on the same FHA “reasonable accommodation” ground, and the two cases were consolidated. Edmonds suspended its criminal enforcement actions pending resolution of the federal litigation.
On cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court held that ECDC §21.30.010, defining “family,” is exempt from the FHA under § 3607(b)(1) as a “reasonable . . . restriction] regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B-7. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed; holding §3607(b)(l)’s absolute exemption inapplicable, the Court of Appeals remanded the cases for further consideration of the claims asserted by Oxford House and the United States. Edmonds v. Washington State Building Code Council, 18 F. 3d 802 (1994).
The Ninth Circuit’s decision conflicts with an Eleventh Circuit decision declaring exempt under § 3607(b)(1) a family definition provision similar to the Edmonds prescription. See Elliott v. Athens, 960 F. 2d 975 (1992). We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict, 513 U. S. 959 (1994), and we now affirm the Ninth Circuit’s judgment.
II
The sole question before the Court is whether Edmonds’ family composition rule qualifies as a “restriction regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling” within the meaning of the FHA’s absolute exemption. 42 U. S. C. § 3607(b)(1). In answering this question, we are mindful of the Act’s stated policy “to provide, within constitutional limitations, for fair housing throughout the United States.” §3601. We also note precedent recognizing the FHA’s “broad and inclusive” compass, and therefore according a “generous construction” to the Act’s complaint-filing provision. Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205, 209, 212 (1972). Accordingly, we regard this case as an instance in which an exception to “a general statement of policy” is sensibly read “narrowly in order to preserve the primary operation of the [policy].” Commissioner v. Clark, 489 U. S. 726, 739 (1989).
A
Congress enacted § 3607(b)(1) against the backdrop of an evident distinction between municipal land-use restrictions and maximum occupancy restrictions.
Land-use restrictions designate “districts in which only compatible uses are allowed and incompatible uses are excluded.” D. Mandelker, Land Use Law §4.16, pp. 113— 114 (3d ed. 1993) (hereinafter Mandelker). These restrictions typically categorize uses as single-family residential, multiple-family residential, commercial, or industrial. See, e. g., 1 E. Ziegler, Jr., Rathkopf’s The Law of Zoning and Planning §8.01, pp. 8-2 to 8-3 (4th ed. 1995); Mandelker § 1.03, p. 4; 1 E. Yokley, Zoning Law and Practice § 7-2, p. 252 (4th ed. 1978).
Land-use restrictions aim to prevent problems caused by the “pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.” Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365, 388 (1926). In particular, reserving land for single-family residences preserves the character of neighborhoods, securing “zones where family values, youth values, and the blessings of quiet seclusion and clean air make the area a sanctuary for people.” Village of Belle Terre v. Boraas, 416 U. S. 1, 9 (1974); see also Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494, 521 (1977) (Burger, C. J., dissenting) (purpose of East Cleveland’s single-family zoning ordinance “is the traditional one of preserving certain areas as family residential communities”). To limit land use to single-family residences, a municipality must define the term “family”; thus family composition rules are an essential component of single-family residential use restrictions.
Maximum occupancy restrictions, in contradistinction, cap the number of occupants per dwelling, typically in relation to available floor space or the number and type of rooms. See, e. g., International Conference of Building Officials, Uniform Housing Code § 503(b) (1988); Building Officials and Code Administrators International, Inc., BOCA National Property Maintenance Code §§PM-405.3, PM-405.5 (1993) (hereinafter BOCA Code); Southern Building Code Congress, International, Inc., Standard Housing Code §§306.1, 306.2 (1991); E. Mood, APHA-CDC Recommended Minimum Housing Standards §9.02, p. 37 (1986) (hereinafter APHACDC Standards). These restrictions ordinarily apply uniformly to all residents of all dwelling units. Their purpose is to protect health and safety by preventing dwelling overcrowding. See, e.g., BOCA Code §§PM-101.3, PM-405.3, PM-405.5 and commentary; Abbott, Housing Policy, Housing Codes and Tenant Remedies: An Integration, 56 B. U. L. Rev. 1, 41-45 (1976).
We recognized this distinction between maximum occupancy restrictions and land-use restrictions in Moore v. East Cleveland, 431 U. S. 494 (1977). In Moore, the Court held unconstitutional the constricted definition of “family” contained in East Cleveland’s housing ordinance. East Cleveland’s ordinance “selected] certain categories of relatives who may live together and declare[d] that others may not”; in particular, East Cleveland’s definition of “family” made “a crime of a grandmother’s choice to live with her grandson.” Id., at 498-499 (plurality opinion). In response to East Cleveland’s argument that its aim was to prevent overcrowded dwellings, streets, and schools, we observed that the municipality’s restrictive definition of family served the asserted, and undeniably legitimate, goals “marginally, at best.” Id., at 500 (footnote omitted). Another East Cleveland ordinance, we noted, “specifically addressed ... the problem of overcrowding”; that ordinance tied “the maximum permissible occupancy of a dwelling to the habitable floor area.” Id., at 500, n. 7; accord, id., at 520, n. 16 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). Justice Stewart, in dissent, also distinguished restrictions designed to “preserv[e] the character of a residential area,” from prescription of “a minimum habitable floor area per person,” id., at 589, n. 9, in the interest of community health and safety.
Section 3607(b)(l)’s language — “restrictions regarding the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a dwelling” — surely encompasses maximum occupancy restrictions. But the formulation does not fit family composition rules typically tied to land-use restrictions. In sum, rules that cap the total number of occupants in order to prevent overcrowding of a dwelling “plainly and unmistakably,” see A H. Phillips, Inc. v. Walling, 324 U. S. 490, 493 (1945), fall within §3607(b)(l)’s absolute exemption from the FHA’s governance; rules designed to preserve the family character of a neighborhood, fastening on the composition of households rather than on the total number of occupants living quarters can contain, do not.
B
Turning specifically to the City’s Community Development Code, we note that the provisions Edmonds invoked against Oxford House, ECDC §§ 16.20.010 and 21.30.010, are classic examples of a use restriction and complementing family composition rule. These provisions do not cap the number of people who may live in a dwelling. In plain terms, they direct that dwellings be used only to house families. Captioned “USES,” ECDC §16.20.010 provides that the sole “Permitted Primary Us[e]” in a single-family residential zone is “[s]ingle-family dwelling units.” Edmonds itself recognizes that this provision simply “defines those uses permitted in a single family residential zone.” Pet. for Cert. 3.
A separate provision caps the number of occupants a dwelling may house, based on floor area:
“Floor Area. Every dwelling unit shall have at least one room which shall have not less than 120 square feet of floor area. Other habitable rooms, except kitchens, shall have an area of not less than 70 square feet. Where more than two persons occupy a room used for sleeping purposes, the required floor area shall be increased at the rate of 50 square feet for each occupant in excess of two.” ECDC § 19.10.000 (adopting Uniform Housing Code § 503(b) (1988)).
This space and occupancy standard is a prototypical maximum occupancy restriction.
Edmonds nevertheless argues that its family composition rule, ECDC §21.30.010, falls within § 3607(b)(1), the FHA exemption for maximum occupancy restrictions, because the rule caps at five the number of unrelated persons allowed to occupy a single-family dwelling. But Edmonds’ family composition rule surely does not answer the question: “What is the maximum number of occupants permitted to occupy a house?” So long as they are related “by genetics, adoption, or marriage,” any number of people can live in a house. Ten siblings, their parents and grandparents, for example, could dwell in a house in Edmonds’ single-family residential zone without offending Edmonds’ family composition rule.
Family living, not living space per occupant, is what ECDC §21.30.010 describes. Defining family primarily by biological and legal relationships, the provision also accommodates another group association: Five or fewer unrelated people are allowed to live together as though they were family. This accommodation is the peg on which Edmonds rests its plea for § 3607(b)(1) exemption. Had the City defined a family solely by biological and legal links, § 3607(b)(1) would not have been the ground on which Edmonds staked its case. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 11-12, 16. It is curious reasoning indeed that converts a family values preserver into a maximum occupancy restriction once a town adds to a related persons prescription “and also two unrelated persons.”
Edmonds additionally contends that subjecting single-family zoning to FHA scrutiny will “overturn Euclidian zoning” and “destroy the effectiveness and purpose of single-family zoning.” Brief for Petitioner 11,25. This contention both ignores the limited scope of the issue before us and exaggerates the force of the FHA’s antidiscrimination provisions. We address only whether Edmonds’ family composition rule qualifies for § 3607(b)(1) exemption. Moreover, the FHA antidiscrimination provisions, when applicable, require only “reasonable” accommodations to afford persons with handicaps “equal opportunity to use and enjoy” housing. §§ 3604(f)(1)(A) and (f)(3)(B).
* * *
The parties have presented, and we have decided, only a threshold question: Edmonds’ zoning code provision describing who may compose a “family” is not a maximum occupancy restriction exempt from the FHA under § 3607(b)(1). It remains for the lower courts to decide whether Edmonds’ actions against Oxford House violate the FHA’s prohibitions against discrimination set out in §§ 3604(f)(1)(A) and (f)(3)(B). For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is
Affirmed.
The FHA, as originally enacted in 1968, prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin. See 82 Stat. 83. Proscription of discrimination based on sex was added in 1974. See Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, § 808(b), 88 Stat. 729. In 1988, Congress extended coverage to persons with handicaps and also prohibited “familial status” discrimination, i. e., discrimination against parents or other custodial persons domiciled with children under the age of 18. 42 U. S. C. § 3602(k).
The single-family residential zoning provision at issue in Elliott defines “family,” in relevant part, as “[o]ne (1) or more persons occupying a single dwelling unit, provided that unless all members are related by blood, marriage or adoption, no such family shall contain over four (4) persons.” 960 F. 2d, at 976.
On May 17,1993, the State of Washington enacted a law providing:
“No city may enact or maintain an ordinance, development regulation, zoning regulation or official control, policy, or administrative practice which treats a residential structure occupied by persons with handicaps differently than a similar residential structure occupied by a family or other unrelated individuals. As used in this section, ‘handicaps’ are as defined in the federal fair housing amendments act of 1988 (42 U. S. C. Sec. 3602).” Wash. Rev. Code §35.63.220 (1994).
The United States asserts that Washington’s new law invalidates ECDC §21.30.010, Edmonds’ family composition rule, as applied to Oxford House-Edmonds. Edmonds responds that the effect of the new law is “far from clear.” Reply to Brief in Opposition 4. Even if the new law prevents Edmonds from enforcing its rule against Oxford House, a live controversy remains because the United States seeks damages and civil penalties from Edmonds, under 42 U. S. C. §§ 3614(d)(1)(B) and (C), for conduct occurring prior to enactment of the state law. App. 85.
Like the District Court and the Ninth Circuit, we do not decide whether Edmonds’ zoning code provision defining “family,” as the City would apply it against Oxford House, violates the FHA’s prohibitions against discrimination set out in 42 U. S. C. §§ 3604(f)(1)(A) and (f)(3)(B).
The dissent notes Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501 U. S. 452 (1991), as an instance in which the Court did not tightly cabin an exemption contained in a statute proscribing discrimination. See post, at 743-744. Gregory involved an exemption in the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, 81 Stat. 602, as amended, 29 U. S. C. §§ 621-634, covering state and local elective officials and “appointee[s] on the policymaking level.” § 630(f). The question there was whether state judges fit within the exemption. We held that they did. A state constitutional provision, not a local ordinance, was at stake in Gregory — a provision going “beyond an area traditionally regulated by the States” to implicate “a decision of the most fundamental sort for a sovereign entity.” 501 U. S., at 460. In that light, the Court refused to attribute to Congress, absent plain statement, any intent to govern the tenure of state judges. Nothing in today’s opinion casts a cloud on the soundness of that decision.
Contrary to the dissent’s suggestion, see post, at 745, n. 5, terminology in the APHA-CDC Standards bears a marked resemblance to the formulation Congress used in § 3607(b)(1). See APHA-CDC Standards §2.51, p. 12 (defining “Permissible Occupancy” as “the maximum number of individuals permitted to reside in a dwelling unit, or rooming unit”).
Other courts and commentators have similarly differentiated between land-use restrictions and maximum occupancy restrictions. See, e. g., State v. Baker, 81 N. J. 99, 110, 405 A. 2d 368, 373 (1979); 7A E. McQuillin, The Law of Municipal Corporations §24.504 (3d ed. 1989); Abbott, Housing Policy, Housing Codes and Tenant Remedies: An Integration, 56 B. U. L. Rev. 1, 41 (1976).
The plain import of the statutory language is reinforced by the House Committee Report, which observes:
“A number of jurisdictions limit the number of occupants per unit based on a minimum number of square feet in the unit or the sleeping areas of the unit. Reasonable limitations by governments would be allowed to continue, as long as they were applied to all occupants, and did not operate to discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap or familial status.” H. R. Rep. No. 100-711, p. 31 (1988).
Tellingly, Congress added the § 3607(b)(1) exemption for maximum occupancy restrictions at the same time it enlarged the FHA to include a ban on discrimination based on “familial status.” See supra, at 728, n. 1. The provision making it illegal to discriminate in housing against families with children under the age of 18 prompted fears that landlords would be forced to allow large families to crowd into small housing units. See, e. g., Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1987: Hearings on H. R. 1158 before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 100th Cong., 1st Sess., 656 (1987) (remarks of Rep. Edwards) (questioning whether a landlord must allow a family with 10 children to live in a two-bedroom apartment). Section 3607(b)(1) makes it plain that, pursuant to local prescriptions on maximum occupancy, landlords legitimately may refuse to stuff large families into small quarters. Congress further assured in § 3607(b)(1) that retirement communities would be exempt from the proscription of discrimination against families with minor children. In the sentence immediately following the maximum occupancy provision, § 3607(b)(1) states: “Nor does any provision in this subchapter regarding familial status apply with respect to housing for older persons.”
An exception to this provision sets out requirements for efficiency units in apartment buildings. See ECDC § 19.10.000 (1991) (adopting Uniform Housing Code § 503(b) (1988)).
This curious reasoning drives the dissent. If Edmonds allowed only related persons (whatever their number) to dwell in a house in a single-family zone, then the dissent, it appears, would agree that the § 3607(b)(1) exemption is unavailable. But so long as the City introduces a specific number — any number (two will do) — the City can insulate its single-family zone entirely from FHA coverage. The exception-takes-the-rule reading the dissent advances is hardly the “generous construction” warranted for antidiscrimination prescriptions. See Trafficante v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 409 U. S. 205, 212 (1972).
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | B | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Mr. Justice Brennan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, as amended, mandatory subjects of collective bargaining include pension and insurance benefits for active employees, and an employer’s mid-term unilateral modification of such benefits constitutes an unfair labor practice. This cause presents the question whether a mid-term unilateral modification that concerns, not the benefits of active employees, but the benefits of already retired employees also constitutes an unfair labor practice. The National Labor Relations Board, one member dissenting, held that changes in retired employees' retirement benefits are embraced by the bargaining obligation and that an employer’s unilateral modification of them constitutes an unfair labor practice in violation of §§ 8 (a) (5) and (1) of the Act. 177 N. L. R. B. 911 (1969). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit disagreed and refused to enforce the Board’s cease-and-desist order, 427 P. 2d 936 (1970). We granted certiorari, 401 U. S. 907 (1971). We affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals.
I
Since 1949, Local 1, Allied Chemical and Alkali Workers of America, has been the exclusive bargaining representative for the employees “working” on hourly rates of pay at the Barberton, Ohio, facilities of respondent Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. In 1950, the Union and the Company negotiated an employee group health insurance plan, in which, it was orally agreed, retired employees could participate by contributing the required premiums, to be deducted from their pension benefits. This program continued unchanged until 1962, except for an improvement unilaterally instituted by the Company in 1954 and another improvement negotiated in 1959.
In 1962 the Company agreed to contribute two dollars per month toward the cost of insurance premiums of employees who retired in the future and elected to participate in the medical plan. The parties also agreed at this time to make 65 the mandatory retirement age. In 1964 insurance benefits were again negotiated, and the Company agreed to increase its monthly contribution from two to four dollars, applicable to employees retiring after that date and also to pensioners who had retired since the effective date of the 1962 contract. It was agreed, however, that the Company might discontinue paying the two-dollar increase if Congress enacted a national health program.
In November 1965, Medicare, a national health program, was enacted, 79 Stat. 291, 42 U. S. C. § 1395 et seq. The 1964 contract was still in effect, and the Union sought mid-term bargaining to renegotiate insurance benefits for retired employees. The Company responded in March 1966 that, in its view, Medicare rendered the health insurance program useless because of a non-duplication-of-benefits provision in the Company’s insurance policy, and stated, without negotiating any change, that it was planning to (a) reclaim the additional two-dollar monthly contribution as of the effective date of Medicare; (b) cancel the program for retirees; and (c) substitute the payment of the three-dollar monthly subscription fee for supplemental Medicare coverage for each retired employee.
The Union acknowledged that the Company had the contractual right to reduce its monthly contribution, but challenged its proposal unilaterally to substitute supplemental Medicare coverage for the negotiated health plan. The Company, as it had done during the 1959 negotiations without pressing the point, disputed the Union’s right to bargain in behalf of retired employees, but advised the Union that upon further consideration it had decided not to terminate the health plan for pensioners. The Company stated instead that it would write each retired employee, offering to pay the supplemental Medicare premium if the employee would withdraw from the negotiated plan. Despite the Union’s objections the Company did circulate its proposal to the retired employees, and 15 of 190 retirees elected to accept it. The Union thereupon filed unfair labor practice charges.
The Board held that although the Company was not required to engage in mid-term negotiations, the benefits of already retired employees could not be regarded as other than a mandatory subject of collective bargaining. The Board reasoned that “retired employees are 'employees’ within the meaning of the statute for the purposes of bargaining about changes in their retirement benefits....” 177 N. L. R. B., at 912. Moreover, “retirement status is a substantial connection to the bargaining unit, for it is the culmination and the product of years of employment.” Id., at 914. Alternatively, the Board considered “bargaining about changes in retirement benefits for retired employees” as “within the contemplation of the statute because of the interest which active employees have in this subject....” Id., at 912. Apparently in support of both theories, the Board noted that “[bargaining on benefits for workers already retired is an established aspect of current labor-management relations.” Id., at 916. The Board also held that the Company's “establishment of a fixed, additional option in and of itself changed the negotiated plan of benefits” contrary to §§ 8 (d) and 8 (a)(5) of the Act. Id., at 918. Accordingly, the Company was ordered to cease and desist from refusing to bargain collectively about retirement benefits and from making unilateral adjustments in health insurance plans for retired employees without first negotiating in good faith with the Union. The Company was also required to rescind, at the Union’s request, any adjustment it had unilaterally instituted and to mail and post appropriate notices.
II
Section 1 of the National Labor Relations Act declares the policy of the United States to protect commerce “by encouraging the practice and procedure of collective bargaining and by protecting the exercise by workers of full freedom of association, self-organization, and designation of representatives of their own choosing, for the purpose of negotiating the terms and conditions of their employment....” 49 Stat. 449, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 151. To effectuate this policy, § 8 (a) (5) provides that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer “to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section” 9 (a). 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a)(5). Section 8(d), in turn, defines “to bargain collectively” as “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...61 Stat. 142, 29 U. S. C. 1158(d). Finally, § 9 (a) declares: “Representatives designated or selected for the purposes of collective bargaining by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes, shall be the exclusive representatives of all the employees in such unit for the purposes of collective bargaining in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment....” 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 159 (a).
Together, these provisions establish the obligation of the employer to bargain collectively, “with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” with “the representatives of his employees” designated or selected by the majority “in a unit appropriate for such purposes.” This obligation extends only to the “terms and conditions of employment” of the employer’s “employees” in the “unit appropriate for such purposes” that the union represents. See, e. g., Mine Workers v. Pennington, 381 U. S. 657, 666 (1965); NLRB v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342 (1958); Packard Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S. 485 (1947); Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177, 192 (1941) (dictum); Pittsburgh Glass Co. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 146 (1941). The Board found that benefits of already retired employees fell within these constraints on alternative theories. First, it held that pensioners are themselves “employees” and members of the bargaining unit, so that their benefits are a “term and condition” of their employment.
The Court of Appeals, in contrast, held “that retirees are not ‘employees’ within the meaning of section 8 (a) (5) and... the Company was under no constraint to collectively bargain improvements in their benefits with the Union.” 427 F. 2d, at 942. The court reasoned, first, “[Retirement with this Company, as with most other companies, is a complete and final severance of employment. Upon retirement, employees are completely removed from the payroll and seniority lists, and thereafter they perform no services for the employer, are paid no wages, are under no restrictions as to other employment or activities, and have no rights or expectations of reemployment,” id., at 944; and, second, “[i]t has repeatedly been held that the scope of the bargaining unit controls the extent of the bargaining obligation.... [And] the unit certified by the Board as appropriate was composed... only of presumably active employees....” Id., at 945. For the reasons that follow we agree with the Court of Appeals.
First. Section 2 (3) of the Act provides:
“The term ‘employee’ shall include any employee, and shall not be limited to the employees of a particular employer, unless this subchapter explicitly states otherwise, and shall include any individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of, or in connection with, any current labor dispute or because of any unfair labor practice, and who has not obtained any other regular and substantially equivalent employment....” 49 Stat. 450, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 152 (3).
We have repeatedly affirmed that the task of determining the contours of the term “employee” “has been assigned primarily to the agency created by Congress to administer the Act.” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S. 111, 130 (1944). See also Iron Workers v. Perko, 373 U. S. 701, 706 (1963); NLRB v. Atkins & Co., 331 U. S. 398 (1947). But we have never immunized Board judgments from judicial review in this respect. “[T]he Board’s determination that specified persons are ‘employees’ under this Act is to be accepted if it has ‘warrant in the record’ and a reasonable basis in law.” NLRB v. Hearst Publications, supra, at 131.
In this cause we hold that the Board’s decision is not supported by the law. The Act, after all, as § 1 makes clear, is concerned with the disruption to commerce that arises from interference with the organization and collective-bargaining rights of “workers” — not those who have retired from the work force. The inequality of bargaining power that Congress sought to remedy was that of the “working” man, and the labor disputes that it ordered to be subjected to collective bargaining were those of employers and their active employees. Nowhere in the history of the National Labor Relations Act is there any evidence that retired workers are to be considered as within the ambit of the collective-bargaining obligations of the statute.
To the contrary, the legislative history of § 2 (3) itself indicates that the term “employee” is not to be stretched beyond its plain meaning embracing only those who work for another for hire. In NLRB v. Hearst Publications, supra, we sustained the Board’s finding that newsboys were “employees” rather than independent contractors. We said that “the broad language of the Act’s definitions, which in terms reject conventional limitations on such conceptions as ‘employee,’... leaves no doubt that its applicability is to be determined broadly, in doubtful situations, by underlying economic facts rather than technically and exclusively by previously established legal classifications.” The term “employee” “must be understood with reference to the purpose of the Act and the facts involved in the economic relationship.” 322 U. S., at 129. Congress reacted by specifically excluding from the definition of “employee” “any individual having the status of an independent contractor.” The House, which proposed the amendment, explained:
“An ‘employee,’ according to all standard dictionaries, according to the law as the courts have stated it, and according to the understanding of almost everyone,... means someone who works for another for hire. But in the case of National Labor Relations Board v. Hearst Publications, Inc...., the Board... held independent merchants who bought newspapers from the publisher and hired people to sell them to be 'employees.' The people the merchants hired to sell the papers were ‘employees’ of the merchants, but holding the merchants to be ‘employees’ of the publisher of the papers was most far reaching. It must be presumed that when Congress passed the Labor Act, it intended words it used to have the meanings that they had when Congress passed the act, not new meanings that, 9 years later, the Labor Board might think up. In the law, there always has been a difference, and a big difference, between ‘employees’ and ‘independent contractors.’ ‘Employees’ work for wages or salaries under direct supervision.... It is inconceivable that Congress, when it passed the act, authorized the Board to give to every word in the act whatever meaning it wished. On the contrary, Congress intended then, and it intends now, that the Board give to words not far-fetched meanings but ordinary meanings.” H. R. Rep. No. 245, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 18 (1947) (emphasis added).
See also 93 Cong. Rec. 6441-6442; H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 510, 80th Cong., 1st Sess., 32-33 (1947). The 1947 Taft-Hartley revision made clear that general agency principles could not be ignored in distinguishing “employees” from independent contractors. NLRB v. United Insurance Co., 390 U. S. 254, 256 (1968). Although Hearst Publications was thus repudiated, we do not think its approach has been totally discredited. In doubtful cases resort must still be had to economic and policy considerations to infuse § 2 (3) with meaning. But, as the House comments quoted above demonstrate, this is not a doubtful case. The ordinary meaning of “employee” does not include retired workers; retired employees have ceased to work for another for hire.
The decisions on which the Board relied in construing § 2 (3) to the contrary are wide of the mark. The Board enumerated “unfair labor practice situations where the statute has been applied to persons who have not been initially hired by an employer or whose employment has terminated. Illustrative are cases in which the Board has held that applicants for employment and registrants at hiring halls — who have never been hired in the first place — as well as persons who have quit or whose employers have gone out of business are 'employees’ embraced by the policies of the Act.” 177 N. L. R. B., at 913 (citations omitted). Yet all of these cases involved people who, unlike the pensioners here, were members of the active work force available for hire and at least in that sense could be identified as “employees.” No decision under the Act is cited, and none to our knowledge exists, in which an individual who has ceased work without expectation of further employment has been held to be an “employee.”
The Board also found support for its position in decisions arising under § 302 (c) (5) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 61 Stat. 157, 29 U. S. C. § 186 (c) (5). Section 302 prohibits, inter alia, any payment by an employer to any representative of any of his employees. Subsection (c) (5) provides an exemption for payments to an employee trust fund established "for the sole and exclusive benefit of the employees of such employer" and administered by equal numbers of representatives of the employer and employees. The word "employee," as used in that provision, has been construed to include "current employees and persons who were... current employees but are now retired." Blassie v. Kroger Co., 345 F. 2d 58, 70 (CA8 1965). The Board considered that it would be anomalous to hold "that retired employees are not `employees' whose ongoing benefits are fit subjects of bargaining under Section 8 (a) (5), while under [§ 302 (c)] they are `employees' for the purpose of administering the same health insurance benefits. It would create the further anomaly that a union would not be entitled to act as the representative of retired employees under Section 8 (a) (5), while subject to an explicit statutory duty to act as their representative under [§ 302 (c)]." 177 N. L. R. B., at 915.
Yet the rationale of Blassie is not at all in point. The question there was simply whether under § 302 (c) (5) retirees remain eligible for benefits of trust funds established during their active employment. The conclusion that they do was compelled by the fact that the contrary reading of the statute would have made illegal contributions to pension plans, which the statute expressly contemplates in subsections (A) and (C). No comparable situation exists in this case. Furthermore, there is no anomaly in the conclusion that retired workers are “employees” within § 302 (c) (5) entitled to the benefits negotiated while they were active employees, but are not “employees” whose ongoing benefits are embraced by the bargaining obligation of § 8 (a)(5). Contrary to the Board’s assertion, the union’s role in the administration of the fund is of a far different order from its duties as collective-bargaining agent. To accept the Board’s reasoning that the union’s § 302 (c) (5) responsibilities dictate the scope of the § 8 (a) (5) collective-bargaining obligation would be to allow the tail to wag the dog.
Second. Section 9 (a) of the Labor Relations Act accords representative status only to the labor organization selected or designated by the majority of employees in a "unit appropriate" "for the purposes of collective bargaining." Section 9 (b) goes on to direct the Labor Board to "decide in each case whether, in order to assure to employees the fullest freedom in exercising the rights guaranteed by this subchapter, the unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining shall be the employer unit, craft unit, plant unit, or subdivision thereof...." 49 Stat. 453, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 159 (b). We have always recognized that, in making these determinations, the Board is accorded broad discretion. See NLRB v. Hearst Publications, 322 U. S., at 132-135; Pittsburgh Glass Co. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 146 (1941). Moreover, the Board's findings of fact, if supported by substantial evidence, are conclusive. National Labor Relations Act, § 10 (e), 49 Stat. 454, as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 160 (e). But the Board's powers in respect of unit determinations are not without limits, and if its decision "oversteps the law," Packard Co. v. NLRB, 330 U. S., at 491, it must be reversed.
In this cause, in addition to holding that pensioners are not “employees” within the meaning of the collective-bargaining obligations of the Act, we hold that they were not and could not be “employees” included in the bargaining unit. The unit determined by the Board to be appropriate was composed of “employees of the Employer’s plant... working on hourly rates, including group leaders who work on hourly rates of pay... Apart from whether retirees could be considered “employees” within this language, they obviously were not employees “working” or “who work” on hourly rates of pay. Although those terms may include persons on temporary or limited absence from work, such as employees on military duty, it would utterly destroy the function of language to read them as embracing those whose work has ceased with no expectation of return.
In any event, retirees could not properly be joined with the active employees in the unit that the Union represents. “As a standard, the Board must comply... with the requirement that the unit selected must be one to effectuate the policy of the act, the policy of efficient collective bargaining.” Pittsburgh Glass Co. v. NLRB, supra, at 165. The Board must also exercise care that the rights of employees under § 7 of the Act “to self-organization... [and] to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing” are duly respected. In line with these standards, the Board regards as its primary concern in resolving unit issues “to group together only employees who have substantial mutual interests in wages, hours, and other conditions of employment.” 15 NLRB Ann. Rep. 39 (1950). Such a mutuality of interest serves to assure the coherence among employees necessary for efficient collective bargaining and at the same time to prevent a functionally distinct minority group of employees from being submerged in an overly large unit. See Kalamazoo Paper Box Corp., 136 N. L. R. B. 134, 137 (1962).
Here, even if, as the Board found, active and retired employees have a common concern in assuring that the latter’s benefits remain adequate, they plainly do not share a community of interests broad enough to justify inclusion of the retirees in the bargaining unit. Pensioners’ interests extend only to retirement benefits, to the exclusion of wage rates, hours, working conditions, and all other terms of active employment. Incorporation of such a limited-purpose constituency in the bargaining unit would create the potential for severe internal conflicts that would impair the unit’s ability to function and would disrupt the processes of collective bargaining. Moreover, the risk cannot be overlooked that union representatives on occasion might see fit to bargain for improved wages or other conditions favoring active employees at the expense of retirees’ benefits.
But we need not rely on our own assessment of the probable consequences of including retirees in the bargaining unit to conclude that the resulting unit would be inappropriate. The Board itself has previously recognized that retirees do not have a sufficient interest to warrant participation in the election of a collective-bargaining agent. In Public Service Corp. of New Jersey, 72 N. L. R. B. 224, 229-230 (1947), for example, the Board stated:
“We have considerable doubt as to whether or not pensioners are employees within the meaning of Section 2 (3) of the Act, since they no longer perform any work for the Employers, and have little expectancy of resuming their former employment. In any event, even if pensioners were to be considered as employees, we believe that they lack a substantial community of interest with the employees who are presently in the active service of the Employers. Accordingly, we find that pensioners are ineligible to vote in the election.”
The Board argues, however, that the pensioners’ ineligibility to vote is not dispositive of their right to membership in the bargaining unit, since the franchise and the right to membership depend upon different levels of interest in the unit. Yet in W. D. Byron & Sons of Maryland, Inc., 55 N. L. R. B. 172, 174-175 (1944), which the Board found controlling in Public Service Corp. of New Jersey, see 72 N. L. R. B., at 230 n. 10, the Board not merely held ineligible to vote, but expressly excluded from the bargaining unit pensioners who had little expectation of further employment. In any event, it would be clearly inconsistent with the majority rule principle of the Act to deny a member of the unit at the time of an election a voice in the selection of his bargaining representative. The Board’s own holdings thus compel the conclusion that a unit composed of active and retired workers would be inappropriate.
Third. The Board found that bargaining over pensioners’ rights has become an established industrial practice. But industrial practice cannot alter the conclusions that retirees are neither “employees” nor bargaining unit members. The parties dispute whether a practice of bargaining over pensioners’ benefits exists and, if so, whether it reflects the views of labor and management that the subject is not merely a convenient but a mandatory topic of negotiation. But even if industry commonly regards retirees’ benefits as a statutory subject of bargaining, that would at most, as we suggested in Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U. S. 203, 211 (1964), reflect the interests of employers and employees in the subject matter as well as its amenability to the collective-bargaining process; it would not be determinative. Common practice cannot change the law and make into bargaining unit “employees” those who are not.
III
Even if pensioners are not bargaining unit “employees,” are their benefits, nonetheless, a mandatory subject of collective bargaining as “terms and conditions of employment” of the active employees who remain in the unit? The Board held, alternatively, that they are, on the ground that they “vitally” affect the “terms and conditions of employment” of active employees principally by influencing the value of both their current and future benefits. 177 N. L. R. B., at 915. The Board explained: “It is not uncommon to group active and retired employees under a single health insurance contract with the result that... it is the size and experience of the entire group which may determine insurance rates.” Ibid. Consequently, active employees may “benefit from the membership of retired employees in the group whose participation enlarges its size and might thereby lower costs per participant.” Ibid. Furthermore, the actual value of future benefits depends upon contingencies, such as inflation and changes in public law, which the parties cannot adequately anticipate and over which they have little or no control. By establishing a practice of representing retired employees in resolving those contingencies as they arise, active workers can insure that their own retirement benefits will survive the passage of time. This, in turn, the Board contends, facilitates the peaceful settlement of disputes over active employees’ pension plans. The Board’s arguments are not insubstantial, but they do not withstand careful scrutiny.
Section 8 (d) of the Act, of course, does not immutably fix a list of subjects for mandatory bargaining. See, e. g., Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, supra, at 220-221 (STEWART, J., concurring); Richfield Oil Corp. v. NLRB, 97 U. S. App. D. C. 383, 389-390, 231 F. 2d 717, 723-724 (1956). But it does establish a limitation against which proposed topics must be measured. In general terms, the limitation includes only issues that settle an aspect of the relationship between the employer and employees. See, e. g., NLRB v. Borg-Warner Corp., 356 U. S. 342 (1958). Although normally matters involving individuals outside the employment relationship do not fall within that category, they are not wholly excluded. In Teamsters Union v. Oliver, 358 U. S. 283 (1959), for example, an agreement had been negotiated in the trucking industry, establishing a minimum rental that carriers would pay to truck owners who drove their own vehicles in the carriers' service in place of the latter's employees. Without determining whether the owner-drivers were themselves "employees," we held that the minimum rental was a mandatory subject of bargaining, and hence immune from state antitrust laws, because the term "was integral to the establishment of a stable wage structure for clearly covered employee-drivers." United States v. Drum, 368 U. S. 370, 382-383, n. 26 (1962). Similarly, in Fibreboard Corp. v. NLRB, supra, at 215, we held that "the type of `contracting out' involved in this case—the replacement of employees in the existing bargaining unit with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment—is a statutory subject of collective bargaining...." As we said there, id., at 213, "the work of the employees in the bargaining unit was let out piecemeal in Oliver, whereas here the work of the entire unit has been contracted out.”
The Board urges that Oliver and Fibreboard provide the principle governing this cause. The Company, on the other hand, would distinguish those decisions on the ground that the unions there sought to protect employees from outside threats, not to represent the interests of third parties. We agree with the Board that the principle of Oliver and Fibreboard is relevant here; in each case the question is not whether the third-party concern is antagonistic to or compatible with the interests of bargaining-unit employees, but whether it vitally affects the “terms and conditions” of their employment. But we disagree with the Board’s assessment of the significance of a change in retirees’ benefits to the “terms and conditions of employment” of active employees.
The benefits that active workers may reap by including retired employees under the same health insurance contract are speculative and insubstantial at best. As the Board itself acknowledges in its brief, the relationship between the inclusion of retirees and the overall insurance rate is uncertain. Adding individuals increases the group experience and thereby generally tends to lower the rate, but including pensioners, who are likely to have higher medical expenses, may more than offset that effect. In any event, the impact one way or the other on the “terms and conditions of employment” of active employees is hardly comparable to the loss of jobs threatened in Oliver and Fibreboard. In Fibreboard, after holding that “the replacement of employees in the existing bargaining unit with those of an independent contractor to do the same work under similar conditions of employment” is a mandatory subject of bargaining, we noted that our decision did “not encompass other forms of 'contracting out' or ‘subcontracting’ which arise daily in our complex economy.” 379 U. S., at 215. The inclusion of retirees in the same insurance contract surely has even less impact on the “terms and conditions of employment” of active employees than some of the contracting activities that we excepted from our holding in Fibreboard.
The mitigation of future uncertainty and the facilitation of agreement on active employees’ retirement plans, that the Board said would follow from the union’s representation of pensioners, are equally problematical. To be sure, the future retirement benefits of active workers are part and parcel of their overall compensation and hence a well-established statutory subject of bargaining. Moreover, provisions of those plans to guard against future contingencies are equally subsumed under the collective-bargaining obligation. Under the Board’s theory, active employees undertake to represent pensioners in order to protect their own retirement benefits, just as if they were bargaining for, say, a cost-of-living escalation clause. But there is a crucial difference. Having once found it advantageous to bargain for improvements in pensioners’ benefits, active workers are not forever thereafter bound to that view or obliged to negotiate in behalf of retirees again. To the contrary, they are free to decide, for example, that current income is preferable to greater certainty in their own retirement benefits or, indeed, to their retirement benefits altogether. By advancing pensioners’ interests now, active employees, therefore, have no assurance that they will be the beneficiaries of similar representation when they retire. The insurance against future contingencies that they may buy in negotiating benefits for retirees is thus a hazardous and, therefore, improbable investment, far different from a cost-of-living escalation clause that they could contractually enforce in court. See n. 20, supra,. We find, accordingly, that the effect that the Board asserts bargaining in behalf of pensioners would have on the negotiation of active employees’ retirement plans is too speculative a foundation on which to base an obligation to bargain.
Nor does the Board’s citation of industrial practice provide any ground for concluding otherwise. The Board states in its brief that “[n] either the bargaining representative nor the active employees... can help but recognize that the active employees of today are the retirees of tomorrow — indeed, such a realization undoubtedly underlies the widespread industrial practice of bargaining about benefits of those who have already retired... and explains the vigorous interest which the Union has taken in this case.” But accepting the Board’s finding that the industrial practice exists, we find nowhere a particle of evidence cited showing that the explanation for this lies in the concern of active workers for their own future retirement benefits.
We recognize that “classification of bargaining subjects as ‘terms [and] conditions of employment’ is a matter concerning which the Board has special expertise.” Meat Cutters v. Jewel Tea, 381 U. S. 676, 685-686 (1965). The Board’s holding in this cause, however, depends on the application of law to facts, and the legal standard to be applied is ultimately for the courts to decide and enforce. We think that in holding the “terms and conditions of employment” of active employees to be vitally affected by pensioners’ benefits, the Board here simply neglected to give the adverb its ordinary meaning. Cf. NLRB v. Brown, 380 U. S. 278, 292 (1965).
IV
The question remains whether the Company committed an unfair labor practice by offering retirees an exchange for their withdrawal from the already negotiated health insurance plan. After defining “to bargain collectively” as meeting and conferring “with respect to wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment,” § 8 (d) of the Act goes on to provide in relevant part that “where there is in effect a collective-bargaining contract covering employees in an industry affecting commerce, the duty to bargain collectively shall also mean that no party to such contract shall terminate or modify such contract” except upon (1) timely notice to the other party, (2) an offer to meet and confer “for the purpose of negotiating a new contract or a contract containing the proposed modifications,” (3) timely notice to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and comparable state or territorial agencies of the existence of a “dispute,” and (4) continuation “in full force and effect [of]... all the terms and conditions of the existing contract... until [its] expiration date....” The Board's trial examiner ruled that the Company’s action in offering retirees a change in their health plan did not amount to a “modification” of the collective-bargaining agreement in violation of § 8 (d), since the pensioners had merely been given an additional option that they were free to accept or decline as they saw fit. The Board rejected that conclusion on the ground that there were several possible ways of adjusting the negotiated plan to the Medicare provisions and the Company “modified” the contract by unilaterally choosing one of them. The Company now urges, in effect, that we adopt the views of the trial examiner. We need not resolve, however, whether there was a “modification” within the meaning of § 8 (d), because we hold that even if there was, a “modification” is a prohibited unfair labor practice only when it changes a term that is a mandatory rather than a permissive subject of bargaining.
Paragraph (4) of § 8 (d), of course, requires that a party proposing a modification continue “in full force and effect... all the terms and conditions of the existing contract” until its expiration. Viewed in isolation from the rest of the provision, that language would preclude any distinction between contract obligations that are “terms and conditions of employment” and those that are not. But in construing § 8 (d), “ ‘we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy.’ ” Mastro Plastics Corp. v. NLRB, 350 U. S.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 O’Connor
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We granted certiorari in this case, 534 U. S. 1112 (2002), to determine whether the Michigan Supreme Court erred in holding that, under 49 U. S. C. § 14504(e)(2)(B)(iv)(III), only a State’s “generic” fee is relevant to determining the fee that was “collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.”
I
A
Beginning in 1965, Congress authorized States to require interstate motor carriers operating within their borders to register with the State proof of their Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) interstate operating permits. Pub. L. 89-170, 79 Stat. 648, 49 U. S. C. § 302(b)(2) (1970 ed.). Congress provided that state registration requirements would not constitute an undue burden on interstate commerce so long as they were consistent with regulations promulgated by the ICC. Ibid.
Prior to 1994, the ICC allowed States to charge interstate motor carriers annual registration fees of up to $10 per vehicle. See 49 CFR § 1023.33 (1992). As proof of registration, participating States would issue a stamp for each of the carrier’s vehicles. § 1023.32. The stamp was affixed on a “uniform identification cab car[d]” carried in each vehicle, within the square bearing the name of the issuing State. §§ 1023.32(d)-(e). This system came to be known as the “bingo card” system. Single State Insurance Registration, 9 I. C. C. 2d 610 (1993).
The “bingo card” regime proved unsatisfactory to many who felt that the administrative burdens it placed on carriers and participating States outweighed the benefits to those States and to the public. H. R. Rep. No. 102-171, pt. I, p. 49 (1991); H. R. Conf. Rep. No. 102-404, pp. 437-438 (1991). In the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 (ISTEA), Congress therefore directed the ICC to implement a new system to replace the “bingo card” regime. See Pub. L. 102-240, §4005, 105 Stat. 1914, 49 U. S. C. § 11506(c) (1994 ed.). Under the new system, called the Single State Registration System, “a motor carrier [would be] required to register annually with only one State,” and “such single State registration [would] be deemed to satisfy the registration requirements of all other States.” §§ 11506(c)(1)(A) and (C). Thus, one State would — on behalf of all other participating States — register a carrier’s vehicles, file and maintain paperwork, and collect and distribute registration fees. § 11506(c)(2)(A). Participation in the Single State Registration System was limited to those States that had elected to participate in the “bingo card” system. § 11506(c)(2)(D).
ISTEA also capped the per-vehicle registration fee that participating States could charge interstate motor carriers. Congress directed the ICC to
“establish a fee system . .. that (I) will be based on the number of commercial motor vehicles the carrier operates in a State and on the number of States in which the carrier operates, (II) will minimize the costs of complying with the registration system, and (III) will result in a fee for each participating State that is equal to the fee, not to exceed $10 per vehicle, that such State collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.” § 11506(c)(2)(B)(iv).
Congress provided that the charging or collection of any fee not in accordance with the ICC’s fee system would “be deemed to be a burden on interstate commerce.” § 11506(c)(2)(C).
The ICC issued its final implementing regulations in May 1993 after notice-and-comment proceedings. Single-State Insurance Registration, supra. The rulemaking gave rise to the central question in this case: whether, under the Single State Registration System, States were free to terminate “reciprocity agreements” that were in place under the “bingo card” regime. Id., at 617-619. Under these agreements, in exchange for reciprocal treatment, some States discounted or waived registration fees for carriers from other States. Id., at 617.
In issuing a set of proposed rules and soliciting further comments, the ICC questioned whether it had the power to require States to preserve pre-existing reciprocity agreements. Single State Insurance Registration, No. MC-100 (Sub-No. 6), 1993 WL 17833, *12 (Jan. 22, 1993); see Single State Insurance Registration—1993 Rules, 9 I. C. C. 2d 1, 11 (1992). It noted that these agreements were voluntary and mutually beneficial and commented that “as long as no carrier is charged more than [a State’s] standard November 15, 1991, fee for all carriers (subject to the $10 limit), the requirements of [ISTEA] are satisfied.” 1993 WL 17833, *12.
In its final implementing regulations, however, the ICC concluded, in light of further comments, that its preliminary view on reciprocity agreements was inconsistent with ISTEA’s fee-cap provision and with “the intent of the law that the flow of revenue for the States be maintained while the burden of the registration system for carriers be reduced.” Single State Insurance Registration, 9 I. C. C. 2d, at 618. The agency therefore determined that States participating in the Single State Registration System “must consider fees charged or collected under reciprocity agreements when determining the fees charged or collected as of November 15, 1991, as required by § 11506(c)(2)(B)(iv).” Id., at 618-619; see also American Trucking Associations — Petition for Declaratory Order—Single State Insurance Registration, 9 I. C. C. 2d 1184, 1192, 1194-1195 (1993). The National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and 18 state regulatory commissions sought review of the ICC’s determination and certain provisions of the Single State Registration System regulations. NARUC v. ICC, 41 F. 3d 721 (1994). The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded that the plain language of the statute supported the ICC’s determination that States participating in the new system must consider reciprocity agreements under 49 U. S. C. § 11506(c)(2)(B)(iv). 41 F. 3d, at 729.
B
Prior to the implementation of the Single State Registration System, Michigan had participated in the “bingo card” regime. See App. 5 (Affidavit of Thomas R. Lonergan, Director, Motor Carrier Regulation Division of the Michigan Public Service Commission ¶ 3e) (hereinafter Lonergan Affidavit). The Michigan Legislature had directed the Michigan Public Service Commission to levy an annual registration fee of $10 per vehicle on interstate motor carrier vehicles and simultaneously endowed the commission with authority to “enter into a reciprocal agreement with a state.” Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 478.7(4) (West 1988). Pursuant to such reciprocal agreements, the commission was empowered to “waive the fee [otherwise] required.” Ibid.
Petitioner in this case is an interstate trucking company headquartered in Kansas. For calendar years 1990 and 1991, the Michigan Public Service Commission did not levy a fee for petitioner’s trucks that were licensed in Illinois pursuant to its policy “not to charge a fee to carriers with vehicles registered in states ... which did not charge Michigan-based carriers a fee.” App. 6 (Lonergan Affidavit ¶ 3i). In 1991, however, the Michigan Public Service Commission announced a change in its reciprocity policy to take effect on February 1, 1992. Under the new policy, the commission granted reciprocity treatment based on the policies of the State in which a carrier maintained its principal place of business rather than the State in which individual vehicles were licensed. Because Michigan had no reciprocal arrangement with Kansas, the Michigan Public Service Commission sent petitioner a bill in September 1991, levying a fee of $10 per vehicle for the 1992 registration year on petitioner’s entire fleet, with payment due on January 1,1992.
Petitioner paid the fees in October 1991 under protest and later brought suit in the Michigan Court of Claims seeking a refund of the fees it paid for its Illinois-licensed vehicles after the Single State Registration System came into effect. See 49 U. S. C. § 11506(c)(3) (1994 ed.) (setting effective date of January 1, 1994). Petitioner alleged that, because Michigan had not “collected or charged” a fee for the 1991 registration year for trucks licensed in Illinois, ISTEA’s fee-cap provision prohibits Michigan from levying a fee on Illinois-licensed trucks.
On cross motions for summary disposition, the Michigan Court of Claims ruled in favor of petitioner. Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Michigan, No. 95-15706-CM (Mar. 13, 1996) (Yellow Freight System I). The Court of Claims’ holding relied on an ICC declaratory order in which the agency held that ISTEA’s fee-cap provision caps fees at the level “collected or charged” for registration year 1991, not those fees levied for registration year 1992 in advance of the statutory cutoff date. Id., at 3-4; see American Trucking Associations, supra, at 1192, 1195.
The Michigan Court of Appeals affirmed on similar grounds. Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Michigan, 231 Mich. App. 194, 585 N. W. 2d 762 (1998) (Yellow Freight System II). The Court of Appeals also rejected Michigan’s argument that States need not consider reciprocity agreements in determining the level of fees “charged or collected as of November 15, 1991,” noting that the ICC had determined reciprocity agreements must be considered, and that the agency’s decision had been upheld in NARUC v. ICC, supra. Yellow Freight System II, supra, at 202-203, 585 N. W. 2d, at 766.
The Michigan Supreme Court reversed. Yellow Freight System, Inc. v. Michigan, 464 Mich. 21, 627 N. W. 2d 236 (2001) (Yellow Freight System III). The court concluded that “reciprocity agreements are not relevant in determining what fee [a State] ‘charged or collected’ as of November 15, 1991.” Id., at 33, 627 N. W. 2d, at 242. The court expressly rejected the District of Columbia Circuit’s contrary conclusion. Id., at 29, 627 N. W. 2d, at 240 (citing NARUC v. ICC, supra). The Court applied Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), but determined that the statute unambiguously forbids the ICC’s interpretation. Yellow Freight System III, 464 Mich., at 29-31, 627 N. W. 2d, at 240-241. Reasoning that “[t]he new ‘fee system’ is based not on the fees collected from one individual company, but on the fee system that the state had in place on November 15, 1991,” the court concluded that “[w]e must look not at the fees paid by [petitioner] in any given year, but at the generic fee Michigan charged or collected from carriers as of November 15, 1991.” Id., at 31, 627 N. W. 2d, at 241 (emphasis added). Two justices dissented, finding ISTE A’s fee-cap provision ambiguous, the ICC’s construction reasonable, and deference therefore due. Id., at 33-43, 627 N. W. 2d, at 242-247 (opinions of Kelly and Cavanagh, JJ.).
The Michigan Supreme Court did not consider respondents’ argument that the fees petitioner paid Michigan for the 1992 registration year were “collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.” 49 U. S. C. § 14504(c)(2)(B)(iv)(III). Nor did that court reach the question whether Michigan had “canceled its reciprocity agreements with other States in 1989.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 23. The only issue before this Court, therefore, is whether States may charge motor carrier registration fees in excess of those charged or collected under reciprocity agreements as of November 15, 1991.
II
Neither party disputes that Chevron, supra, governs the interpretive task at hand. In ISTEA, Congress made an express delegation of authority to the ICC to promulgate standards for implementing the new Single State Registration System. 49 U. S. C. § 11506(c)(1) (1994 ed.). The ICC did so, interpreting ISTEA’s fee-cap provision subsequent to a notice-and-comment rulemaking. See United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 229 (2001) (“[A] very good indicator of delegation meriting Chevron treatment [is an] express congressional authorizatio[n] to engage in the process of rule-making or adjudication that produces regulations or rulings for which deference is claimed”). The Federal Highway Administration adopted the ICC’s regulations, see supra, at 39, n., and the Single State Registration System is now administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. 49 U.S. C. §113.
Accordingly, the question before us is whether the text of the statute resolves the issue, or, if not, whether the ICC’s interpretation is permissible in light of the deference to be accorded the agency under the statutory scheme. If the statute speaks clearly “to the precise question at issue,” we “must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.” Chevron, 467 U. S., at 842-843. If the statute is instead “silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue,” we must sustain the agency’s interpretation if it is “based on a permissible construction of the statute.” Id., at 843; see Barnhart v. Walton, 535 U. S. 212, 217-218 (2002).
ISTEA’s fee-cap provision does not foreclose the ICC’s determination that fees charged under States’ pre-existing reciprocity agreements were, in effect, frozen by the new Single State Registration System. The provision requires that the new system “result in a fee for each participating State that is equal to the fee, not to exceed $10 per vehicle, that such State collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.” 49 U. S. C. § 14504(c)(2)(B)(iv)(III). The language “collected or charged” can quite naturally be read to mean fees that a State actually collected or charged. The statute thus can easily be read as the ICC chose, making it unlawful “for a State to renounce or modify a reciprocity agreement so as to alter any fee charged or collected as of November 15, 1991, under the predecessor registration system.” American Trucking Associations, 9 I. C. C. 2d, at 1194; see Single State Insurance Registration, 9 I. C. C. 2d, at 618-619.
The Michigan Supreme Court held that the language of ISTEA’s fee-cap provision compels a different result. Although it acknowledged that ISTEA is silent with respect to reciprocity agreements, the court nonetheless concluded that the fee-cap provision mandates that those agreements have no bearing in the determination of what fee a State “collected or charged” as of November 15, 1991. Yellow Freight System III, 464 Mich., at 31, 627 N. W. 2d, at 241. The court reasoned that the Single State Registration System was “based not on the fees collected from one individual company, but on the fee system that the state had in place.” Ibid. (emphasis added). While such a reading might be reasonable, nothing in the statute compels that particular result.
The fee-cap provision refers not to a “fee system,” but to the “fee . . . collected or charged.” 49 U. S. C. § 14504(c)(2)(B)(iv)(III). Under the ICC’s rule, where a State waives its registration fee, its “fee . . . collected or charged” is zero and must remain zero. The ICC’s interpretation is a permissible reading of the language of the statute. And, because there is statutory ambiguity and the agency’s interpretation is reasonable, its interpretation must receive deference. See Chevron, supra, at 843.
As commenters to the ICC during the rulemaking pointed out, to allow States to disavow their reciprocity agreements so as to alter any fee charged or collected as of November 15, 1991, would potentially permit States to increase their revenues substantially under the new system, a result that the ICC quite reasonably believed Congress did not intend. See Single State Insurance Registration, 9 I. C. C. 2d, at 618. The ICC concluded that its rule best served the “intent of the law that the flow of revenue for the States be maintained while the burden of the registration system for carriers be reduced.” Ibid. The agency considered that allowing States to disavow reciprocity agreements and charge a single, uniform fee might reduce administrative burdens, but expressed concern that carriers’ registration costs, and state revenues, would balloon. Ibid, (noting that some carriers’ fees “assertedly could increase as much as 900%,” and that one commenter presented a “worst case scenario” in which “State revenues could increase from $50 million to $200 million”).
Respondents argue that Congress intended for each State to set a single, uniform fee. While such a mandate would, indeed, have simplified the new system, it is not compelled by the language of the statute, which instructs the ICC to implement a system under which States charge a fee, not to exceed $10 per vehicle, that is equal to the fee such States “collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.”
Respondents also contend that, by freezing the fees charged under reciprocity agreements as part of the fee cap, the ICC added a constraint not within the express language of the statute. The Michigan Supreme Court expressed a similar concern, stating that “[i]t is not for the ICC ... to insert words into the statute.” 464 Mich., at 32, 627 N. W. 2d, at 241-242. It was precisely Congress’ command, however, that the ICC promulgate standards to govern the Single State Registration System, 49 U. S. C. § 11506(c) (1994 ed.), and it was thus for that agency to resolve any ambiguities and fill in any holes in the statutory scheme. See Mead Corp., supra, at 229; Chevron, supra, at 843-844. To hold States to the fees they actually collected or charged seems to us a reasonable interpretation of the statute’s command that state fees be “equal to the fee, not to exceed $10 per vehicle, that such State collected or charged as of November 15, 1991.” 49 U. S. C. § 14504(c)(2)(B)(iv)(III).
Respondents argue that the ICC’s rule contravenes ISTEA’s fee-cap provision by limiting what a State can charge based on what was collected from or charged to a particular carrier. Respondents point out that the focus of the provision is on the actions of the State, not the actions of any particular carrier. While we agree that the statute focuses on what States “collected or charged” rather than what particular carriers paid, we do not agree that the ICC’s rule focuses the inquiry on the latter. Under the “bingo card” regime, States entered into reciprocity agreements that waived or reduced fees charged to particular categories of vehicles. The ICC’s rule does not necessarily cap the aggregate fee paid by any particular carrier; rather, it simply requires States to preserve fees at the levels they actually collected or charged pursuant to reciprocity agreements in place as of November 15, 1991.
Because the ICC’s interpretation of ISTEA’s fee-cap provision is consistent with the language of the statute and reasonably resolves any ambiguity therein, see Chevron, 467 U. S., at 843, the Michigan Supreme Court erred in declining to enforce it.
The judgment is therefore reversed, and the case is remanded to the Michigan Supreme Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Congress abolished the ICC in 1995 and assigned responsibility for administering the new Single State Registration System to the Secretary of Transportation. See ICC Termination Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-88, § 101, 109 Stat. 803. The provisions of ISTEA governing the system were amended and recodified. See 49 U. S. C. § 14504(c). The Federal Highway Administration, under the Secretary of Transportation, adopted the ICC regulations that implemented the Single State Registration System, 61 Fed. Reg. 54706, 54707 (1996), and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration now has authority to administer the system, 49 U. S. C. § 113(f)(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: | 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.
A jury in New Hampshire Superior Court awarded respondent damages in this civil libel action based on one of petitioner’s columns in the Laconia Evening Citizen. Respondent alleged that the column contained defamatory falsehoods concerning his performance as Supervisor of the Belknap County Recreation Area, a facility owned and operated by Belknap County. In the interval between the trial and the decision of petitioner’s appeal by the New Hampshire Supreme Court, we decided New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U. S. 254. We there held that consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments a State cannot award damages to a public official for defamatory falsehood relating to his official conduct unless the official proves actual malice — that the falsehood was published with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false. The New Hampshire Supreme Court affirmed the award, finding New York Times no bar. 106 N. H. 26, 203 A. 2d 773. We granted certiorari and requested the parties to brief and argue, in addition to the questions presented in the petition for certiorari, the question whether respondent was a “public official” under New York Times and under our decision in Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64. 380 U. S. 941.
The Recreation Area was used principally as a ski resort but also for other recreational activities. Respondent was employed by and directly responsible to the Belknap County Commissioners, three elected officials in charge of the county government. During the 1950’s, a public controversy developed over the way respondent and the Commissioners operated the Area; some protested that respondent and the Commissioners had not developed the Area’s full potential, either as a resort for local residents or as a tourist attraction that might contribute to the county’s taxes. The discussion culminated in 1959, when the New Hampshire Legislature enacted a law transferring control of the Area to a special five-man commission. At least in part to give this new regime a fresh start, respondent was discharged.
Petitioner regularly contributed an unpaid column to the Laconia Evening Citizen. In it he frequently commented on political matters. As an outspoken proponent of the change in operations at the Recreation Area, petitioner’s views were often sharply stated, and he had indicated disagreement with the actions taken by respondent and the County Commissioners.- In January 1960, during the first ski season under the new management, some six months after respondent’s discharge, petitioner published the column that respondent alleges libeled him. In relevant part, it reads:
“Been doing a little listening and checking at Belknap Recreation Area and am thunderstruck by what am learning.
“This year, a year without snow till very late, a year with actually few very major changes in procedure; the difference in cash income simply fantastic, almost unbelievable.
“On any sort of comparative basis, the Area this year is doing literally hundreds of per cent BETTER than last year.
“When consider that last year was excellent snow year, that season started because of more snow, months earlier last year, one can only ponder following question:
“What happened to all the money last year? and every other year? What magic has Dana Beane [Chairman of the new commission] and rest of commission, and Mr. Warner [respondent’s replacement as Supervisor] wrought to make such tremendous difference in net cash results?”
I.
The column on its face contains no clearly actionable statement. Although the questions "What happened to all the money last year? and every other year?” could be read to imply peculation, they could also be read, in context, merely to praise the present administration. The only persons mentioned by name are officials of the new regime; no reference is made to respondent, the three elected commissioners, or anyone else who had a part in the administration of the Area during respondent’s tenure. Persons familiar with the controversy over the Area might well read it as complimenting the luck or skill of the new management in attracting increased patronage and producing a “tremendous difference in net cash results” despite less favorable snow; indeed, witnesses for petitioner testified that they so read the column.
Respondent offered extrinsic proofs to supply a defamatory meaning. These proofs were that the column greatly exaggerated any improvement under the new regime, and that a large part of the community understood it to say that the asserted improvements were not explicable by anything the new management had done. Rather, his witnesses testified, they read the column as imputing mismanagement and peculation during respondent’s tenure. Respondent urged two theories to support a recovery based on that imputation.
II.
The first was that the jury could award him damages if it found that the column cast suspicion indiscriminately on the small number of persons who composed the former management group, whether or not it found that the imputation of misconduct was specifically made of and concerning him. This theory of recovery was open to respondent under New Hampshire law; the trial judge explicitly instructed the jury that “an imputation of impropriety or a crime to one or some of a small group that casts suspicion upon all is actionable.” The question is presented, however, whether that theory of recovery is precluded by our holding in New York Times that, in the absence of sufficient evidence that the attack focused on the plaintiff, an otherwise impersonal attack on governmental operations cannot be utilized to establish a libel of those administering the operations. 376 U. S., at 290-292.
The plaintiff in New York Times was one of the three elected Commissioners of the City of Montgomery, Alabama. His duties included the supervision of the police department. The statements in the advertisement upon which he principally relied as referring to him were that “truckloads of police . . . ringed the Alabama State College Campus” after a demonstration on the State Capitol steps, and that Dr. Martin Luther King had been “arrested . . . seven times.” These statements were false in that although the police had been “deployed near the campus,” they had not actually “ringed” it and had not gone there in connection with a State Capitol demonstration, and in that Dr. King had been arrested only four times. We held that evidence that Sullivan as Police Commissioner was the supervisory head of the Police Department was constitutionally insufficient to show that the statements about police activity were “of and concerning” him; we rejected as inconsistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments the proposition followed by the Alabama Supreme Court in the case that “[i]n measuring the performance or deficiencies of . . . groups, praise or criticism is usually attached to the official in complete control of the body,” 273 Ala. 656, 674-675, 144 So. 2d 25, 39. To allow the jury to connect the statements with Sullivan on that presumption alone was, in our view, to invite the spectre of prosecutions for libel on government, which the Constitution does not tolerate in any form. 376 U. S., at 273-276, 290-292. We held “that such a proposition may not constitutionally be utilized to establish that an otherwise impersonal attack on governmental operations was a libel of an official responsible for those operations.” 376 U. S., at 292. There must be evidence showing that the attack was read as specifically directed at the plaintiff.
Were the statement at issue in this case an explicit charge that the Commissioners and Baer or the entire Area management were corrupt, we assume without deciding that any member of the identified group might recover. The statement itself might be sufficient evidence that the attack was specifically directed at each individual. Even if a charge and reference were merely implicit, as is alleged here, but a plaintiff could show by extrinsic proofs that the statement referred to him, it would be no defense to a suit by one member of an identifiable group engaged in governmental activity that another was also attacked. These situations are distinguishable from the present case; here, the jury was permitted to infer both defamatory content and reference from the challenged statement itself, although the statement on its face is only an impersonal discussion of government activity. To the extent the trial judge authorized the jury to award respondent a recovery without regard to evidence that the asserted implication of the column was made specifically of and concerning him, we hold that the instruction was erroneous. Here, no explicit charge of peculation was made; no assault on the previous management appears. The jury was permitted to award damages upon a finding merely that respondent was one of a small group acting for an organ of government, only some of whom were implicated, but all of whom were tinged with suspicion. In effect, this permitted the jury to find liability merely on the basis of his relationship to the government agency, the operations of which were the subject of discussion. It is plain that the elected Commissioners, also members of that group, would Lave been barred from suit on this theory under New York Times. They would be required to show specific reference. Whether or not respondent was a public official, as a member of the group he bears the same burden. A theory that the column cast indiscriminate suspicion on the members of the group responsible for the conduct of this governmental operation is tantamount to a demand for recovery based on libel of government, and therefore is constitutionally insufficient. Since the trial judge’s instructions were erroneous in this respect, the judgment must be reversed.
III.
Respondent’s second theory, supported by testimony, of several witnesses, was that the column was read as referring specifically to him, as the “man in charge” at the Area, personally responsible for its financial affairs. Even accepting respondent’s reading, the column manifestly discusses the conduct of operations of government. The subject matter may have been only of local interest, but at least here, where publication was addressed primarily to the interested community, that fact is constitutionally irrelevant. The question is squarely presented whether the “public official” designation under New York Times applies.
If it does, it is clear that the jury instructions were improper. Under the instructions, the jury was permitted to find that negligent misstatement of fact would defeat petitioner’s privilege. That test was rejected in Garrison, 379 U. S., at 79, where we said, “The test which we laid down in New York Times is not keyed to ordinary care; defeasance of the privilege is conditioned, not on mere negligence, but on reckless disregard for the truth.” The trial court also charged that “[d]efama-tory matter which constitutes comment rather than fact is justified if made without malice and represented fair comment on matters of public interest,” and defined malice to include “ill will, evil motive, intention to injure . . . .” This definition of malice is constitutionally insufficient where discussion of public affairs is concerned; “[w]e held in New York Times that a public official might be allowed the civil remedy only if he establishes that the utterance was false and that it was made with knowledge of its falsity or in reckless disregard of whether it was false or 'true.” Garrison, 379 U. S., at 74.
Turning, then, to the question whether respondent was a “public official” within New York Times, we reject at the outset his suggestion that it should be answered by reference to state-law standards. States have developed definitions of “public official” for local administrative purposes, not the purposes of a national constitutional protection. If existing state-law standards reflect the purposes of New York Times, this is at best accidental. Our decision in New York Times, moreover, draws its force from the constitutional protections afforded free expression. The standards that set the scope of its principles cannot therefore be such that “the constitutional limits of free expression in the Nation would vary with state lines.” Pennekamp v. Florida, 328 U. S. 331, 335.
We remarked in New York Times that we had no occasion “to determine how far down into the lower ranks of government employees the 'public official’ designation would extend for purposes of this rule, or otherwise to specify categories of persons who would or would not be included.” 376 U. S., at 283, n. 23. No precise lines need be drawn for the purposes of this case. The motivating force for the decision in New York Times was twofold. We expressed “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that [such debate] may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” 376 U. S., at 270. (Emphasis supplied.) There is, first, a strong interest in debate on public issues, and, second, a strong interest in debate about those persons who are in a position significantly to influence the resolution of those issues. Criticism of government is at the very center of the constitutionally protected area of free discussion. Criticism of those responsible for government operations must be free, lest criticism of government itself be penalized. It is clear, therefore, that the “public official” designation applies at the very least to those among the hierarchy of government employees who have, or appear to the public to have, substantial responsibility for or control over the conduct of governmental affairs.
This conclusion does not ignore the important social values which underlie the law of defamation. Society has a pervasive and strong interest in preventing and redressing attacks upon reputation. But in cases like the present, there is tension between this interest and the values nurtured by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The thrust of New York Times is that when interests in public discussion are particularly strong, as they were in that case, the Constitution limits the protections afforded by the law of defamation. Where a position in government has such apparent importance that the public has an independent interest in the qualifications and performance of the person who holds it, beyond the general public interest in the qualifications and performance of all government employees, both elements we identified in New York Times are present and the New York Times malice standards apply.
As respondent framed his case, he may have held such a position. Since New York Times had not been decided when his case went to trial, his presentation was not shaped to the “public official” issue. He did, however, seek to show that the article referred particularly to him. His theory was that his role in the management of the Area was so prominent and important that the public regarded him as the man responsible for its operations, chargeable with its failures and to be credited with its successes. Thus, to prove the article referred to him, he showed the importance of his role; the same showing, at the least, raises a substantial argument that he was a “public official.”
The record here, however, leaves open the possibility that respondent could have adduced proofs to bring his claim outside the New York Times rule. Moreover, even if the claim falls within New York Times, the record suggests respondent may be able to present a jury question of malice as there defined. Because the trial here was had before New York Times, we have concluded that we should not foreclose him from attempting retrial of his action. We remark only that, as is the case with questions of privilege generally, it is for the trial judge in the first instance to determine whether the proofs show respondent to be a “public official.”
The judgment is reversed and the case remanded to the New Hampshire Supreme Court for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Clark concurs in the result.
N. H. Laws 1959, c. 399.
The article purports to compare performance of the ski Area under the direction of unnamed persons during the prior year with performance of the Area under the direction of an identified group — a group which includes not only the new manager of the Area, but the new commissioners as well.
See generally Lewis, The Individual Member’s Right to Recover for a Defamation Leveled at the Group, 17 U. Miami L. Rev. 519, 523-525 (1963).
See Kalven, The New York Times Case: A Note on “The Central Meaning of the First Amendment,” 1964 Sup. Ct. Rev. 191, 207-210.
Such recovery would, of course, be subject to a showing of actual malice if the individual were a “public official” within the meaning of New York Times.
It might be argued that the charge instructed the jury to award recovery only if it found that the libel was aimed at Mr. Baer or if it found the libel aimed at Mr. Baer, along with a few others. Such a charge might not be objectionable; we do not mean to suggest that the fact that more than one person is libeled by a statement is a defense to suit by a member of the group. However, we cannot read the charge as being so limited. The jury was told:
“an imputation of impropriety or a crime to one or some of a small group that casts suspicion upon all is actionable. It is sufficient if Mr. Baer . . . proves . . . that he was one of a group upon whom suspicion was cast . . . ; but Mr. Baer has the burden of showing that the defamation, if you find that there was one, either was directed to him or could have been as one of a small group.” (Emphasis supplied.)
The latitude allowed the jury to find defamatory reference in this apparently impersonal discussion of government affairs was thus too broad.
See Gilberg v. Goffi, 21 App. Div. 2d 517, 251 N. Y. S. 2d 823 (1964), aff’d, 15 N. Y. 2d 1023, 207 N. E. 2d 620 (1965); Comment, 114 U. Pa. L. Rev. 241 (1965).
The New Hampshire court fully recognized that this was the subject of the column. It instructed the jury:
“You are entitled, I think, to find that the public had a right to be informed about any difficulties or discrepancies in income or thievery at this public area. It’s in the public domain. It’s public property .... Keep in mind that the public has a right to know how their public affairs are being conducted . . . .”
See, e. g., Opinion of the Justices, 73 N. H. 621, 62 A. 969 (1906).
For similar reasons, we reject any suggestion that our references in New York Times, 376 U. S., at 282, 283, n. 23, and Garrison, 379 U. S., at 74, to Barr v. Matteo, 360 U. S. 564, mean that we have tied the New York Times rule to the rule of official privilege. The public interests protected by the New York Times rule are interests in discussion, not retaliation, and our reference to Barr should be taken to mean no more than that the scope of the privilege is to be determined by reference to the functions it serves. See Pedriek, Freedom of the Press and the Law of Libel: The Modern Revised Translation, 49 Cornell L. Q. 581, 590-591 (1964).
Compare, e. g., Clancy v. Daily News Corp., 202 Minn. 1, 277 N. W. 264 (1938); Tanzer v. Crowley Publishing Corp., 240 App. Div. 203, 268 N. Y. Supp. 620 (1934); Poleski v. Polish Am. Publishing Co., 254 Mich. 15, 235 N. W. 841 (1931); 1 Harper & James, Torts § 5.26, pp. 449-450 (1956); Prosser, Torts § 110, p. 815 (3d ed. 1964); Noel, Defamation of Public Officers and Candidates, 49 Col. L. Rev. 875, 896-897, 901-902 (1949); Comment, 113 U. Pa. L. Rev. 284, 288 (1964); Note, 18 Vand. L. Rev. 1429, 1445 (1965).
We are treating here only the element of public position, since that is all that has been argued and briefed. We intimate no view whatever whether there are other bases for applying the New York Times standards — for example, that in a particular case the interests in reputation are relatively insubstantial, because the subject of discussion has thrust himself into the vortex of the discussion of a question of pressing public concern. Cf. Salinger v. Cowles, 195 Iowa 873, 889, 191 N. W. 167, 173-174 (1922); Peck v. Coos Bay Times Publishing Co., 122 Ore. 408, 420-421, 259 P. 307, 311-312 (1927); Coleman v. MacLennan, 78 Kan. 711, 723-724, 98 P. 281, 285-286 (1908); Pauling v. News Syndicate Co., 335 F. 2d 659, 671 (C. A. 2d Cir. 1964).
It is suggested that this test might apply to a night watchman accused of stealing state secrets. But a conclusion that the New York Times malice standards apply could not be reached merely because a statement defamatory of some person in government employ catches the public’s interest; that conclusion would virtually disregard society’s interest in protecting reputation. The employee’s position must be one which would invite public scrutiny and discussion of the person holding it, entirely apart from the scrutiny and discussion occasioned by the particular charges in controversy.
It is not seriously contended, and could not be, that the fact respondent no longer supervised the Area when the column appeared has decisional significance here. To be sure, there may be eases where a person is so far removed from a former position of authority that comment on the manner in which he performed his responsibilities no longer has the interest necessary to justify the New York Times■ rule. But here the management of the Area was still a matter of lively public interest; propositions for further change were abroad, and public interest in the way in which the prior administration had done its task continued strong. The comment, if it referred to respondent, referred to his performance of duty as a county employee.
1 Harper & James, Torts §5.29 (1956); Prosser, Torts §110, p. 823 (3d ed. 1964), Restatement, Torts §619. Such a course will both lessen the possibility that a jury will use the cloak of a general verdict to punish unpopular ideas or speakers, and assure an appellate court the record and findings required for review of constitutional decisions. Cf. Speiser v. Randall, 357 U. S. 513, 525; New York Times, 376 U. S., at 285.
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 Stevens
delivered the opinion of the Court.
For over 30 years the Attorney General has possessed statutory authority to withhold the deportation of an alien upon a finding that the alien would be subject to persecution in the country to which he would be deported. The question presented by this case is whether a deportable alien must demonstrate a clear probability of persecution in order to obtain such relief under § 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h), as amended by § 203(e) of the Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-212, 94 Stat. 107.
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Respondent, a Yugoslavian citizen, entered the United States in 1976 to visit his sister, then a permanent resident alien residing in Chicago. Petitioner, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), instituted deportation proceedings against respondent when he overstayed his 6-week period of admission. Respondent admitted that he was deport-able and agreed to depart voluntarily by February 1977. In January 1977, however, respondent married a United States citizen who obtained approval of a visa petition on his behalf. Shortly thereafter, respondent’s wife died in an automobile accident. The approval of respondent’s visa petition was automatically revoked, and petitioner ordered respondent to surrender for deportation to Yugoslavia.
Respondent moved to reopen the deportation proceedings in August 1977, seeking relief under § 243(h) of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which then provided:
“The Attorney General is authorized to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion and for such period of time as he deems to be necessary for such reason.” 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h) (1976 ed.).
Respondent’s supporting affidavit stated that he had become active in an anti-Communist organization after his marriage in early 1977, that his father-in-law had been imprisoned in Yugoslavia because of membership in that organization, and that he feared imprisonment upon his return to Yugoslavia.
In October 1979, the Immigration Judge denied respondent’s motion to reopen without conducting an evidentiary hearing. The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) upheld that action, explaining:
“A Motion to reopen based on a section 243 (h) claim of persecution must contain prima facie evidence that there is a clear probability of persecution to be directed at the individual respondent. See Cheng Kai Fu v. INS, 386 F. 2d 750 (2 Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 1003 (1968). Although the applicant here claims to be eligible for withholding of deportation which was not available to him at the time of his deportation hearing, he has not presented any evidence which would indicate that he will be singled out for persecution.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 34-35.
Respondent did not seek judicial review of that decision.
After receiving notice to surrender for deportation in February 1981, respondent filed his second motion to reopen. He again sought relief pursuant to § 243(h) which then— because of its amendment in 1980 — read as follows:
“The Attorney General shall not deport or return any alien... to a country if the Attorney General determines that such alien’s life or freedom would be threatened in such country on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h)(1).
Although additional written material was submitted in support of the second motion, like the first, it was denied without a hearing. The Board of Immigration Appeals held that respondent had not shown that the additional evidence was unavailable at the time his first motion had been filed and, further, that he had still failed to submit prima facie evidence that “there is a clear probability of persecution” directed at respondent individually. Thus, the Board applied the same standard of proof it had applied regarding respondent’s first motion to reopen, notwithstanding the intervening amendment of § 243(h) in 1980.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed and remanded for a plenary hearing under a different standard of proof. Stevic v. Sava, 678 F. 2d 401 (1982). Specifically, it held that respondent no longer had the burden of showing “a clear probability of persecution,” but instead could avoid deportation by demonstrating a “well-founded fear of persecution.” The latter language is contained in a definition of the term “refugee” adopted by a United Nations Protocol to which the United States has adhered since 1968. The Court of Appeals held that the Refugee Act of 1980 changed the standard of proof that an alien must satisfy to obtain relief under § 243(h), concluding that Congress intended to abandon the “clear probability of persecution” standard and substitute the “well-founded fear of persecution” language of the Protocol as the standard. Other than stating that the Protocol language was “considerably more generous” or “somewhat more generous” to the alien than the former standard, id., at 405, 406, the court did not detail the differences between them and stated that it “would be unwise to attempt a more detailed elaboration of the applicable legal test under the Protocol,” id., at 409. The court concluded that respondent’s showing entitled him to a hearing under the new standard.
Because of the importance of the question presented, and because of the conflict in the Circuits on the question, we granted certiorari, 460 U. S. 1010 (1983). We now reverse and hold that an alien must establish a clear probability of persecution to avoid deportation under § 243(h).
I — I I — I
The basic contentions of the parties in this case may be summarized briefly. Petitioner contends that the words “clear probability of persecution” and “well-founded fear of persecution” are not self-explanatory and when read in the light of their usage by courts prior to adoption of the Refugee Act of 1980, it is obvious that there is no “significant” difference between them. If there is a “significant” difference between them, however, petitioner argues that Congress’ clear intent in enacting the Refugee Act of 1980 was to maintain the status quo, which petitioner argues would mean continued application of the clear-probability-of-persecution standard to withholding of deportation claims. In this regard, petitioner maintains that our accession to the United Nations Protocol in 1968 was based on the express “understanding” that it would not alter the “substance” of our immigration laws.
Respondent argues that the standards are not coterminous and that the well-founded-fear-of-persecution standard turns almost entirely on the alien’s state of mind. Respondent points out that the well-founded-fear language was adopted in the definition of a refugee contained in the United Nations Protocol adhered to by the United States since 1968. Respondent basically contends that ever since 1968, the well-founded-fear standard should have applied to withholding of deportation claims, but Congress simply failed to honor the Protocol by failing to enact implementing legislation until adoption of the Refugee Act of 1980, which contains the Protocol definition of refugee.
Each party is plainly correct in one regard: in 1980 Congress intended to adopt a standard for withholding of deportation claims by reference to pre-existing sources of law. We begin our analysis of this case by examining those sources of law.
I — I HH HH
United States Refugee Law prior to 1968
Legislation enacted by the Congress in 1950, 1952, and 1965 authorized the Attorney General to withhold deportation of an otherwise deportable alien if the alien would be subject to persecution upon deportation. At least before 1968, it was clear that an alien was required to demonstrate a “clear probability of persecution” or a “likelihood of persecution” in order to be eligible for withholding of deportation under § 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U. S. C. § 1253(h) (1964 ed.). E. g., Cheng Kai Fu v. INS, 386 F. 2d 750, 753 (CA2 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 1003 (1968); Lena v. INS, 379 F. 2d 536, 538 (CA7 1967); In re Janus and Janek, 12 I. & N. Dec. 866, 873 (BIA 1968); In re Kojoory, 12 I. & N. Dec. 215, 220 (BIA 1967). With certain exceptions, this relief was available to any alien who was already “within the United States,” albeit unlawfully and subject to deportation.
The relief authorized by § 243(h) was not, however, available to aliens at the border seeking refuge in the United States due to persecution. See generally Leng May Ma v. Barber, 357 U. S. 185 (1958). Since 1947, relief to refugees at our borders has taken the form of an
“immigration and naturalization policy which granted immigration preferences to ‘displaced persons,’ ‘refugees,’ or persons who fled certain areas of the world because of ‘persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion.’ Although the language through which Congress has implemented this policy since 1947 has changed slightly from time to time, the basic policy has remained constant — to provide a haven for homeless refugees and to fulfill American responsibilities in connection with the International Refugee Organization of the United Nations.” Rosenberg v. Yee Chien Woo, 402 U. S. 49, 52 (1971).
Most significantly, the Attorney General was authorized under § 203(a)(7) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, 8 U. S. C. § 1153(a)(7)(A)(i) (1976 ed.), to permit “conditional entry” as immigrants for a number of refugees fleeing from a Communist-dominated area or the Middle East “because of persecution or fear of persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion.” See also §212(d)(5) of the Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1182(d)(5) (granting Attorney General discretion to “parole” aliens into the United States temporarily for emergency reasons). An alien seeking admission under § 203(a)(7) was required to establish a good reason to fear persecution. Compare In re Tan, 12 I. & N. Dec. 564, 569-570 (BIA 1967), with In re Ugricic, 14 I. & N. Dec. 384, 385-386 (Dist. Dir. 1972).
The United Nations Protocol
In 1968 the United States acceded to the United Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, [1968] 19 U. S. T. 6223, T. I. A. S. No. 6577. The Protocol bound parties to comply with the substantive provisions of Articles 2 through 34 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 189 U. N. T. S. 150 (July 28, 1951) with respect to “refugees” as defined in Article 1.2 of the Protocol.
Article 1.2 of the Protocol defines a “refugee” as an individual who
“owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”
Compare 19 U. S. T. 6225 with 19 U. S. T. 6261 (1968).
Two of the substantive provisions of the Convention are germane to the issue before us. Article 33.1 of the Convention provides: “No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” 19 U. S. T., at 6276. Article 34 provides in pertinent part: “The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalization of refugees....” Ibid.
The President and the Senate believed that the Protocol was largely consistent with existing law. There are many statements to that effect in the legislative history of the accession to the Protocol. E. g., S. Exec. Rep. No. 14, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., 4 (1968) (“refugees in the United States have long enjoyed the protection and the rights which the protocol calls for”); id., at 6, 7 (“the United States already meets the standards of the Protocol”); see also, id., at 2; S. Exec. K, 90th Cong., 2d Sess., Ill, VII (1968); 114 Cong. Rec. 29391 (1968) (remarks of Sen. Mansfield); id., at 27757 (remarks of Sen. Proxmire). And it was “absolutely clear” that the Protocol would not “requir[e] the United States to admit new categories or numbers of aliens.” S. Exec. Rep. No. 14, swpra, at 19. It was also believed that apparent differences between the Protocol and existing statutory law could be reconciled by the Attorney General in administration and did not require any modification of statutory language. See, e. g., S. Exec. K, supra, at VIII.
United States Refugee Law: 1968-1980
Five years after the United States’ accession to the Protocol, the Board of Immigration Appeals was confronted with the same basic issue confronting us today in the case of In re Dunar, 14 I. & N. Dec. 310 (1973). The deportee argued that he was entitled to withholding of deportation upon a showing of a well-founded fear of persecution, and essentially maintained that a conjectural possibility of persecution would suffice to make the fear “well founded.” The Board rejected that interpretation of “well founded,” and stated that a likelihood of persecution was required for the fear to be “well founded.” Id., at 319. It observed that neither § 243(h) nor Article 33 used the term “well-founded fear,” and stated:
“Article 33 speaks in terms of threat to life or freedom on account of any of the five enumerated reasons. Such threats would also constitute subjection to persecution within the purview of section 243(h). The latter has also been construed to encompass economic sanctions sufficiently harsh to constitute a threat to life or freedom, Dunat v. Hurney, 297 F. 2d 744 (3 Cir., 1962); cf. Kovac v. INS, 407 F. 2d 102 (9 Cir., 1969). In our estimation, there is no substantial difference in coverage of section 243(h) and Article 33. We are satisfied that distinctions in terminology can be reconciled on a case-by-case consideration as they arise.” Id., at 320.
The Board concluded that “Article 33 has effected no substantial changes in the application of section 243(h), either by way of burden of proof, coverage, or manner of arriving at decisions,” id., at 323, and stated that Dunar had failed to establish “the likelihood that he would be persecuted.... Even if we apply the nomenclature of Articles 1 and 33, we are satisfied that respondent has failed to show a well-founded fear that his life or freedom will be threatened,” id., at 324.
Although before In re Dunar, the Board and the courts had consistently used a clear-probability or likelihood standard under § 243(h), after that case the term “well-founded fear” was employed in some cases. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which had construed § 243(h) as applying only to “cases of clear probability of persecution” in a frequently cited case decided before 1968, Lena v. INS, 379 P. 2d 536, 538 (1967), reached the same conclusion in a case decided after the United States’ adherence to the Protocol. Kashani v. INS, 547 F. 2d 376 (1977). In that opinion Judge Swygert reasoned that the “well founded fear of persecution” language could “only be satisfied by objective evidence,” and that it would “in practice converge” with the “clear probability” standard that the Seventh Circuit had previously “en-grafted onto [§]243(h).” Id., at 379. Other Courts of Appeals appeared to reach essentially the same conclusion. See e. g., Fleurinor v. INS, 585 F. 2d 129, 132, 134 (CA5 1978); Pereira-Diaz v. INS, 551 F. 2d 1149, 1154 (CA9 1977); Zamora v. INS, 534 F. 2d 1055, 1058, 1063 (CA2 1976).
While the Protocol was the source of some controversy with respect to the standard for § 243(h) claims for withholding of deportation, the United States’ accession did not appear to raise any questions concerning the standard to be applied for § 203(a)(7) requests for admission. The “good reason to fear persecution” language was employed in such cases. See, e. g., In re Ugride, 14 I. & N. Dec., at 385-386.
> 1 — 1
Section 203(e) of the Refugee Act of 1980 amended the language of § 243(h), basically conforming it to the language of Article 33 of the United Nations Protocol. The amendment made three changes in the text of § 243(h), but none of these three changes expressly governs the standard of proof an applicant must satisfy or implicitly changes that standard. The amended § 243(h), like Article 33, makes no mention of a probability of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution. In short, the text of the statute simply does not specify how great a possibility of persecution must exist to qualify the alien for withholding of deportation. To the extent such a standard can be inferred from the bare language of the provision, it appears that a likelihood of persecution is required. The section literally provides for withholding of deportation only if the alien’s life or freedom “would” be threatened in the country to which he would be deported; it does not require withholding if the alien “might” or “could” be subject to persecution. Finally, § 243(h), both prior to and after amendment, makes no mention of the term “refugee”; rather, any alien within the United States is entitled to withholding if he meets the standard set forth.
Respondent understandably does not rely upon the specific textual changes in § 243(h) in support of his position that a well-founded fear of persecution entitles him to withholding of deportation. Instead, respondent points to the provision of the Refugee Act which eliminated the ideological and geographical restrictions on admission of refugees under § 203(a)(7) and adopted an expanded version of the United Nations Protocol definition of “refugee.” This definition contains the well-founded-fear language and now appears under § 101(a)(42)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U. S. C. § 1101(a)(42)(A). Other provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as amended, now provide preferential immigration status, within numerical limits, to those qualifying as refugees under the modified Protocol definition and renders a more limited class of refugees, though still a class broader than the Protocol definition, eligible for a discretionary grant of asylum.
Respondent, however, is not seeking discretionary relief under these provisions, which explicitly employ the well-founded-fear standard now appearing in § 101(a)(42)(A). Rather, he claims he is entitled to withholding of deportation under § 243(h) upon establishing a well-founded fear of persecution. Section 243(h), however, does not refer to § 101(a)(42)(A). Hence, there is no textual basis in the statute for concluding that the well-founded-fear-of-persecution standard is relevant to a withholding of deportation claim under § 243(h).
Before examining the legislative history of the Refugee Act of 1980 in order to ascertain whether Congress nevertheless intended a well-founded-fear standard to be employed under § 243(h), we observe that the Refugee Act itself does not contain any definition of the “well-founded fear of persecution” language contained in § 101(a)(42)(A). The parties vigorously contest whether the well-founded-fear standard is coterminous with the clear-probability-of-persecution standard.
Initially, we do not think there is any serious dispute regarding the meaning of the clear-probability standard under the § 243(h) case law. The question under that standard is whether it is more likely than not that the alien would be subject to persecution. The argument of the parties on this point is whether the well-founded-fear standard is the same as the clear-probability standard as just defined, or whether it is more generous to the alien.
Petitioner argues that persecution must be more likely than not for a fear of persecution to be considered “well founded.” The positions of respondent and several amici curiae are somewhat amorphous. Respondent seems to maintain that a fear of persecution is “well founded” if the evidence establishes some objective basis in reality for the fear. This would appear to mean that so long as the fear is not imaginary — i. e., if it is founded in reality at all — it is “well founded.” A more moderate position is that so long as an objective situation is established by the evidence, it need not be shown that the situation will probably result in persecution, but it is enough that persecution is a reasonable possibility.
Petitioner and respondent seem to agree that prior to passage of the Refugee Act, the Board and the courts actually used a clear-probability standard for § 243(h) claims. That is, prior to the amendment, § 243(h) relief would be granted if the evidence established that it was more likely than not that the alien would be persecuted in the country to which he was being deported; relief would not be granted merely upon a showing of some basis in reality for the fear, or if there was only a reasonable possibility of persecution falling short of a probability. Petitioner argues that some of the prior case law using the term “well-founded fear” simply used that term interchangeably with the phrase “clear probability.” Respondent agrees in substance, but argues that although prior cases employed the term “well-founded fear,” they misconstrued the meaning of the term under the United Nations Protocol.
For purposes of our analysis, we may assume, as the Court of Appeals concluded, that the well-founded-fear standard is more generous than the clear-probability-of-persecution standard because we can identify no basis in the legislative history for applying that standard in § 243(h) proceedings or any legislative intent to alter the pre-existing practice.
The principal motivation for the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980 was a desire to revise and regularize the procedures governing the admission of refugees into the United States. The primary substantive change Congress intended to make under the Refugee Act, and indeed in our view the only substantive change even relevant to this case, was to eliminate the piecemeal approach to admission of refugees previously existing under § 203(a)(7) and § 212(d)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and § 108 of the regulations, and to establish a systematic scheme for admission and resettlement of refugees. S. Rep. No. 96-256, p. 1 (1979) (S. Rep.); H. R. Rep. No. 96-608, pp. 1-5 (1979) (H. R. Rep.). The Act adopted, and indeed, expanded upon, the Protocol definition of “refugee,” S. Rep., at 19; H. R. Rep., at 9-10, and intended that the definition would be construed consistently with the Protocol, S. Rep., at. 9, 20. It was plainly recognized, however, that “merely because an individual or group of refugees comes within the definition will not guarantee resettlement in the United States. The Committee is of the opinion that the new definition does not create a new and expanded means of entry, but instead regularizes and formalizes the policies and practices that have been followed in recent years.” H. R. Rep., at 10. The Congress distinguished between discretionary grants of refugee admission or asylum and the entitlement to a withholding of deportation if the § 243(h) standard was met. See id., at 17-18.
Elimination of the geographic and ideological restrictions under the former § 203(a)(7) was thought to bring the United States’ scheme into conformity with its obligations under the Protocol, see S. Rep., at 4, 15-16, and in our view these references are to the United States’ obligations under Article 34 to facilitate the naturalization of refugees within the definition of the Protocol. There is, as always, some ambiguity in the legislative history — the term “asylum,” in particular, seems to be used in various ways, see, e. g., S. Rep., at 9, 16 — but that is understandable given that the same problem with nomenclature has been evident in case law as well. See In re Lam, Interim Dec. No. 2857, p. 5 (BIA, Mar. 24,1981). Going to the substance of the matter, however, it seems clear that Congress understood that refugee status alone did not require withholding of deportation, but rather, the alien had to satisfy the standard under §243(h), S. Rep., at 16. The amendment of § 243(h) was explicitly recognized to be a mere conforming amendment, added “for the sake of clarity,” and was plainly not intended to change the standard. H. R. Rep., at 17-18.
The Court of Appeals’ decision rests on the mistaken premise that every alien who qualifies as a “refugee” under the statutory definition is also entitled to a withholding of deportation under § 243(h). We find no support for this conclusion in either the language of § 243(h), the structure of the amended Act, or the legislative history.
We have deliberately avoided any attempt to state the governing standard beyond noting that it requires that an application be supported by evidence establishing that it is more likely than not that the alien would be subject to persecution on one of the specified grounds. This standard is a familiar one to immigration authorities and reviewing courts, and Congress did not intend to alter it in 1980. We observe that shortly after adoption of the Refugee Act, the Board explained: “As we have only quite recently acquired jurisdiction over asylum claims, we are only just now beginning to resolve some of the problems caused by this addition to our jurisdiction, including the problem of determining exactly how withholding of deportation and asylum are to fit together.” In re Lam, Interim Dec. No. 2857, p. 6, n. 4 (BIA, Mar. 24, 1981). Today we resolve one of those problems by deciding that the “clear probability of persecution” standard remains applicable to § 243(h) withholding of deportation claims. We do not decide the meaning of the phrase “well-founded fear of persecution” which is applicable by the terms of the Act and regulations to requests for discretionary asylum. That issue is not presented by this case.
The Court of Appeals granted respondent relief based on its understanding of a standard which, even if properly understood, does not entitle an alien to withholding of deportation under § 243(h). Our holding does, of course, require the Court of Appeals to reexamine this record to determine whether the evidence submitted by respondent entitles him to a plenary hearing under the proper standard.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
The Immigration Judge’s decision stated:
“The policy of restricting favorable exercise of discretion to eases of clear probability of persecution of the particular individual has been sanctioned by the courts (Lena v. Immigration and Naturalization Service. 379 F 2nd 536[,] 538 (7th Cir. 1967). The respondent has submitted no substantial evidence that he would be subjected to persecution as that term is defined by the court.” Brief for Respondent 6-7.
He did not voluntarily respond to that notice; moreover, after his apprehension, he unsuccessfully tried to escape from custody. These events gave rise to a habeas corpus petition raising separate issues that are not before us now.
The opinion of the BIA stated, in part:
“Accordingly, we find that the respondent has failed to comply with the provisions of 8 CFR 3.2 in that there has been no showing that the submitted material was not available nor could not have been discovered or presented at a former hearing.
“In addition, we also conclude that the respondent has failed to make out a prima facie showing that he will be singled out for persecution if deported to Yugoslavia. A motion to reopen based on a section 243(h) claim of persecution must contain prima facie evidence that there is a clear probability of persecution to be directed at the individual respondent. See Cheng Kai Fu v. INS, 386 F. 2d 750 (2 Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U. S. 1003 (1968); Matter of McMullen, Interim Decision 2831 (BIA 1981).
“In the instant case, the many journalistic articles submitted by the respondent are of a general nature, referring to political conditions in Yugoslavia, but not specifically relating to the respondent. The affidavits and petitions contained in the file, while they conclude that the respondent will be imprisoned if he returns to Yugoslavia, do not contain any supporting facts. They express an opinion but provide no direct evidence to link the respondent’s activities in this country and the probability of his persecution in Yugoslavia.
“With regard to the respondent’s allegation that he will be persecuted by Albanian ethnics in Gnjilane, we find that there is nothing to stop the respondent from going to another town in Yugoslavia should he feel threatened in his hometown. A respondent is deported to country [sic], not a city or province. Lavdas v. Holland, 235 F. 2d 955 (3 Cir. 1956); Cantisani v. Holton, 248 F. 2d 737 (7 Cir. 1957).” App. to Pet. for Cert. 30a-31a.
Compare Rejaie v. INS, 691 F. 2d 139 (CA3 1982), with Reyes v. INS, 693 F. 2d 597 (CA6 1982) (relying on decision under review).
Section 23 of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950 amended § 20 of the Immigration Act of February 5,1917, to rewrite the deportation provisions and specifically to add a new § 20(a) which provided in part as follows:
“No alien shall be deported under any provisions of this Act to any country in which the Attorney General shall find that such alien would be subjected to physical persecution.” 64 Stat. 1010.
Section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 provided as follows:
“The Attorney General is authorized to withhold deportation of any alien within the United States to any country in which in his opinion the alien would be subject to physical persecution and for such period of time as he deems to be necessary for such reason.” 66 Stat. 214.
That amendment read as follows:
“(f) Section 243(h) is amended by striking out ‘physical persecution’ and inserting in lieu thereof ‘persecution on account of race, religion, or political opinion.’” §10, 79 Stat. 918.
The provision as revised in 1965 is quoted in the text, supra, at 410.
Notably, during this period of time, neither immigration judges nor the Board of Immigration Appeals had jurisdiction over asylum claims under § 203(a)(7). While the Board had jurisdiction over § 243(h) requests for withholding of deportation, § 203(a)(7) claims for asylum rested in the jurisdiction of Immigration and Naturalization Service District Directors. See generally In re Lam, Interim Dec. No. 2857, p. 5, n. 4 (BIA, Mar. 24,1981).
The United States is not a signatory to the Convention itself.
Article 32.1 of the Convention provides: “The Contracting States shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.” 19 U. S. T., at 6275. It seems plain that respondent could not invoke Article 32, since he was not lawfully in the country when he overstayed his period of admission. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems 47 (Mar. 2,1950) (U. N. Doc. E/1618/Corr.l; E/ AC.32/5/Corr.l) (“The expression ‘lawfully within their territory’ throughout this draft Convention would exclude a refugee who while lawfully admitted has overstayed the period for which he was admitted or was authorized to stay or who has violated any other condition attached to his admission or stay”); see also United Nations Economic and Social Council, Report of Ad Hoc Committee on Statelessness and Related Problems, Second Session 11, ¶20 (Aug. 25, 1950) (U. N. Doc. E/1850; E/AC.32/8). Accord, In re Dunar, 14 I. & N. Dec. 310, 315-318 (BIA 1973) (citing additional authority).
The Board observed that the Attorney General had consistently granted withholding under § 243(h) when the required showing was made. Id., at 321-322.
See, e. g., Fleurinor v. INS, 585 F. 2d 129, 132-134 (CA5 1978) (“well-founded fear” used by Immigration Judge; “likelihood” and “probable persecution” used by court); Martineau v. INS, 556 F. 2d 306, 307, and n. 2 (CA5 1977) (“‘clear probability’ of persecution” and “likelihood of persecution”); Henry v. INS, 552 F. 2d 130, 131-132 (CA5 1977) (“probable persecution,” “reason to fear persecution” and “well-grounded fear of political persecution”); Pereira-Diaz v. INS, 551 F. 2d 1149, 1154 (CA9 1977) (“well-founded fear”); Coriolan v. INS, 559 F. 2d 993, 997, and n. 8 (CA5 1977) (“well-founded fear that... lives or freedom will be threatened” used by Board); Zamora v. INS, 534 F. 2d 1055, 1058 (CA2 1976) (“likelihood of persecution” used by court, “well-founded fear” used by Board); Daniel v. INS
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 review a decision of the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit holding that the commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines is not binding on the federal courts. We decide that commentary in the Guidelines Manual that interprets or explains a guideline is authoritative unless it violates the Constitution or a federal statute, or is inconsistent with, or a plainly erroneous reading of, that guideline.
Petitioner Terry Lynn Stinson entered a plea of guilty to a five-count indictment resulting from his robbery of a Florida bank. The presentence report recommended that petitioner be sentenced as a career offender under the Sentencing Guidelines. See United States Sentencing Commission, Guidelines Manual §4B1.1 (Nov. 1989). Section 4B1.1 provided that a defendant is a career offender if:
“(1) the defendant was at least eighteen years old at the time of the instant offense, (2) the instant offense of conviction is a felony that is either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense, and (3) the defendant has at least two prior felony convictions of either a crime of violence or a controlled substance offense.”
All concede that petitioner was at least 18 years old when the events leading to the indictment occurred and that he then had at least two prior felony convictions for crimes of violence, thereby satisfying the first and third elements in the definition of career offender. It is the second element in this definition, the requirement that the predicate offense be a crime of violence, that gave rise to the ultimate problem in this case. At the time of his sentencing, the Guidelines defined “crime of violence” as, among other things, “any offense under federal or state law punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year that... involves conduct that presents a serious potential risk of physical injury to another.” §4B1.2(1). The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida found that petitioner’s conviction for the offense of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, 18 U. S. C. § 922(g), was a crime of violence, satisfying the second element of the career offender definition. Although the indictment contained other counts, the District Court relied only upon the felon-in-possession offense in applying the career offender provision of the Guidelines. In accord with its conclusions, the District Court sentenced petitioner as a career offender.
On appeal, petitioner maintained his position that the offense relied upon by the District Court was not a crime of violence under USSG §§4B1.1 and 4B1.2(1). The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that possession of a firearm by a felon was, as a categorical matter, a crime of violence. 943 F. 2d 1268, 1271-1273 (CA11 1991). After its decision, however, Amendment 433 to the Guidelines Manual, which added a sentence to the commentary to §4B1.2, became effective. The new sentence stated that “[t]he term ‘crime of violence’ does not include the offense of unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.” USSG App. C, p. 253 (Nov. 1992). See §4B1.2, comment., n. 2. Petitioner sought rehearing, arguing that Amendment 433 should be given retroactive effect, but the Court of Appeals adhered to its earlier interpretation of “crime of violence” and denied the petition for rehearing in an opinion. 957 F. 2d 813 (CA11 1992) (per curiam).
Rather than considering whether the amendment should be given retroactive application, the Court of Appeals held that commentary to the Guidelines, though “persuasive,” is of only “limited authority” and not “binding” on the federal courts. Id., at 815. It rested this conclusion on the fact that Congress does not review amendments to the commentary under 28 U. S. C. § 994(p). The Court of Appeals “decline[d] to be bound by the change in section 4B1.2’s commentary until Congress amends section 4B1.2,s language to exclude specifically the possession of a firearm by a felon as a ‘crime of violence.”’ 957 F. 2d, at 815. The various Courts of Appeals have taken conflicting positions on the authoritative weight to be accorded to the commentary to the Sentencing Guidelines, so we granted certiorari. 506 U. S. 972 (1992).
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (Sentencing Reform Act), as amended, 18 U. S. C. §3551 et seq. (1988 ed. and Supp. Ill), 28 U.S.C. §§991-998 (1988 ed. and Supp. Ill), created the Sentencing Commission, 28 U. S. C. § 991(a), and charged it with the task of “establish[ingj sentencing policies and practices for the Federal criminal justice system,” § 991(b)(1). See Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S. 361, 367-370 (1989). The Commission executed this function by promulgating the Guidelines Manual. The Manual contains text of three varieties. First is a guideline provision itself. The Sentencing Reform Act establishes that the Guidelines are “for use of a sentencing court in determining the sentence to be imposed in a criminal ease.” 28 U. S. C. § 994(a)(1). The Guidelines provide direction as to the appropriate type of punishment — probation, fine, or term of imprisonment — and the extent of the punishment imposed. §§ 994(a)(1)(A) and (B). Amendments to the Guidelines must be submitted to Congress for a 6-month period of review, during which Congress can modify or disapprove them. § 994(p). The second variety of text in the Manual is a policy statement: The Sentencing Reform Act authorizes the promulgation of “general policy statements regarding application of the guidelines” or other aspects of sentencing that would further the purposes of the Act. § 994(a)(2). The third variant of text is commentary, at issue in this case. In the Guidelines Manual, both guidelines and policy statements are accompanied by extensive commentary. Although the Sentencing Reform Act does not in express terms authorize the issuance of commentary, the Act does refer to it. See 18 U. S. C. § 3553(b) (in determining whether to depart from a guidelines range, “the court shall consider only the sentencing guidelines, policy statements, and official commentary of the Sentencing Commission”). The Sentencing Commission has provided in a Guideline that commentary may serve these functions: commentary may “interpret [a] guideline or explain how it is to be applied,” “suggest circumstances which ... may warrant departure from the guidelines,” or “provide background information, including factors considered in promulgating the guideline or reasons underlying promulgation of the guideline.” USSG § 1B1.7.
As we have observed, “the Guidelines bind judges and courts in the exercise of their uncontested responsibility to pass sentence in criminal cases.” Mistretta v. United States, supra, at 391. See also Burns v. United States, 501 U. S. 129, 133 (1991). The most obvious operation of this principle is with respect to the Guidelines themselves. The Sentencing Reform Act provides that, unless the sentencing court finds an aggravating or mitigating factor of a kind, or to a degree, not given adequate consideration by the Commission, a circumstance not applicable in this ease, “[t]he court shall impose a sentence of the kind, and within the range,” established by the applicable guidelines. 18 U. S. C. §§ 3553(a)(4), (b). The principle that the Guidelines Manual is binding on federal courts applies as well to policy statements. In Williams v. United States, 503 U. S. 193, 201 (1992), we said that “[w]here ... a policy statement prohibits a district court from taking a specified action, the statement is an authoritative guide to the meaning of the applicable Guideline.” There, the District Court had departed upward from the Guidelines’ sentencing range based on prior arrests that did not result in criminal convictions. A policy statement, however, prohibited a court from basing a départure on a prior arrest record alone. USSG §4A1.3, p. s. We held that failure to follow the policy statement resulted in a sentence “imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines” under 18 U. S. C. § 3742(f)(1) that should be set aside on appeal unless the error was harmless. 503 U. S., at 201, 203.
In the case before us, the Court of Appeals determined that these principles do not apply to commentary. 957 F. 2d, at 814-815. Its conclusion that the commentary now being considered is not binding on the courts was error. The commentary added by Amendment 433 was interpretive and explanatory of the Guideline defining “crime of violence.” Commentary which functions to “interpret [a] guideline or explain how it is to be applied,” USSG § 1B1.7, controls, and if failure to follow, or a misreading of, such commentary results in a sentence “seleet[ed]. . . from the wrong guideline range,” Williams v. United States, supra, at 203, that sentence would constitute “an incorrect application of the sentencing guidelines” under 18 U. S. C. § 3742(f)(1). A Guideline itself makes this proposition clear. See USSG § 1B1.7 (“Failure to follow such commentary could constitute an incorrect application of the guidelines, subjecting the sentence to possible reversal on appeal”). Our holding in Williams dealing with policy statements applies with equal force to the commentary before us here. Cf. USSG § 1B1.7 (commentary regarding departures from the Guidelines should be “treated as the legal equivalent of a policy statement”); § 1B1.7, comment. (“Portions of [the Guidelines Manual] not labeled as guidelines or commentary ... aré to be construed as commentary and thus have the force of policy statements”).
It does not follow that commentary is binding in all instances. If, for example, commentary and the guideline it interprets are inconsistent in that following one will result in violating the dictates of the other, the Sentencing Reform Act itself commands compliance with the guideline. See 18 U. S. C. §§ 3553(a)(4), (b). Some courts have refused to follow commentary in situations falling short of such flat inconsistency. Thus, we articulate the standard that governs the decision whether particular interpretive or explanatory commentary is binding.
Different analogies have been suggested as helpful characterizations of the legal force of commentary. Some we reject. We do not think it helpful to treat commentary as a contemporaneous statement of intent by the drafters or issuers of the guideline, having a status similar to that of, for example, legislative committee reports or the advisory committee notes to the various federal rules of procedure and evidence. Quite apart from the usual difficulties of attributing meaning to a statutory or regulatory command by reference to what other documents say about its proposers’ initial intent, here, as is often true, the commentary was issued well after the guideline it interprets had been promulgated. The guidelines of the Sentencing Commission, moreover, cannot become effective until after the 6-month review period for congressional modification or disapproval. It seems inconsistent with this process for the Commission to announce some statement of initial intent well after the review process has expired. To be sure, much commentary has been issued at the same time as the guideline it interprets. But neither the Guidelines Manual nor the Sentencing Reform Act indicates that the weight accorded to, or the function of, commentary differs depending on whether it represents a contemporaneous or ex post interpretation.
We also find inapposite an analogy to an agency’s construction of a federal statute that it administers. Under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), if a statute is unambiguous the statute governs; if, however, Congress’ silence or ambiguity has “left a gap for the agency to fill,” courts must defer to the agency’s interpretation so long as it is “a permissible construction of the statute.” Id., at 842-843. Commentary, however, has a function different from an agency’s legislative rule. Commentary, unlike a legislative rule, is not the product of delegated authority for rulemaking, which of course must yield to the clear meaning of a statute. Id., at 843, n. 9. Rather, commentary explains the guidelines and provides concrete guidance as to how even unambiguous guidelines are to be applied in practice.
Although the analogy is not precise because Congress has a role in promulgating the guidelines, we think the Government is correct in suggesting that the commentary be treated as an agency’s interpretation of its own legislative rule. Brief for United States 13-16. The Sentencing Commission promulgates the guidelines by virtue of an express congressional delegation of authority for rulemaking, see Mistretta v. United States, 488 U. S., at 371-379, and through the informal rulemaking procedures in 5 U. S. C. §553, see 28 U. S. C. § 994(x). Thus, the guidelines are the equivalent of legislative rules adopted by federal agencies. The functional purpose of commentary (of the kind at issue here) is to assist in the interpretation and application of those rules, which are within the Commission’s particular area of concern and expertise and which the Commission itself has the first responsibility to formulate and announce. In these respects this type of commentary is akin to an agency’s interpretation of its own legislative rules. As we have often stated, provided an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations does not violate the Constitution or a federal statute, it must be given “controlling weight unless it is plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the regulation.” Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., 325 U. S. 410, 414 (1945). See, e. g., Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U. S. 332, 359 (1989); Lyng v. Payne, 476 U. S. 926, 939 (1986); United States v. Larionoff, 431 U. S. 864, 872-873 (1977); Udall v. Tollman, 380 U. S. 1, 16-17 (1965). See also 2 K. Davis, Administrative Law Treatise § 7:22, pp. 105-107 (2d ed. 1979).
According this measure of controlling authority to the commentary is consistent with the role the Sentencing Reform Act contemplates for the Sentencing Commission. The Commission, after all, drafts the guidelines as well as the commentary interpreting them, so we can presume that the interpretations of the guidelines contained in the commentary represent the most accurate indications of how the Commission deems that the guidelines should be applied to be consistent with the Guidelines Manual as a whole as well as the authorizing statute. The Commission has the statutory obligation “periodically [to] review and revise” the guidelines in light of its consultation with authorities on and representatives of the federal criminal justice system. See 28 U. S. C. § 994(b). The Commission also must “revie[w] the presentence report, the guideline worksheets, the tribunal’s sentencing statement, and any written plea agreement,” Mistretta v. United States, supra, at 369-370, with respect to every federal criminal sentence. See 28 U. S. C. § 994(w). In assigning these functions to the Commission, “Congress necessarily contemplated that the Commission would periodically review the work of the courts, and would make whatever clarifying revisions to the Guidelines conflicting judicial decisions might suggest.” Braxton v. United States, 500 U. S. 344, 348 (1991). Although amendments to guidelines provisions are one method of incorporating revisions, another method open to the Commission is amendment of the commentary, if the guideline which the commentary interprets will bear the construction. Amended commentary is binding on the federal courts even though it is not reviewed by Congress, and prior judicial constructions of a particular guideline cannot prevent the Commission from adopting a conflicting interpretation that satisfies the standard we set forth today.
It is perhaps ironic that the Sentencing Commission’s own commentary fails to recognize the full significance of interpretive and explanatory commentary. The commentary to the Guideline on commentary provides:
“[I]n seeking to understand the meaning of the guidelines courts likely will look to the commentary for guidance as an indication of the intent of those who wrote them. In such instances, the courts will treat the commentary mueh like legislative history or other legal material that helps determine the intent of a drafter.” USSG § 1B1.7, comment.
We note that this discussion is phrased in predictive terms. To the extent that this commentary has prescriptive content, we think its exposition of the role of interpretive and explanatory commentary is inconsistent with the uses to which the Commission in practice has put such commentary and the
command in.§lB1.7 that failure to follow interpretive and explanatory commentary could result in reversible error.
We now apply these principles to Amendment 433. We recognize that the exclusion of the felon-in-possession offense from the definition of “crime of violence” may not be compelled by the guideline text. Nonetheless, Amendment 433 does not run afoul of the Constitution or a federal statute, and it is not “plainly erroneous or inconsistent” with §4B1.2, Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., supra, at 414. As a result, the commentary is a binding interpretation of the phrase “crime of violence.” Federal courts may not use the felon-in-possession offense as the predicate crime of violence for purposes of imposing the career offender provision of USSG §4B1.1 as to those defendants to whom Amendment 433 applies.
The Government agrees that the Court of Appeals erred in concluding that commentary is not binding on the federal courts and in ruling that Amendment 433 is not of controlling weight. See Brief for United States 11-19. It suggests, however, that we should affirm the judgment on an alternative ground. It argues that petitioner’s sentence conformed with the Guidelines Manual in effect when he was sentenced, id., at 22-29, and that the sentence may not be reversed on appeal based upon a postsentence amendment to the provisions in the Manual, id., at 19-22. The Government claims that petitioner’s only recourse is to file a motion in District Court for resentencing, pursuant to 18 U. S. C. § 3582(e)(2). Brief for United States 33-35. It notes that after the Court of Appeals denied rehearing in this case, the Sentencing Commission amended USSG § 1B1.10(d), p. s., to indicate that Amendment 433 may be given retroactive effect under § 3582(c)(2). See Amendment 469, USSG App. C, p. 296 (Nov. 1992).
We decline to address this argument. In refusing to upset petitioner’s sentence, the Court of Appeals did not consider the nonretroactivity theory here advanced by the Government; its refusal to vacate the sentence was based only on its view that commentary did not bind it. This issue, moreover, is not “fairly included” in the question we formulated in the grant of certiorari, see 506 U. S. 972 (1992). Cf. this Court’s Rule 14.1(a). We leave the contentions of the parties on this aspect of the case to be addressed by the Court of Appeals on remand.
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is vacated, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Amendment 433 was contrary to a substantial body of Circuit precedent holding that the felon-in-possession offense constituted a crime of violence in at least some circumstances. See, e.g., United States v. Williams, 892 F. 2d 296, 304 (CA3 1989), cert. denied, 496 U. S. 939 (1990); United States v. Goodman, 914 F. 2d 696, 698-699 (CA5 1990); United States v. Alvarez, 914 F. 2d 915, 917-919 (CA7 1990), cert. denied, 500 U. S. 934 (1991); United States v. Cornelius, 931 F. 2d 490, 492-493 (CA8 1991); United States v. O’Neal, 937 F. 2d 1369, 1374-1375 (CA9 1990); United States v. Walker, 930 F. 2d 789, 793-795 (CA10 1991); 943 F. 2d 1268, 1271-1273 (CA11 1991) (case below).
With the decision below compare, e. g., United States v. Weston, 960 F. 2d 212, 219 (CA1 1992) (when the language of a guideline is not “fully self-illuminating,” courts should look to commentary for guidance; while commentary “do[es] not possess the force of law,” it is an “important interpretive ai[d], entitled to considerable respect”); United States v. Joshua, 976 F. 2d 844, 855 (CA3 1992) (commentary is analogous to an administrative agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute; courts should defer to commentary if it is a “reasonable reading” of the guideline); United States v. Wimbish, 980 F 2d 312, 314-315 (CA5 1992) (commentary has the force of policy statements; while courts “must consider” commentary, “they are not bound by [it] as they are by the guidelines”), cert. pending, No. 92-7993; United States v. White, 888 F 2d 490, 497 (CA7 1989) (commentary constitutes a “contemporaneous explanatio[n] of the Guidelines by their authors, entitled to substantial weight”); United States v. Smeathers, 884 F. 2d 363, 364 (CA8 1989) (commentary “reflects the intent” of the Sentencing Commission); United States v. Anderson, 942 F. 2d 606, 611-613 (CA9 1991) (en banc) (commentary is analogous to advisory committee notes that accompany the federal rules of procedure and evidence; commentary should be applied unless it cannot be construed as consistent with the Guidelines); United States v. Saucedo, 950 F. 2d 1508, 1515 (CA10 1991) (refuses to follow amendment to commentary that is inconsistent with Circuit precedent; “our interpretation of a guideline has the force of law until such time as the Sentencing Commission or Congress changes the actual text of the guideline”).
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 |
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Justice White
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide whether the National Labor Relations Board may issue a cease-and-desist order to halt the prosecution of a state-court civil suit brought by an employer to retaliate against employees for exercising federally protected labor rights, without also finding that the suit lacks a reasonable basis in fact or law.
I
The present controversy arises out of a labor dispute at “Bill Johnson’s Big Apple East,” one of four restaurants owned and operated by the petitioner in Phoenix, Ariz. It began on August 8, 1978, when petitioner fired Myrland Helton, one of the most senior waitresses at the restaurant. Believing that her termination was the result of her efforts to organize a union, she filed unfair labor practice charges against the restaurant with the Board.
On September 20, after an investigation, the Board’s General Counsel issued a complaint. On the same day, Helton, joined by three co-waitresses and a few others, picketed the restaurant. The picketers carried signs asking customers to boycott the restaurant because its management was unfair to the waitresses. Petitioner’s manager confronted the picketers and threatened to “get even” with them “if it’s the last thing I do.” Petitioner’s president telephoned the husband of one of the picketing waitresses and impliedly threatened that the couple would “get hurt” and lose their new home if the wife continued to participate in the protest. The picketing continued on September 21 and 22. In addition, the picketers distributed a leaflet that accused management of making “[unwarranted sexual advances” and maintaining a “filthy restroom for women employees.” The leaflet also stated that a complaint against the restaurant had been filed by the Board and that Helton had been fired after suggesting that a union be organized.
On the morning of September 25, petitioner and three of its co-owners filed a verified complaint against Helton and the other demonstrators in an Arizona state court. Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants had engaged in mass picketing, harassed customers, blocked public ingress to and egress from the restaurant, and created a threat to public safety. The complaint also contained a libel count, alleging that the leaflet contained false and outrageous statements published by the defendants with the malicious intent to injure the plaintiffs. The complaint sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary and permanent injunctive relief, as well as compensatory damages, $500,000 in punitive damages, and appropriate further legal and equitable relief. App. 3-9. After a hearing, the state court declined to enjoin the distribution of leaflets but otherwise issued the requested restraining order. Id,., at 19-23. Expedited depositions were also permitted. The defendants retained counsel and, after a hearing on the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction on November 16, the court dissolved the temporary restraining order and denied preliminary injunctive relief. Id., at 52.
Meanwhile, on the day after the state-court suit was filed, Helton filed a second charge with the Board alleging that petitioner had committed a number of new unfair labor practices in connection with the dispute between the waitresses and the restaurant. Among these was a charge that petitioner had filed the civil suit in retaliation for the defendants’ protected, concerted activities, and because they had filed charges under the Act. The General Counsel issued a complaint based on these new charges on October 23. As relevant here, the complaint alleged that petitioner, by filing and prosecuting the state suit, was attempting to retaliate against Helton and the others, in violation of §§ 8(a)(1) and (4) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA or Act), 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(1) and (4).
In December 1978, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) held a 4-day consolidated hearing on the two unfair labor practice complaints. On September 27, 1979, the ALJ rendered a decision concluding that petitioner had committed a total of seven unfair labor practices during the course of the labor dispute. 249 N. L. R. B. 155, 168-169 (1980). With regard to the matter presently before us, the ALJ agreed with the General Counsel that the prosecution of the civil suit violated §§ 8(a)(1) and (4). The ALJ applied the rationale of Power Systems, Inc., 239 N. L. R. B. 445, 449-450 (1978), enf. denied, 601 P. 2d 936 (CA7 1979), in which the Board held that it is an unfair labor practice for an employer to institute a civil lawsuit for the purpose of penalizing or discouraging its employees from filing charges with the Board or seeking access to the Board’s processes.
In Power Systems, the Board inferred that the employer had acted with retaliatory animus from the fact that the employer lacked “a reasonable basis upon which to assert” that its suit had merit. Similarly, in the present case, the ALJ found that petitioner’s suit lacked a reasonable basis and then concluded from this fact that the suit violated the Act because it was “an attempt to penalize Helton for having filed charges with the Board, and to penalize the other defendants for assisting Helton in her protest of the unfair labor practice committed against her.” 249 N. L. R. B., at 165. He bolstered his conclusion by noting the direct evidence that the suit had been filed for a retaliatory purpose, i. e., the threats to “get even with” and “hurt” the defendants. Ibid.
The ALJ reached his conclusion that petitioner’s state suit lacked a reasonable basis “on the basis of the record and from [his] observation of the witnesses, including their demeanor, and upon the extensive briefs of the parties.” Id., at 164. In the view of the ALJ, the “evidence fail[ed] to support” the complaint’s allegations that the picketers clogged the sidewalks, harassed customers, or blocked entrances and exits to the restaurant. Id., at 165. The libel count was deemed baseless because “the evidence established] the truthfulness” of everything stated in the leaflet.
On petitioner’s appeal, the Board adopted, with minor exceptions, the ALJ’s findings, conclusions of law, and recommended order. Id., at 155. Accordingly, petitioner was ordered to undertake a number of remedial measures. Among other things, petitioner was required to withdraw its state-court complaint and to reimburse the defendants for all their legal expenses in connection with the suit. Id., at 169-170.
The Court of Appeals enforced the Board’s order in its entirety, 660 F. 2d 1335 (CA9 1981), holding that substantial evidence supported both the Board’s findings that the employer’s “lawsuit lacked a reasonable basis in fact, and that it was filed to penalize Helton [and] the picketers for engaging in protected activity.” Id., at 1342. Petitioner sought cer-tiorari, urging that it could not properly be enjoined from maintaining its state-court action. We granted the writ, 459 U. S. 942 (1982), and we now vacate and remand for further proceedings.
II
The question whether the Board may issue a cease-and-desist order to halt an allegedly retaliatory lawsuit filed by an employer in a state court has had a checkered history before the Board. At first, in W. T. Carter & Bro., 90 N. L. R. B. 2020, 2023-2024 (1950), where an employer sued and obtained a state-court injunction barring its employees from holding union meetings on company property, a divided Board held that the prosecution of the suit constituted an unfair labor practice. The Board analogized from the common law of malicious prosecution and rejected the employer’s contention that its “resort to court proceedings was a lawful exercise of a basic right.” The dissent objected that the Board should recognize the employer’s right to present its case to a judicial forum, even if its motive in doing so was to interfere with its employees’ rights. Id., at 2029 (Herzog, Chairman, dissenting). Ten years later, in Clyde Taylor Co., 127 N. L. R. B. 103, 109 (1960), where the employer obtained an injunction banning peaceful union picketing in protest of unlawful discharges, the Board overruled W. T. Carter and adopted the view of the earlier dissent.
During the next 18 years after Clyde Taylor, the Board’s decisions do not appear to us to have been entirely consistent. Then, in Power Systems, 239 N. L. R. B., at 450, the Board concluded: “Since we have found that Respondent had no reasonable basis for its lawsuit,... the lawsuit had as its purpose the unlawful objective of penalizing [the employee] for filing a charge with the Board.” The suit therefore was enjoined as an unfair labor practice. The gravamen of the offense was thus held to be the unlawful objective, which could be inferred by lack of a reasonable basis for the employer’s suit.
Although the Board in Power Systems purported to distinguish Clyde Taylor and its progeny on the basis that the lawsuit in each of those cases “was not a tactic calculated to restrain employees in the exercise of their rights under the Act,” 239 N. L. R. B., at 449, the distinction was illusory. In Clyde Taylor itself the Board found no unfair labor practice despite the ALJ’s specific finding that the employer’s lawsuit “was for the purpose of preventing his employees from exercising the rights guaranteed to them under the Act, rather than for the purpose of advancing any legitimate interest of his own.” 127 N. L. R. B., at 121. Since 1978, the Board has consistently adhered to the Power Systems rule that an employer or union who sues an employee for a retaliatory motive is guilty of a violation of the Act. Under this line of cases, as the Board’s brief and its counsel’s remarks at oral argument in the present case confirm, the Board does not regard lack of merit in the employer’s suit as an independent element of the § 8(a)(1) and § 8(a)(4) unfair labor practice. Rather, it asserts that the only essential element of a violation is retaliatory motive.
III
A
At first blush, the Board’s position seems to have substance. Sections 8(a)(1) and (4) of the Act are broad, remedial provisions that guarantee that employees will be able to enjoy their rights secured by §7 of the Act — including the right to unionize, the right to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection, and the right to utilize the Board’s processes — without fear of restraint, coercion, discrimination, or interference from their employer. The Court has liberally construed these laws as prohibiting a wide variety of employer conduct that is intended to restrain, or that has the likely effect of restraining, employees in the exercise of protected activities. A lawsuit no doubt may be used by an employer as a powerful instrument of coercion or retaliation. As the Board has observed, by suing an employee who files charges with the Board or engages in other protected activities, an employer can place its employees on notice that anyone who engages in such conduct is subjecting himself to the possibility of a burdensome lawsuit. Regardless of how unmeritorious the employer’s suit is, the employee will most likely have to retain counsel and incur substantial legal expenses to defend against it. Power Systems, supra, at 449. Furthermore, as the Court of Appeals in the present case noted, the chilling effect of a state lawsuit upon an employee’s willingness to engage in protected activity is multiplied where the complaint seeks damages in addition to injunctive relief. 660 F. 2d, at 1343, n. 3. Where, as here, such a suit is filed against hourly-wage waitresses or other individuals who lack the backing of a union, the need to allow the Board to intervene and provide a remedy is at its greatest.
There are weighty countervailing considerations, however, that militate against allowing the Board to condemn the filing of a suit as an unfair labor practice and to enjoin its prosecution. In California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508, 510 (1972), we recognized that the right of access to the courts is an aspect of the First Amendment right to petition the Government for redress of grievances. Accordingly, we construed the antitrust laws as not prohibiting the filing of a lawsuit, regardless of the plaintiff’s anticompetitive intent or purpose in doing so, unless the suit was a “mere sham” filed for harassment purposes. Id., at 511. We should be sensitive to these First Amendment values in construing the NLRA in the present context. As the Board itself has recognized: “[G]oing to a judicial body for redress of alleged wrongs... stands apart from other forms of action directed at the alleged wrongdoer. The right of access to a court is too important to be called an unfair labor practice solely on the ground that what is sought in the court is to enjoin employees from exercising a protected right.” Peddie Buildings, 203 N. L. R. B. 265, 272 (1973), enf. denied on other grounds, 498 F. 2d 43 (CA3 1974). See also Clyde Taylor Co., 127 N. L. R. B., at 109.
Moreover, in recognition of the States’ compelling interest in the maintenance of domestic peace, the Court has construed the Act as not pre-empting the States from providing a civil remedy for conduct touching interests “deeply rooted in local feeling and responsibility.” San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon, 359 U. S. 236, 244 (1959). It has therefore repeatedly been held that an employer has the right to seek local judicial protection from tortious conduct during a labor dispute. See, e. g., Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, 436 U. S. 180 (1978); Farmer v. Carpenters, 430 U. S. 290 (1977); Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, 383 U. S. 53 (1966); Construction Workers v. Laburnum Construction Corp., 347 U. S. 656 (1954).
In Linn v. Plant Guard Workers, supra, at 65, we held that an employer can properly recover damages in a tort action arising out of a labor dispute if it can prove malice and actual injury. See also Farmer v. Carpenters, supra, at 306. If the Board is allowed to enjoin the prosecution of a well-grounded state lawsuit, it necessarily follows that any state plaintiff subject to such an injunction will be totally deprived of a remedy for an actual injury, since the “Board can award no damages, impose no penalty, or give any other relief” to the plaintiff. Linn, supra, at 63. Thus, to the extent the Board asserts the right to declare the filing of a meritorious suit to be a violation of the Act, it runs headlong into the basic rationale of Linn, Farmer, and other cases in which we declined to infer a congressional intent to ignore the substantial state interest “in protecting the health and well-being of its citizens.” Farmer, supra, at 302-303. See also Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Carpenters, supra, at 196; Linn, supra, at 61.
Of course, in light of the Board’s special competence in applying the general provisions of the Act to the complexities of industrial life, its interpretations of the Act are entitled to deference, even where, as here, its position has not been entirely consistent. NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc., 420 U. S. 251, 264-267 (1975); NLRB v. Seven-Up Co., 344 U. S. 344, 347-349 (1953). And here, were only the literal language of §§ 8(a)(1) and 8(a)(4) to be considered, we would be inclined to uphold the Board, because its present construction of the statute is not irrational. Considering the First Amendment right of access to the courts and the state interests identified in cases such as Linn and Farmer, however, we conclude that the Board’s interpretation of the Act is untenable. The filing and prosecution of a well-founded lawsuit may not be enjoined as an unfair labor practice, even if it would not have been commenced but for the plaintiff’s desire to retaliate against the defendant for exercising rights protected by the Act.
B
Although it is not unlawful under the Act to prosecute a meritorious action, the same is not true of suits based on insubstantial claims — suits that lack, to use the term coined by the Board, a “reasonable basis.” Such suits are not within the scope of First Amendment protection:
“The first amendment interests involved in private litigation — compensation for violated rights and interests, the psychological benefits of vindication, public airing of disputed facts — are not advanced when the litigation is based on intentional falsehoods or on knowingly frivolous claims. Furthermore, since sham litigation by definition does not involve a bona fide grievance, it does not come within the first amendment right to petition.”
Just as false statements are not immunized by the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, see Herbert v. Lando, 441 U. S. 153, 171 (1979); Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., 418 U. S. 323, 340 (1974), baseless litigation is not immunized by the First Amendment right to petition.
Similarly, the state interests recognized in the Farmer line of cases do not enter into play when the state-court suit has no basis. Since, by definition, the plaintiff in a.baseless suit has not suffered a legally protected injury, the State’s interest “in protecting the health and well-being of its citizens,” Farmer, swpra, at 303, is not implicated. States have only a negligible interest, if any, in having insubstantial claims adjudicated by their courts, particularly in the face of the strong federal interest in vindicating the rights protected by the national labor laws.
Considerations analogous to these led us in the antitrust context to adopt the “mere sham” exception in California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U. S. 508 (1972). We should follow a similar course under the NLRA. The right to litigate is an important one, and the Board should consider the evidence with utmost care before ordering the cessation of a state-court lawsuit. In a proper case, however, we believe that. Congress intended to allow the Board to provide this remedy. Therefore, we hold that it is an enjoinable unfair labor practice to prosecute a baseless lawsuit with the intent of retaliating against an employee for the exercise of rights protected by § 7 of the NLRA.
IV
Having concluded that the prosecution of an improperly motivated suit lacking a reasonable basis constitutes a violation of the Act that may be enjoined by the Board, we now inquire into what steps the Board may take in evaluating whether a state-court suit lacks the requisite basis. Petitioner insists that the Board’s prejudgment inquiry must not go beyond the four corners of the complaint. Its position is that as long as the complaint seeks lawful relief that the state court has jurisdiction to grant, the Board must allow the state litigation to proceed. The Board, on the other hand, apparently perceives no limitations on the scope of its prejudgment determination as to whether a lawsuit has a reasonable basis. In the present case, for example, the ALJ conducted a virtual trial on the merits of petitioner’s state-court claims. Based on this de facto trial, the ALJ concluded, in his independent judgment, based in part on “his observation of the witnesses, including their demeanor,” that petitioner’s suit lacked a reasonable basis.
We cannot agree with either party. Although the Board’s reasonable-basis inquiry need not be limited to the bare pleadings, if there is a genuine issue of material fact that turns on the credibility of witnesses or on the proper inferences to be drawn from undisputed facts, it cannot, in our view, be concluded that the suit should be enjoined. When a suit presents genuine factual issues, the state plaintiff’s First Amendment interest in petitioning the state court for redress of his grievance, his interest in having the factual dispute resolved by a jury, and the State’s interest in protecting the health and welfare of its citizens, lead us to construe the Act as not permitting the Board to usurp the traditional fact-finding function of the state-court jury or judge. Hence, we conclude that if a state plaintiff is able to present the Board with evidence that shows his lawsuit raises genuine issues of material fact, the Board should proceed no further with the § 8(a)(1) — § 8(a)(4) unfair labor practice proceedings but should stay those proceedings until the state-court suit has been concluded.
In the present case, the only disputed issues in the state lawsuit appear to be factual in nature. There will be cases, however, in which the state plaintiff’s case turns on issues of state law or upon a mixed question of fact and law. Just as the Board must refrain from deciding genuinely disputed material factual issues with respect to a state suit, it likewise must not deprive a litigant of his right to have genuine state-law legal questions decided by the state judiciary. While the Board need not stay its hand if the plaintiff’s position is plainly foreclosed as a matter of law or is otherwise frivolous, the Board should allow such issues to be decided by the state tribunals if there is any realistic chance that the plaintiff’s legal theory might be adopted.
In instances where the Board must allow the lawsuit to proceed, if the employer’s case in the state court ultimately proves meritorious and he has judgment against the employees, the employer should also prevail before the Board, for the filing of a meritorious lawsuit, even for a retaliatory motive, is not an unfair labor practice. If judgment goes against the employer in the state court, however, or if his suit is withdrawn or is otherwise shown to be without merit, the employer has had its day in court, the interest of the State in providing a forum for its citizens has been vindicated, and the Board may then proceed to adjudicate the § 8(a)(1) and § 8(a)(4) unfair labor practice case. The employer’s suit having proved unmeritorious, the Board would be warranted in taking that fact into account in determining whether the suit had been filed in retaliation for the exercise of the employees’ §7 rights. If a violation is found, the Board may order the employer to reimburse the employees whom he had wrongfully sued for their attorney’s fees and other expenses. It may also order any other proper relief that would effectuate the policies of the Act. 29 U. S. C. § 160(c).
V
The Board argues that, since petitioner has not sought review of the factual findings below that the state suit in the present case lacked a reasonable basis and was filed for a retaliatory motive, the judgment should be affirmed once it is concluded that the Board may enjoin a suit under these circumstances. Petitioner does, however, challenge the right of the Board to issue a cease-and-desist order in the circumstances present here, and the Board did not reach its reasonable-basis determination in accordance with this opinion. As noted above, the ALJ had no reservations about weighing the evidence and making credibility judgments. Based on his own evaluation of the evidence, he concluded that the libel count in petitioner’s suit lacked merit, because the statements in the leaflet were true, and that the business interference counts were groundless, because the evidence failed to support petitioner’s factual allegations. 249 N. L. R. B., at 164-165. See supra, at 736. It was not the ALJ’s province to make such factual determinations. What he should have determined is not whether the statements in the leaflet were true, but rather whether there was a genuine issue as to whether they were knowingly false. Similarly, he should not have decided the facts regarding the business interference counts; rather, he should have limited his inquiry to the question whether petitioner’s evidence raised factual issues that were genuine and material. Furthermore, because, in enforcing the Board’s order, the Court of Appeals ultimately relied on the fact that “substantial evidence” supported the Board’s finding that the prosecution of the lawsuit violated the Act, 660 F. 2d, at 1343, the Board’s error has not been cured. Accordingly, without expressing a view as to whether petitioner’s suit is in fact enjoinable, we shall return this case to the Board for further consideration in light of the proper standards.
VI
To summarize, we hold that the Board may not halt the prosecution of a state-court lawsuit, regardless of the plaintiff’s motive, unless the suit lacks a reasonable basis in fact or law. Retaliatory motive and lack of reasonable basis are both essential prerequisites to the issuance of a cease-and-desist order against a state suit. The Board’s reasonable-basis inquiry must be structured in a manner that will preserve the state plaintiff’s right to have a state-court jury or judge resolve genuine material factual or state-law legal disputes pertaining to the lawsuit. Therefore, if the Board is called upon to determine whether a suit is unlawful prior to the time that the state court renders final judgment, and if the state plaintiff can show that such genuine material factual or legal issues exist, the Board must await the results of the state-court adjudication with respect to the merits of the state suit. If the state proceedings result in a judgment adverse to the plaintiff, the Board may then consider the matter further and, if it is found that the lawsuit was filed with retaliatory intent, the Board may find a violation and order appropriate relief. In short, then, although it is an unfair labor practice to prosecute an unmeritorious lawsuit for a retaliatory purpose, the offense is not enjoinable unless the suit lacks a reasonable basis.
In view of the foregoing, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated, and the case is remanded to that court with instructions to remand the case to the Board for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.
These provisions state:
“It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer—
“(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of rights guaranteed in section [7 of the Act];
“(4) to discharge or otherwise discriminate against an employee because he has filed charges or given testimony under this Act.” 61 Stat. 140, 141, 29 U. S. C. §§ 158(a)(1) and (4).
Section 7 guarantees employees “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,... and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” 61 Stat. 140, 29 U. S. C. § 157.
On March 15, 1979, while the ALJ had the matter under submission, the state court issued an order granting the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the business interference claims but leaving the libel count for trial. Before the state court issued this ruling, the defendants had filed a counterclaim alleging abuse of process, malicious prosecution, wrongful injunction, libel, and slander. The parties then apparently cross-moved for summary judgment on both the claim and the counterclaim. The state court, in the same order of March 15, 1979, dismissed the abuse of process count in the counterclaim and left the libel counterclaim for trial. See App. to Brief for Petitioner D1.
Meanwhile, there had been other developments. On October 27, 1978, the Board’s Regional Director petitioned the United States District Court pursuant to § 10(j) of the Act, 29 U. S. C. § 160(j), for an order enjoining petitioner from maintaining its state-court suit pending a final Board decision. On January 22, 1979, the District Court denied the request for an injunction. App. to Brief for Petitioner C1-C7.
The ALJ was apparently not made aware of the state court’s denial of summary judgment as to the libel count. This fact is most apparent by virtue of the ALJ’s statement, 249 N. L. R. B., at 163, that the defendants’ counterclaim for abuse of process was still pending before the state court. As noted in n. 2, supra, the state court dismissed the abuse of process counterclaim at the same time it denied summary judgment on the libel counts of both the claim and counterclaim.
In its merits brief, petitioner for the first time argues to this Court that the Board erred by concluding that the taking of the state-court defendants’ depositions constituted an unfair labor practice. Brief for Petitioner 33-36. This issue was not presented in the petition for certiorari and we decline to consider it. See this Court’s Rule 34.1(a).
It should be kept in mind that what is involved here is an employer’s lawsuit that the federal law would not bar except for its allegedly retaliatory motivation. We are not dealing with a suit that is claimed to be beyond the jurisdiction of the state courts because of federal-law preemption, or a suit that has an objective that is illegal under federal law. Petitioner concedes that the Board may enjoin these latter types of suits. Brief for Petitioner 12-13, 20; Reply Brief for Petitioner 8. Nor could it be successfully argued otherwise, for we have upheld Board orders enjoining unions from prosecuting court suits for enforcement of fines that could not lawfully be imposed under the Act, see Granite State Joint Board, Textile Workers Union, 187 N. L. R. B. 636, 637 (1970), enf. denied, 446 F. 2d 369 (CA1 1971), rev’d, 409 U. S. 213 (1972); Booster Lodge No. 4,05, Machinists & Aerospace Workers, 185 N. L. R. B. 380, 383 (1970), enf’d in relevant part, 148 U. S. App. D. C. 119, 459 F. 2d 1143 (1972), aff’d, 412 U. S. 84 (1973), and this Court has concluded that, at the Board’s request, a District Court may enjoin enforcement of a state-court injunction “where [the Board’s] federal power pre-empts the field.” NLRB v. Nash-Finch Co., 404 U. S. 138, 144 (1971).
Nash-Finch also requires rejection of petitioner’s assertion that the Board is precluded from enjoining a state-court suit by virtue of 28 U. S. C. §2283, which, subject to certain exceptions, prohibits a court of the United States from enjoining proceedings in a state court. In Nash-Finch, the Court held that § 2283 was inapplicable in instances where the Board files an action to restrain unfair labor practices, because the purpose of § 2283 “was to avoid unseemly conflict between the state and the federal courts where the litigants were private persons, not to hamstring the Federal Government and its agencies in the use of federal courts to protect federal rights.” 404 U. S., at 146.
Compare, e. g., S. E. Nichols Many Corp., 229 N. L. R. B. 75 (1977); Peddle Buildings, 203 N. L. R. B. 265 (1973); and United Aircraft Corp. (Pratt & Whitney Division), 192 N. L. R. B. 382 (1971), modified, 534 F. 2d 422 (CA2 1975), cert. denied, 429 U. S. 825 (1976); with, e. g., United Stanford Emyloyees, Local 680, 232 N. L. R. B. 326 (1977); International Organization of Masters, Mates and Pilots, 224 N. L. R. B. 1626 (1976), enf’d, 188 U. S. App. D. C. 15, 575 F. 2d 896 (1978); and Television Wisconsin, Inc., 224 N. L. R. B. 722 (1976).
See Sheet Metal Workers’ Union Local § 55, 254 N. L. R. B. 773, 778-780 (1981); United Credit Bureau of America, Inc., 242 N. L. R. B. 921, 925-926 (1979), enf’d, 643 F. 2d 1017 (CA4), cert. denied, 454 U. S. 994 (1981); George A. Angle, 242 N. L. R. B. 744 (1979), enf’d, 683 F. 2d 1296 (CA10 1982).
See Brief for Respondent 13, 18-21. At oral argument, despite close questioning by the Court, the Board’s counsel declined to rule out the possibility that prosecution of a totally meritorious suit might be deemed by the Board to be an unfair labor practice, if filed for a retaliatory purpose. Tr. of Oral Arg. 29-35, 39-41, 46-47.
See, e. g., NLRB v. Scrivener, 405 U. S. 117, 121-125 (1972); NLRB v. Gissel Packing Co., 395 U. S. 575, 617-619 (1969); NLRB v. Exchange Parts Co., 375 U. S. 405, 408-410 (1964); Republic Aviation Corp. v. NLRB, 324 U. S. 793, 797-798 (1945); Phelps Dodge Corp. v. NLRB, 313 U. S. 177, 182-187 (1941).
Balmer, Sham Litigation and the Antitrust Laws, 29 Buffalo L. Rev. 39, 60 (1980). Accord, Clipper Exxpress v. Rocky Mountain Motor Tariff Bureau, Inc., 674 F. 2d 1252, 1265-1266 (CA9 1982); Fischel, Antitrust Liability for Attempts to Influence Government Action: The Basis and Limits of the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine, 45 U. Chi. L. Rev. 80, 101 (1977).
In civil practice, the “genuine issue” test is used for adjudging motions for summary judgment. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 56. Substantively, it is very close to the “reasonable jury” rule applied on motions for directed verdict. See Brady v. Southern R. Co., 320 U. S. 476, 479-480 (1943) (directed verdict should be granted when the evidence is such “that without weighing the credibility of the witnesses there can be but one reasonable conclusion as to the verdict”). In the civil context, most courts treat the two standards identically, although some have found slight differences. See generally C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure §§ 2532, 2713.1 (1983); J. Moore & J. Lucas, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶¶ 50.03[4], 56.04[2] (1982). The primary difference between the two motions is procedural; summary judgment motions are usually made before trial and decided on documentary evidence, while directed verdict motions are made at trial and decided on the evidence that has been admitted. Ibid.
In making reasonable-basis determinations, the Board may draw guidance from
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 Frankfurter
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act authorizes the United States to bring a libel against any article of food which is “misbranded” when using the channels of interstate commerce. Act of June 25, 1938, § 304, 52 Stat. 1040,1044, 21 U. S. C. § 334. The Act defines “mis-branded” in the eleven paragraphs of § 403. 52 Stat. 1047-1048, 21 U. S. C. § 343. The question before us is raised by two apparently conflicting paragraphs.
One of them, subsection (c), comes from the original Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. Act of June 30,1906, 34 Stat. 768, 770-771, § 8 (first paragraph concerning “food,” and second proviso). It directs that a food shall be deemed “misbranded” if it “is an imitation of another food, unless its label bears, in type of uniform size and prominence, the word 'imitation’ and, immediately thereafter, the name of the food imitated.” The other, subsection (g), was added by the enlargement of the statute in 1938. It condemns as “misbranded” a product which “purports to be or is represented as a food,” the ingredients of which the Administrator has standardized, if the product does not conform in all respects to the standards prescribed. The Administrator has authority to promulgate standards when in his judgment “such action will promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers.” § 401, 52 Stat. 1046, 21 U. S. C. § 341.
The proceeding before us was commenced in 1949 in the District Court for the District of New Mexico. By it the United States seeks to condemn 62 cases of “Delicious Brand Imitation Jam,” manufactured in Colorado and shipped to New Mexico. The Government claims that this product “purports” to be fruit jam, a food for which the Federal Security Administrator has promulgated a “definition and standard of identity.” The regulation specifies that a fruit jam must contain “not less than 45 parts by weight” of the fruit ingredient. 21 C. F. R. (1949 ed.) § 29.0. The product in question is composed of 55% sugar, 25% fruit, 20% pectin, and small amounts of citric acid and soda. These specifications show that pectin, a gelatinized solution consisting largely of water, has been substituted for a substantial proportion of the fruit required. The Government contends that the product is therefore to be deemed “misbranded” under § 403 (g).
On the basis of stipulated testimony the District Judge found that although the product seized did not meet the prescribed standards for fruit jam, it was “wholesome” and “in every way fit for human consumption.” It was found to have the appearance and taste of standardized jam, and to be used as a less expensive substitute for the standard product. In some instances, products similar to those seized were sold at retail to the public in response to telephone orders for jams, and were served to patrons of restaurants, ranches and similar establishments, who had no opportunity to learn the quality of what they received. But there is no suggestion of misrepresentation. The judge found that the labels on the seized jars were substantially accurate; and he concluded that since the product purported to be only an imitation fruit preserve and complied in all respects with subsection (c) of § 403 of the Act, it could not be deemed “misbranded.” 87 F. Supp. 735.
The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, one judge dissenting, reversed this judgment. 183 F. 2d 1014. It held that since the product seized closely resembled fruit jam in appearance and taste, and was used as a substitute for the standardized food, it “purported” to be fruit jam, and must be deemed “misbranded” notwithstanding that it was duly labeled an “imitation.” The court therefore remanded the cause with instructions to enter a judgment for condemnation. We granted certio-rari, 340 U. S. 890, because of the importance of the question in the administration of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.
1. By the Act of 1906, 34 Stat. 768, as successively strengthened, Congress exerted its power to keep impure and adulterated foods and drugs out of the channels of commerce. The purposes of this legislation, we have said, “touch phases of the lives and health of people which, in the circumstances of modern industrialism, are largely beyond self-protection. Regard for these purposes should infuse construction of the legislation if it is to be treated as a working instrument of government and not merely as a collection of English words.” United States v. Dotterweich, 320 U. S. 277, 280. This is the attitude with which we should approach the problem of statutory construction now presented. But our problem is to construe what Congress has written. After all, Congress expresses its purpose by words. It is for us to ascertain — neither to add nor to subtract, neither to delete nor to distort.
2. Misbranding was one of the chief evils Congress sought to stop. It was both within the right and the wisdom of Congress not to trust to the colloquial or the dictionary meaning of misbranding, but to write its own.' Concededly we are not dealing here with misbranding in its crude manifestations, what would colloquially be deemed a false representation. Compare § 403 (a), (b), (d), 52 Stat. 1047, 21 U. S. C. § 343 (a), (b), (d). Our concern is whether the article of food sold as “Delicious Brand Imitation Jam” is “deemed to be misbranded” according to § 403 (c) and (g) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.
3. The controlling provisions of the Act are as follows:
“Sec. 304. (a) [as amended by the Act of June 24, 1948, 62 Stat. 582] Any article of food, drug, device, or cosmetic that is adulterated or misbranded when introduced into or while in interstate commerce or while held for sale (whether or not the first sale) after shipment in interstate commerce, . . . shall be liable to be proceeded against while in interstate commerce, or at any time thereafter, on libel of information and condemned in any district court of the United States within the jurisdiction of which the article is found: ....
“Sec. 401. Whenever in the judgment of the [Administrator] such action will promote honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers, he shall promulgate regulations fixing and establishing for any food, under its common or usual name so far as practicable, a reasonable definition and standard of identity, a reasonable standard of quality, and/or reasonable standards of fill of container: .... In prescribing a definition and standard of identity for any food or class of food in which optional ingredients are permitted, the [Administrator] shall, for the purpose of promoting honesty and fair dealing in the interest of consumers, designate the optional ingredients which shall be named on the label. . . .
“Sec. 403. A food shall be deemed to be mis-branded—
“(c) If it is an imitation of another food, unless its label bears, in type of uniform size and prominence, the word ‘imitation’ and, immediately thereafter, the name of the food imitated.
“(g) If it purports to be or is represented as a food for which a definition and standard of identity has been prescribed by regulations as provided by section 401, unless (1) it conforms to such definition and standard, and (2) its label bears the name of the food specified in the definition and standard, and, insofar as may be required by such regulations, the common names of optional ingredients (other than spices, flavoring, and coloring) present in such food.”
4. By §§ 401 and 403 (g), Congress vested in the Administrator the far-reaching power of fixing for any species of food “a reasonable definition and standard of identity.” In Federal Security Administrator v. Quaker Oats Co., 318 U. S. 218, we held that this means that the Administrator may, by regulation, fix the ingredients of any food, and that thereafter a commodity cannot be introduced into interstate commerce which “purports to be or is represented as” the food which has been thus defined unless it is composed of the required ingredients. The Administrator had prescribed the ingredients of two different species of food — “farina” and “enriched farina.” The former was an exclusively milled wheat product; the latter included certain additional ingredients, one of which optionally could be vitamin D. The Quaker Oats Company marketed a product it called “Quaker Farina Wheat Cereal Enriched with Vitamin D,” which did not conform to either standard. Because it contained an additional vitamin it was not “farina”; because it lacked certain of the essential ingredients it could not be called “enriched farina.” It was concededly a wholesome product, accurately labeled; but under the Administrator's regulations it could not be sold. We sustained the regulations, holding that Congress had constitutionally empowered the Administrator to define a food and had thereby precluded manufacturers — or courts — from determining for themselves whether some other ingredients would not produce as nutritious a product. “The statutory purpose to fix a definition of identity of an article of food sold under its common or usual name would be defeated if producers were free to add ingredients, however wholesome, which are not within the definition.” 318 U. S. at 232.
5. Our decision in the Quaker Oats case does not touch the problem now before us. In that case it was conceded that although the Quaker product did not have the standard ingredients, it “purported” to be a standardized food. We did not there consider the legality of marketing properly labeled “imitation farina.” That would be the comparable question to the one now here.
According to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, nothing can be legally “jam” after the Administrator promulgated his regulation in 1940, 5 Fed. Reg. 3554, 21 C. F. R. § 29.0, unless it contains the specified ingredients in prescribed proportion. Hence the product in controversy is not “jam.” It cannot lawfully be labeled “jam” and introduced into interstate commerce, for to do so would “represent” as a standardized food a product which does not meet prescribed specifications.
But the product with which we are concerned is sold as “imitation jam.” Imitation foods are dealt with in § 403 (c) of the Act. In that section Congress did not give an esoteric meaning to “imitation.” It left it to the understanding of ordinary English speech. And it directed that a product should be deemed “misbranded” if it imitated another food “unless its label bears, in type of uniform size and prominence, the word ‘imitation’ and, immediately thereafter, the name of the food imitated.”
In ordinary speech there can be no doubt that the product which the United States here seeks to condemn is an “imitation” jam. It looks and tastes like jam; it is unequivocally labeled “imitation jam.” The Government does not argue that its label in any way falls short of the requirements of § 403 (c). Its distribution in interstate commerce would therefore clearly seem to be authorized by that section. We could hold it to be “mis-branded” only if we held that a practice Congress authorized by § 403 (c) Congress impliedly prohibited by § 403 (g).
We see no justification so to distort the ordinary meaning of the statute. Nothing in the text or history of the legislation points to such a reading of what Congress wrote. In § 403 (g) Congress used the words “purport” and “represent” — terms suggesting the idea of counterfeit. But the name “imitation jam” at once connotes precisely what the product is: a different, an inferior preserve, not meeting the defined specifications. Section 403 (g) was designed to protect the public from inferior foods resembling standard products but marketed under distinctive names. See S. Rep. No. 361, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 8-11. Congress may well have supposed that similar confusion would not result from the marketing of a product candidly and flagrantly labeled as an “imitation” food. A product so labeled is described with precise accuracy. It neither conveys any ambiguity nor emanates any untrue innuendo, as was the case with the “Bred Spred” considered by Congress in its deliberation on i 403 (g). See H. R. Rep. No. 2139, 75th Cong., 3d Sess. 5; House Hearings on H. R. 6906, 8805, 8941 and S. 5, 74th Cong., 1st Sess. 46-47. It purports and is represented to be only what it is — an imitation. It does not purport nor represent to be what it is not — the Administrator’s genuine “jam.”
In our anxiety to effectuate the congressional purpose of protecting the public, we must take care not to extend the scope of the statute beyond the point where Congress indicated it would stop. The Government would have us hold that when the Administrator standardizes the ingredients of a food, no imitation of that food can be marketed which contains an ingredient of the original and serves a similar purpose. If Congress wishes to say that nothing shall be marketed in likeness to a food as defined by the Administrator, though it is accurately labeled, entirely wholesome, and perhaps more within the reach of the meager purse, our decisions indicate that Congress may well do so. But Congress has not said so. It indicated the contrary. Indeed, the Administrator’s contemporaneous construction concededly is contrary to what he now contends. We must assume his present misconception results from a misreading of what was written in the Quaker Oats case.
Reversed.
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | 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 & alia
delivered the opinion of the Court.
We must decide whether Article Ill’s limitation of federal courts’ jurisdiction to “Cases” and “Controversies,” reflected in the “actual controversy” requirement of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a), requires a patent licensee to terminate or be in breach of its license agreement before it can seek a declaratory judgment that the underlying patent is invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed.
I
Because the declaratory-judgment claims in this case were disposed of at the motion-to-dismiss stage, we take the following facts from the allegations in petitioner’s amended complaint and the unopposed declarations that petitioner submitted in response to the motion to dismiss. Petitioner Medlmmune, Inc., manufactures Synagis, a drug used to prevent respiratory tract disease in infants and young children. In 1997, petitioner entered into a patent license agreement with respondent Genentech, Inc. (which acted on behalf of itself as patent assignee and on behalf of the coassignee, respondent City of Hope). The license covered an existing patent relating to the production of “chimeric antibodies” and a then-pending patent application relating to “the co-expression of immunoglobulin chains in recombinant host cells.” Petitioner agreed to pay royalties on sales of “Licensed Products,” and respondents granted petitioner the right to make, use, and sell them. The agreement defined “Licensed Products” as a specified antibody, “the manufacture, use or sale of which... would, if not licensed under th[e] Agreement, infringe one or more claims of either or both of [the covered patents,] which have neither expired nor been held invalid by a court or other body of competent jurisdiction from which no appeal has been or may be taken.” App. 399. The license agreement gave petitioner the right to terminate upon six months’ written notice.
In December 2001, the “coexpression” application covered by the 1997 license agreement matured into the “Cabilly II” patent. Soon thereafter, respondent Genentech delivered petitioner a letter expressing its belief that Synagis was covered by the Cabilly II patent and its expectation that petitioner would pay royalties beginning March 1, 2002. Petitioner did not think royalties were owing, believing that the Cabilly II patent was invalid and unenforceable, and that its claims were in any event not infringed by Synagis. Nevertheless, petitioner considered the letter to be a clear threat to enforce the Cabilly II patent, terminate the 1997 license agreement, and sue for patent infringement if petitioner did not make royalty payments as demanded. If respondents were to prevail in a patent infringement action, petitioner could be ordered to pay treble damages and attorney’s fees, and could be enjoined from selling Synagis, a product that has accounted for more than 80 percent of its revenue from sales since 1999. Unwilling to risk such serious consequences, petitioner paid the demanded royalties “under protest and with reservation of all of [its] rights.” Id., at 426. This declaratory-judgment action followed.
Petitioner sought the declaratory relief discussed in detail in Part II below. Petitioner also requested damages and an injunction with respect to other federal and state claims not relevant here. The District Court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss the declaratory-judgment claims for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction, relying on the decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Gen-Probe Inc. v. Vysis, Inc., 359 F. 3d 1376 (2004). Gen-Probe had held that a patent licensee in good standing cannot establish an Article III case or controversy with regard to validity, enforceability, or scope of the patent because the license agreement “obliterate[s] any reasonable apprehension” that the licensee will be sued for infringement. Id., at 1381. The Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court, also relying on Gen-Probe. 427 F. 3d 958 (2005). We granted certiorari. 546 U. S. 1169 (2006).
II
At the outset, we address a disagreement concerning the nature of the dispute at issue here — whether it involves only a freestanding claim of patent invalidity or rather a claim that, both because of patent invalidity and because of noninfringement, no royalties are owing under the license agreement. That probably makes no difference to the ultimate issue of subject-matter jurisdiction, but it is well to be clear about the nature of the case before us.
Respondents contend that petitioner “is not seeking an interpretation of its present contractual obligations.” Brief for Respondent Genentech 37; see also Brief for Respondent City of Hope 48-49. They claim this for two reasons: (1) because there is no dispute that Synagis infringes the Cabilly II patent, thereby making royalties payable; and (2) because while there is a dispute over patent validity, the contract calls for royalties on an infringing product whether or not the underlying patent is valid. See Brief for Respondent Genentech 7, 37. The first point simply does not comport with the allegations of petitioner’s amended complaint. The very first count requested a “DECLARATORY JUDGMENT ON CONTRACTUAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS,” and stated that petitioner “disputes its obligation to make payments under the 1997 License Agreement because [petitioner’s] sale of its Synagis® product does not infringe any valid claim of the [Cabilly II] Patent.” App. 136. These contentions were repeated throughout the complaint. Id., at 104,105,108,147 And the phrase “does not infringe any valid claim” (emphasis added) cannot be thought to be no more than a challenge to the patent’s validity, since elsewhere the amended complaint states with unmistakable clarity that “the patent is... not infringed by [petitioner’s] Synagis® product and that [petitioner] owes no payments under license agreements with [respondents].” Id., at 104.
As to the second point, petitioner assuredly did contend that it had no obligation under the license to pay royalties on an invalid patent. Id., at 104,136,147. Nor is that contention frivolous. True, the license requires petitioner to pay royalties until a patent claim has been held invalid by a competent body, and the Cabilly II patent has not. But the license at issue in Lear, Inc. v. Adkins, 395 U. S. 653, 673 (1969), similarly provided that “royalties are to be paid until such time as the 'patent... is held invalid,’ ” and we rejected the argument that a repudiating licensee must comply with its contract and pay royalties until its claim is vindicated in court. We express no opinion on whether a nonrepudiating licensee is similarly relieved of its contract obligation during a successful challenge to a patent’s validity — that is, on the applicability of licensee estoppel under these circumstances. Cf. Studiengesellschaft Kohle, m. b. H. v. Shell Oil Co., 112 F. 3d 1561, 1568 (CA Fed. 1997) (“[A] licensee... cannot invoke the protection of the Lear doctrine until it (i) actually ceases payment of royalties, and (ii) provides notice to the licensor that the reason for ceasing payment of royalties is because it has deemed the relevant claims to be invalid”). All we need determine is whether petitioner has alleged a contractual dispute. It has done so.
Respondents further argue that petitioner waived its contract claim by failing to argue it below. Brief for Respondent Genentech 10-11; Tr. of Oral Arg. 30-31. The record reveals, however, that petitioner raised the contract point before the Federal Circuit. See Brief for Plantiff-Appellant Medlmmune, Inc., in Nos. 04-1300, 04-1384 (CA Fed.), p. 38 (“Here, Medlmmune is seeking to define its rights and obligations under its contract with Genentech — precisely the type of action the Declaratory Judgment Act contemplates”). That petitioner limited its contract argument to a few pages of its appellate brief does not suggest a waiver; it merely reflects counsel’s sound assessment that the argument would be futile. The Federal Circuit’s Gen-Probe precedent precluded jurisdiction over petitioner’s contract claims, and the panel below had no authority to overrule Gen-Probe. Having determined that petitioner has raised and preserved a contract claim, we turn to the jurisdictional question.
III
The Declaratory Judgment Act provides that, “[i]n a case of actual controversy within its jurisdiction... any court of the United States... may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party seeking such declaration, whether or not further relief is or could be sought.” 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a). There was a time when this Court harbored doubts about the compatibility of declaratory-judgment actions with Article Ill’s case-or-controversy requirement. See Willing v. Chicago Auditorium Assn., 277 U. S. 274, 289 (1928); Liberty Warehouse Co. v. Grannis, 273 U. S. 70 (1927); see also Gordon v. United States, 117 U. S. Appx. 697, 702 (1864) (the last opinion of Taney, C. J., published posthumously) (“The award of execution is... an essential part of every judgment passed by a court exercising judicial power”). We dispelled those doubts, however, in Nashville, C. & St. L. R. Co. v. Wallace, 288 U. S. 249 (1933), holding (in a case involving a declaratory judgment rendered in state court) that an appropriate action for declaratory relief can be a case or controversy under Article III. The federal Declaratory Judgment Act was signed into law the following year, and we upheld its constitutionality in Aetna Life Ins. Co. v. Haworth, 300 U. S. 227 (1937). Our opinion explained that the phrase “case of actual controversy” in the Act refers to the type of “Cases” and “Controversies” that are justiciable under Article III. Id., at 240.
Aetna and the cases following it do not draw the brightest of lines between those declaratory-judgment actions that satisfy the case-or-controversy requirement and those that do not. Our decisions have required that the dispute be “definite and concrete, touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests”; and that it be “real and substantial” and “admi[t] of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.” Id., at 240-241. In Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 312 U. S. 270, 273 (1941), we summarized as follows: “Basically, the question in each case is whether the facts alleged, under all the circumstances, show that there is a substantial controversy, between parties having adverse legal interests, of sufficient immediacy and reality to warrant the issuance of a declaratory judgment.”
There is no dispute that these standards would have been satisfied if petitioner had taken the final step of refusing to make royalty payments under the 1997 license agreement. Respondents claim a right to royalties under the licensing agreement. Petitioner asserts that no royalties are owing because the Cabilly II patent is invalid and not infringed; and alleges (without contradiction) a threat by respondents to enjoin sales if royalties are not forthcoming. The factual and legal dimensions of the dispute are well defined and, but for petitioner’s continuing to make royalty payments, nothing about the dispute would render it unfit for judicial resolution. Assuming (without deciding) that respondents here could not claim an anticipatory breach and repudiate the license, the continuation of royalty payments makes what would otherwise be an imminent threat at least remote, if not nonexistent. As long as those payments are made, there is no risk that respondents will seek to enjoin petitioner’s sales. Petitioner’s own acts, in other words, eliminate the imminent threat of harm. The question before us is whether this causes the dispute no longer to be a case or controversy within the meaning of Article III.
Our analysis must begin with the recognition that, where threatened action by government is concerned, we do not require a plaintiff to expose himself to liability before bringing suit to challenge the basis for the threat — for example, the constitutionality of a law threatened to be enforced. The plaintiff’s own action (or inaction) in failing to violate the law eliminates the immanent threat of prosecution, but nonetheless does not eliminate Article III jurisdiction. For example, in Terrace v. Thompson, 263 U. S. 197 (1923), the State threatened the plaintiff with forfeiture of his farm, fines, and penalties if he entered into a lease with an alien in violation of the State’s anti-alien land law. Given this genuine threat of enforcement, we did not require, as a prerequisite to testing the validity of the law in a suit for injunction, that the plaintiff bet the farm, so to speak, by taking the violative action. Id., at 216. See also, e.g., Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U. S. 365 (1926); Ex parte Young, 209 U. S. 123 (1908). Likewise, in Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452 (1974), we did not require the plaintiff to proceed to distribute handbills and risk actual prosecution before he could seek a declaratory judgment regarding the constitutionality of a state statute prohibiting such distribution. Id., at 458-460. As then-justice Rehnquist put it in his concurrence, “the declaratory judgment procedure is an alternative to pursuit of the arguably illegal activity.” Id., at 480. In each of these cases, the plaintiff had eliminated the imminent threat of harm by simply not doing what he claimed the right to do (enter into a lease, or distribute handbills at the shopping center). That did not preclude subject-matter jurisdiction because the threat-eliminating behavior was effectively coerced. See Terrace, supra, at 215-216; Steffel, supra, at 459. The dilemma posed by that coercion — putting the challenger to the choice between abandoning his rights or risking prosecution — is “a dilemma that it was the very purpose of the Declaratory Judgment Act to ameliorate.” Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 152 (1967).
Supreme Court jurisprudence is more rare regarding application of the Declaratory Judgment Act to situations in which the plaintiff’s self-avoidance of imminent injury is coerced by threatened enforcement action of a private party rather than the government. Lower federal courts, however (and state courts interpreting declaratory-judgment acts requiring “actual controversy”), have long accepted jurisdiction in such cases. See, e. g., Keener Oil & Gas Co. v. Consolidated Gas Utils. Corp., 190 F. 2d 985, 989 (CA10 1951); American Machine & Metals, Inc. v. De Bothezat Impeller Co., 166 F. 2d 535 (CA2 1948); Hess v. Country Club Park, 213 Cal. 613, 614, 2 P. 2d 782, 783 (1931); Washington-Detroit Theater Co. v. Moore, 249 Mich. 673, 675, 229 N. W. 618, 618-619 (1930); see also Advisory Committee’s Note on Fed. Rule Civ. Proc.. 57, 28 U. S. C. App., p. 790.
The only Supreme Court decision in point is, fortuitously, close on its facts to the case before us. Altvater v. Freeman, 319 U. S. 359 (1943), held that a licensee’s failure to cease its payment of royalties did not render nonjusticiable a dispute over the validity of the patent. In that litigation, several patentees had sued their licensees to enforce territorial restrictions in the license. The licensees filed a counterclaim for declaratory judgment that the underlying patents were invalid, in the meantime paying “under protest” royalties required by an injunction the patentees had obtained in an earlier case. The patentees argued that “so long as [licensees] continue to pay royalties, there is only an academic, not a real controversy, between the parties.” Id., at 364. We rejected that argument and held that the declaratory-judgment claim presented a justiciable case or controversy: “The fact that royalties were being paid did not make this a ‘difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character.’” Ibid, (quoting Aetna, 300 U. S., at 240). The royalties “were being paid under protest and under the compulsion of an injunction decree,” and “[ujnless the injunction decree were modified, the only other course [of action] was to defy it, and to risk not only actual but treble damages in infringement suits.” 319 U. S., at 365. We concluded that “the requirements of [a] ease or controversy are met where payment of a claim is demanded as of right and where payment is made, but where the involuntary or coercive nature of the exaction preserves the right to recover the sums paid or to challenge the legality of the claim.” Ibid.
The Federal Circuit’s Gen-Probe decision distinguished Altvater on the ground that it involved the compulsion of an injunction. But Altvater cannot be so readily dismissed. Never mind that the injunction had been privately obtained and was ultimately within the control of the patentees, who could permit its modification. More fundamentally, and contrary to the Federal Circuit’s conclusion, Altvater did not say that the coercion dispositive of the case was governmental, but suggested just the opposite. The opinion acknowledged that the licensees had the option of stopping payments in defiance of the injunction, but explained that the consequence of doing so would be to risk “actual [and] treble damages in infringement suits” by the patentees. 319 U. S., at 365. It significantly did not mention the threat of prosecution for contempt, or any other sort of governmental sanction. Moreover, it cited approvingly a treatise which said that an “actual or threatened serious injury to business or employment” by a private party can be as coercive as other forms of coercion supporting restitution actions at common law; and that “[t]o imperil a man’s livelihood, his business enterprises, or his solvency, [was] ordinarily quite as coercive” as, for example, “detaining his property.” F. Woodward, The Law of Quasi Contracts § 218 (1913), cited in Altvater, supra, at 365.
Jurisdiction over the present ease is not contradicted by Willing v. Chicago Auditorium Assn., 277 U. S. 274. There a ground lessee wanted to demolish an antiquated auditorium and replace it with a modern commercial building. The lessee believed it had the right to do this without the lessors’ consent, but was unwilling to drop the wrecking ball first and test its belief later. Because there was no declaratory-judgment act at the time under federal or applicable state law, the lessee filed an action to remove a “cloud” on its lease. This Court held that an Article III case or controversy had not arisen because “[n]o defendant ha[d] wronged the plaintiff or ha[d] threatened to do so.” Id., at 288, 290. It was true that one of the colessors had disagreed with the lessee’s interpretation of the lease, but that happened in an “informal, friendly, private conversation,” id., at 286, a year before the lawsuit was filed; and the lessee never even bothered to approach the other colessors. The Court went on to remark that “[wjhat the plaintiff seeks is simply a declaratory judgment,” and “[t]o grant that relief is beyond the power conferred upon the federal judiciary.” Id., at 289. Had Willing been decided after the enactment (and our upholding) of the Declaratory Judgment Act, and had the legal disagreement between the parties been as lively as this one, we are confident a different result would have obtained. The rule that a plaintiff must destroy a large building, bet the farm, or (as here) risk treble damages and the loss of 80 percent of its business before seeking a declaration of its actively contested legal rights finds no support in Article III.
Respondents assert that the parties in effect settled this dispute when they entered into the 1997 license agreement. When a licensee enters such an agreement, they contend, it essentially purchases an insurance policy, immunizing it from suits for infringement so long as it continues to pay royalties and does not challenge the covered patents. Permitting it to challenge the validity of the patent without terminating or breaking the agreement alters the deal, allowing the licensee to continue enjoying its immunity while bringing a suit, the elimination of which was part of the patentee’s quid pro quo. Of course even if it were valid, this argument would have no force with regard to petitioner’s claim that the agreement does not call for royalties because their product does not infringe the patent. But even as to the patent invalidity claim, the point seems to us mistaken. To begin with, it is not clear where the prohibition against challenging the validity of the patents is to be found. It can hardly be implied from the mere promise to pay royalties on patents “which have neither expired nor been held invalid by a court or other body of competent jurisdiction from which no appeal has been or may be taken,” App. 399. Promising to pay royalties on patents that have not been held invalid does not amount to a promise not to seek a holding of their invalidity.
Respondents appeal to the common-law rule that a party to a contract cannot at one and the same time challenge its validity and continue to reap its benefits, citing Commodity Credit Corp. v. Rosenberg Bros. & Co., 243 F. 2d 504, 512 (CA9 1957), and Kingman & Co. v. Stoddard, 85 F. 740, 745 (CA7 1898). Lear, they contend, did not suspend that rule for patent licensing agreements, since the plaintiff in that case had already repudiated the contract. Even if Lear’s repudiation of the doctrine of licensee estoppel was so limited (a point on which, as we have said earlier, we do not opine), it is hard to see how the common-law rule has any application here. Petitioner is not repudiating or impugning the contract while continuing to reap its benefits. Rather, it is asserting that the contract, properly interpreted, does not prevent it from challenging the patents, and does not require the payment of royalties because the patents do not cover its products and are invalid. Of course even if respondents were correct that the licensing agreement or the common-law rule precludes this suit, the consequence would be that respondents win this case on the merits — not that the very-genuine contract dispute disappears, so that Article III jurisdiction is somehow defeated. In short, Article III jurisdiction has nothing to do with this “insurance-policy” contention.
Lastly, respondents urge us to affirm the dismissal of the declaratory-judgment claims on discretionary grounds. The Declaratory Judgment Act provides that a court “may declare the rights and other legal relations of any interested party,” 28 U. S. C. § 2201(a) (emphasis added), not that it must do so. This text has long been understood “to confer on federal courts unique and substantial discretion in deciding whether to declare the rights of litigants.” Wilton v. Seven Falls Co., 515 U. S. 277, 286 (1995); see also Cardinal Chemical Co. v. Morton Int'l, Inc., 508 U. S. 83, 95, n. 17 (1993); Brillhart v. Excess Ins. Co. of America, 316 U. S. 491, 494-496 (1942). We have found it “more consistent with the statute,” however, “to vest district courts with discretion in the first instance, because facts bearing on the usefulness of the declaratory judgment remedy, and the fitness of the case for resolution, are peculiarly within their grasp.” Wilton, supra, at 289. The District Court here gave no consideration to discretionary dismissal, since, despite its “serious misgivings” about the Federal Circuit’s rule, it considered itself bound to dismiss by Gen-Probe. App. to Pet. for Cert. 31a. Discretionary dismissal was irrelevant to the Federal Circuit for the same reason. Respondents have raised the issue for the first time before this Court, exchanging competing accusations of inequitable conduct with petitioner. See, e. g., Brief for Respondent Genentech 42-44; Reply Brief for Petitioner 17, and n. 15. Under these circumstances, it would be imprudent for us to decide whether the District Court should, or must, decline to issue the requested declaratory relief. We leave the equitable, prudential, and policy arguments in favor of such a discretionary dismissal for the lower courts’ consideration on remand. Similarly available for consideration on remand are any merits-based arguments for denial of declaratory relief.
* * *
We hold that petitioner was not required, insofar as Article III is concerned, to break or terminate its 1997 license agreement before seeking a declaratory judgment in federal court that the underlying patent is invalid, unenforceable, or not infringed. The Court of Appeals erred in affirming the dismissal of this action for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the cause is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Hereinafter, invalidity and unenforceability will be referred to simply as invalidity, with similar abbreviation of positive (validity and enforceability) and adjectival (valid and invalid, enforceable and unenforceable) forms.
The dissent contends that the question on which we granted certiorari does not reach the contract claim. Post, at 140-141 (opinion of Thomas, J.). We think otherwise. The question specifically refers to the “license agreement” and to the contention that the patent is “not infringed.” Pet. for Cert. (i). The unmistakable meaning is that royalties are not owing under the contract.
In addition to agreeing with respondents that (despite the face of the complaint) this case does not involve a contract claim, post, at 140-141, the dissent evidently thinks the contract claim is weak. That, however, goes to the merits of the claim, not to its existence or the courts’ jurisdiction over it. Nor is the alleged “lack of specificity in the complaint,” post, at 140, a jurisdictional matter.
The dissent observes that the District Court assumed that Synagis was “ ‘covered by the patents at issue.’ ” Post, at 141 (quoting App. 349-350). But the quoted statement is taken from the District Court’s separate opinion granting summary judgment on petitioner’s antitrust claims. For purposes of that earlier ruling, whether Synagis infringed the patent was irrelevant, and there was no harm in accepting respondents’ contention on the point. This tells us nothing, however, about petitioner’s contract claim or the District Court’s later jurisdictional holding with respect to it.
Respondents obviously agree. They said in the District Court: “The facts of this case are, for purposes of this motion, identical to the facts in Gen-Probe.... Like Gen-Probe, Medlmmune filed an action seeking a declaratory judgment that: (a) it owes nothing under its license agreement with Genentech because its sales of Synagis® allegedly do not infringe any. valid claim of the [Cabilly II] patent; (b) the [Cabilly II] patent is invalid; (c) the [Cabilly II] patent is unenforceable; and (d) Synagis® does not infringe the [Cabilly II] patent.” App. in Nos. 04-1300, 04-1384 (CA Fed.), p. A2829 (record citations omitted).
The dissent asserts that petitioner did not allege a contract claim in its opening brief or at oral argument. Post, at 141. This is demonstrably false. See, e. g., Brief for Petitioner 8 (the Cabilly II patent was “not infringed by Synagis®, so that royalties were not due under the license”); id., at 12 (Summary of Argument: “[The purpose] of the Declaratory Judgment Act... was to allow contracting parties to resolve their disputes in court without breach and without risking economic destruction and multiplying damages.... The holding [below]... would... disrupt the law of licenses and contracts throughout the economy, essentially undoing the achievement of the reformers of 1934”); Tr. of Oral Arg. 15 (“We’re saying this is a' contract dispute”); id., at 16 (“[T]he purpose of [the Declaratory Judgment Act] is so that contracts can be resolved without breach”); id., at 57 (“The contract claim is clear in the record. It’s at page 136 of the joint appendix. I don’t think more needs to be said about it”).
The dissent also asserts that the validity of the contract claim “hinges entirely upon a determination of the patent’s validity,” since “ ‘the license requires [Medlmmune] to pay royalties until a patent claim has been held invalid by a competent body,’” post, at 141, quoting supra, at 124. This would be true only if the license required royalties on all products under the sun, and not just those that practice the patent. Of course it does not.
The dissent asserts, post, at 137, that “the declaratory judgment procedure cannot be used to obtain advanced rulings on matters that would be addressed in a future case of actual controversy.” As our preceding discussion shows, that is not so. If the dissent’s point is simply that a defense cannot be raised by means of a declaratory-judgment action where there is no “actual controversy” or where it would be “premature,” phrasing that argument as the dissent has done begs the question: whether this is an actual, ripe controversy.
Coffman v. Breeze Corps., 323 U. S. 316, 323-324 (1945), cited post, at 139, does not support the dissent’s view (which is why none of the parties cited it). There, a patent owner sued to enjoin his licensee from paying accrued royalties to the Government under the Royalty Adjustment Act of 1942, and sought to attack the constitutionality of the Act. The Court held the request for declaratory judgment and injunction nonjusticiable because the patent owner asserted no right to recover the royalties and there was no indication that the licensee would even raise the Act as a defense to suit for the royalties. The other case the dissent cites for the point, Calderon v. Ashmus, 523 U. S. 740, 749 (1998), simply holds that a litigant may not use a declaratory-judgment action to obtain piecemeal adjudication of defenses that would not finally and conclusively resolve the underlying controversy. That is, of course, not the case here.
The justiciability problem that arises, when the party seeking declaratory relief is himself preventing the complained-of injury from occurring, can be described in terms of standing (whether plaintiff is threatened with “imminent” injury in fact “‘fairly... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant,’” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U. S. 555, 560 (1992)), or in terms of ripeness (whether there is sufficient “hardship to the parties [in] withholding court consideration” until there is enforcement action, Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U. S. 136, 149 (1967)). As respondents acknowledge, standing and ripeness boil down to the same question in this case. Brief for Respondent Genentech 24; Brief for Respondent City of Hope 30-31.
The dissent claims the cited cases do not “rely on the coercion inherent in making contractual payments.” Post, at 145, n. 3. That is true; they relied on (to put the matter as the dissent puts it) the coercion inherent in complying with other claimed contractual obligations. The dissent fails to explain why a contractual obligation of payment is magically different. It obviously is not. In our view, of course, the relevant coercion is not compliance with the claimed contractual obligation, but rather the consequences of failure to do so.
The dissent incorrectly asserts that Altvater required actual infringement, quoting wildly out of context (and twice, for emphasis) Altvater’s statement that “ ‘[t]o hold a patent valid if it is not infringed is to decide a hypothetical ease.’” Post, at 139, 143 (quoting 319 U. S., at 363). In the passage from which the quotation was plucked, the Altvater Court was distinguishing the Court’s earlier decision in Electrical Fittings Corp. v. Thomas & Betts Co., 307 U. S. 241 (1939), which involved an affirmative defense of patent invalidity that had become moot in light of a finding of no infringement. Here is the full quotation:
“The District Court [in Electrical Fittings] adjudged a claim of a patent valid although it dismissed the bill for failure to prove infringement. We held that the finding of validity was immaterial to the disposition of the cause and that the winning party might appeal to obtain a reformation of the decree. To hold a patent valid if it is not infringed is to decide a hypothetical case. But the situation in the present case is quite different. We have here not only bill and answer but a counterclaim. Though the decision of non-infringement disposes of the bill and answer, it does not dispose of the counterclaim which raises the question of validity.” Altvater, supra, at 363 (footnote omitted).
As the full quotation makes clear, the snippet quoted by the dissent has nothing to do with whether infringement must be actual or merely threatened. Indeed, it makes clear that in appropriate cases to hold a noninfringed patent valid is not to decide a hypothetical case.
Though the dissent acknowledges the central lesson of Altvater, post, at 144 — that payment of royalties under “coercive” circumstances does not eliminate jurisdiction — it attempts to limit that rationale to the particular facts of Altvater. But none of Altvater’s “unique facts,” post, at 144, suggests that a different test applies to the royalty payments here. Other than a conclusory assertion that the payments here were “voluntarily made,” post, at 146, the dissent never explains why the threat of treble damages and the loss of 80 percent of petitioner’s business does not fall within Altvater’s coercion rationale.
Even if Altvater could be distinguished as an “injunction” case, it would still contradict the Federal Circuit's “reasonable apprehension of suit” test (or, in its evolved form, the “reasonable apprehension of imminent suit” test, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Pfizer, Inc., 395 F. 3d 1324,1333 (2005)). A licensee who pays royalties under compulsion of an injunction has no more apprehension of imminent harm than a licensee who pays royalties for fear of treble damages and an
Question: What is the issue area of the decision?
A. Criminal Procedure
B. Civil Rights
C. First Amendment
D. Due Process
E. Privacy
F. Attorneys
G. Unions
H. Economic Activity
I. Judicial Power
J. Federalism
K. Interstate Relations
L. Federal Taxation
M. Miscellaneous
N. Private Action
Answer: | I | sc_issuearea |
What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to determine the issue area of the Court's decision. Determine the issue area on the basis of the Court's own statements as to what the case is about. Focus on the subject matter of the controversy rather than its legal basis. In specifying the issue in a legacy case, choose the one that best accords with what today's Court would consider it to be. Choose among the following issue areas: "Criminal Procedure" encompasses the rights of persons accused of crime, except for the due process rights of prisoners. "Civil rights" includes non-First Amendment freedom cases which pertain to classifications based on race (including American Indians), age, indigency, voting, residency, military or handicapped status, gender, and alienage. "First Amendment encompasses the scope of this constitutional provision, but do note that it need not involve the interpretation and application of a provision of the First Amendment. For example, if the case only construe a precedent, or the reviewability of a claim based on the First Amendment, or the scope of an administrative rule or regulation that impacts the exercise of First Amendment freedoms. "Due process" is limited to non-criminal guarantees. "Privacy" concerns libel, comity, abortion, contraceptives, right to die, and Freedom of Information Act and related federal or state statutes or regulations. "Attorneys" includes attorneys' compensation and licenses, along with trhose of governmental officials and employees. "Unions" encompass those issues involving labor union activity. "Economic activity" is largely commercial and business related; it includes tort actions and employee actions vis-a-vis employers. "Judicial power" concerns the exercise of the judiciary's own power. "Federalism" pertains to conflicts and other relationships between the federal government and the states, except for those between the federal and state courts. "Federal taxation" concerns the Internal Revenue Code and related statutes. "Private law" relates to disputes between private persons involving real and personal property, contracts, evidence, civil procedure, torts, wills and trusts, and commercial transactions. Prior to the passage of the Judges' Bill of 1925 much of the Court's cases concerned such issues. Use "Miscellaneous" for legislative veto and executive authority vis-a-vis congress or the states.
Chief Justice Rehnquist
delivered the opinion of the Court.
In this case a reviewing court set aside a defendant’s conviction of enhanced sentence because certain evidence was erroneously admitted against him, and further held that the Double Jeopardy Clause forbade the State to retry him as a habitual offender because the remaining evidence adduced at trial was legally insufficient to support a conviction. Nothing in the record suggests any misconduct in the prosecutor’s submission of the evidence. We conclude that in cases such as this, where the evidence offered by the State and admitted by the trial court — whether erroneously or not — would have been sufficient to sustain a guilty verdict, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not preclude retrial.
Respondent Johnny Lee Nelson pleaded guilty in Arkansas state court to burglary, a class B felony, and misdemeanor theft. He was sentenced under the State’s habitual criminal statute, which provides that a defendant who is convicted of a class B felony and “who has previously been convicted of. . . [or] found guilty of four [4] or more felonies,” may be sentenced to an enhanced term of imprisonment of between 20 and 40 years. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41 — 1001(2)(b) (1977) (current version at Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-501 (1987)). To have a convicted defendant’s sentence enhanced under the statute, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt, at a separate sentencing hearing, that the defendant has the requisite number of prior felony convictions. § 41-1005 (current version at Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-502 (1987)); § 41-1003 (current version at Ark. Code Ann. §5-4-504 (1987)). Section 41-1003 of the statute sets out the means by which the prosecution may prove the prior felony convictions, providing that “[a] previous conviction or finding of guilt of a felony may be proved by any evidence that satisfies the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was convicted or found guilty,” and that three types of documents, including “a duly certified copy of the record of a previous conviction or finding of guilt by a court of record,” are “sufficient to support a finding of a prior conviction or finding of guilt.” §41-1003 (current version at Ark. Code Ann. §5-4-504 (1987)). The defendant is entitled to challenge the State’s evidence of his prior convictions and to rebut it with evidence of his own. § 41-1005(2) (current version at Ark. Code Ann. §5-4-502(2) (1987)).
At respondent’s sentencing hearing, the State introduced, without objection from the defense, certified copies of four prior felony convictions. Unbeknownst to the prosecutor, one of those convictions had been pardoned by the Governor several years after its entry. Defense counsel made no objection to the admission of the pardoned conviction, because he too was unaware of the Governor’s action. On cross-examination, respondent indicated his belief that the conviction in question had been pardoned. The prosecutor suggested that respondent was confusing a pardon with a commutation to time served. Under questioning from the court, respondent agreed that the conviction had been commuted rather than pardoned, and the matter was not pursued any further. The case was submitted to the jury, which found that the State had met its burden of proving four prior convictions and imposed an enhanced sentence. The state courts upheld the enhanced sentence on both direct and collateral review, despite respondent’s protestations that one of the convictions relied upon by the State had been pardoned.
Several years later, respondent sought a writ of habeas corpus in the United States District Court, contending once again that the enhanced sentence was invalid because one of the prior convictions used to support it had been pardoned. When an investigation undertaken by the State at the District Court’s request revealed that the conviction in question had in fact been pardoned, the District Court declared the enhanced sentence to be invalid. The State announced its intention to resentence respondent as a habitual offender, using another prior conviction not offered or admitted at the initial sentencing hearing, and respondent interposed a claim of double jeopardy. After hearing arguments from counsel, the District Court decided that the Double Jeopardy Clause prevented the State from attempting to resentence respondent as a habitual offender on the burglary charge. 641 F. Supp. 174 (ED Ark. 1986). The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 828 F. 2d 446 (1987). The Court of Appeals reasoned that the pardoned conviction was not admissible under state law, and that “[without [it], the state has failed to provide sufficient evidence” to sustain the enhanced sentence. Id., at 449-450. We granted certiorari to review this interpretation of the Double Jeopardy Clause. 485 U. S. 904 (1988).
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment, made applicable to the States through the Fourteenth Amendment, see Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969), provides that no person shall “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy.” It has long been settled, however, that the Double Jeopardy Clause’s general prohibition against successive prosecutions does not prevent the government from retrying a defendant who succeeds in getting his first conviction set aside, through direct appeal or collateral attack, because of some error in the proceedings leading to conviction. United States v. Ball, 163 U. S. 662 (1896) (retrial permissible following reversal of conviction on direct appeal); United States v. Tateo, 377 U. S. 463 (1964) (retrial permissible when conviction declared invalid on collateral attack). This rule, which is a “well-established part of our constitutional jurisprudence,” id., at 465, is necessary in order to ensure the “sound administration of justice”:
“Corresponding to the right of an accused to be given a fair trial is the societal interest in punishing one whose guilt is clear after he has obtained such a trial. It would be a high price indeed for society to pay were every accused granted immunity from punishment because of any defect sufficient to constitute reversible error in the proceedings leading to conviction.” Id., at 466.
Permitting retrial after a conviction has been set aside also serves the interests of defendants, for “it is at least doubtful that appellate courts would be as zealous as they now are in protecting against the effects of improprieties at the trial or pretrial stage if they knew that reversal of a conviction would put the accused irrevocably beyond the reach of further prosecution.” Ibid.
In Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1 (1978), we recognized an exception to the general rule that the Double Jeopardy Clause does not bar the retrial of a defendant who has succeeded in getting his conviction set aside for error in the proceedings below. Burks held that when a defendant’s conviction is reversed by an appellate court on the sole ground that the evidence was insufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars a retrial on the same charge. Id., at 18; see Greene v. Massey, 437 U. S. 19, 24 (1978); Hudson v. Louisiana, 450 U. S. 40, 42-43 (1981).
Burks was based on the view that an appellate court’s reversal for insufficiency of the evidence is in effect a determination that the government’s case against the defendant was so lacking that the trial court should have entered a judgment of acquittal, rather than submitting the case to the jury. Burks, 437 U. S., at 16-17. Because the Double Jeopardy Clause affords the defendant who obtains a judgment of acquittal at the trial level absolute immunity from further prosecution for the same offense, it ought to do the same for the defendant who obtains an appellate determination that the trial court should have entered a judgment of acquittal. Id., at 10-11, 16. The fact that the determination of entitlement to a judgment of acquittal is made by the appellate court rather than the trial court should not, we thought, affect its double jeopardy consequences; to hold otherwise “would create a purely arbitrary distinction” between defendants based on the hierarchical level at which the determination was made. Id., at 11.
The question presented by this case — whether the Double Jeopardy Clause allows retrial when a reviewing court determines that a defendant’s conviction must be reversed because evidence was erroneously admitted against him, and also concludes that without the inadmissible evidence there was insufficient evidence to support a conviction — was expressly reserved in Greene v. Massey, supra, at 26, n. 9, decided the same day as Burks. We think the logic of Burks requires that the question be answered in the affirmative.
Burks was careful to point out that a reversal based solely on evidentiary insufficiency has fundamentally different implications, for double jeopardy purposes, than a reversal based on such ordinary “trial errors” as the “incorrect receipt or rejection of evidence.” 437 U. S., at 14-16. While the former is in effect a finding “that the government has failed to prove its case” against the defendant, the latter “implies nothing with respect to the guilt or innocence of the defendant,” but is simply “a determination that [he] has been convicted through a judicial process which is defective in some fundamental respect.” Id., at 15 (emphasis added).
It appears to us to be beyond dispute that this is a situation described in Burks as reversal for “trial error” — the trial court erred in admitting a particular piece of evidence, and without it there was insufficient evidence to support a judgment of conviction. But clearly with that evidence, there was enough to support the sentence: the court and jury had before them certified copies of four prior felony convictions, and that is sufficient to support a verdict of enhancement under the statute. See Ark. Stat. Ann. §41-1003 (1977) (current version at Ark. Code Ann. § 5-4-504 (1987)). The fact that one of the convictions had been later pardoned by the Governor vitiated its legal effect, but it did not deprive the certified copy of that conviction of its probative value under the statute. It is quite clear from our opinion in Burks that a reviewing court must consider all of the evidence admitted by the trial court in deciding whether retrial is permissible under the Double Jeopardy Clause — indeed, that was the ratio decidendi of Burks, see 437 U. S., at 16-17 — and the overwhelming majority of appellate courts considering the question have agreed. The basis for the Burks exception to the general rule is that a reversal for insufficiency of the evidence should be treated no differently than a trial court’s granting a judgment of acquittal at the close of all the evidence. A trial court in passing on such a motion considers all of the evidence it has admitted, and to make the analogy complete it must be this same quantum of evidence which is considered by the reviewing court.
Permitting retrial in this instance is not the sort of governmental oppression at which the Double Jeopardy Clause is aimed; rather, it serves the interest of the defendant by affording him an opportunity to “obtai[n] a fair readjudication of his guilt free from error.” Burks, supra, at 15; see Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U. S. 31, 40 (1982); United States v. DiFrancesco, 449 U. S. 117, 131 (1980); United States v. Scott, 437 U. S. 82, 91 (1978). Had the defendant offered evidence at the sentencing hearing to prove that the conviction had become a nullity by reason of the pardon, the trial judge would presumably have allowed the prosecutor an opportunity to offer evidence of another prior conviction to support the habitual offender charge. Our holding today thus merely recreates the situation that would have been obtained if the trial court had excluded the evidence of the conviction because of the showing of a pardon. Cf. our discussion in Burks, supra, at 6-7.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is accordingly
Reversed.
Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1003 (1977) provided as follows:
“. . . A previous conviction or finding of guilt of a felony may be proved by any evidence that satisfies the trier of fact beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was convicted or found guilty. The following are sufficient to support a finding of a prior conviction or finding of guilt:
“(1) a duly certified copy of the record of a previous conviction or finding of guilt by a court of record; or
“(2) a certificate of the warden or other chief officer of a penal institution of this state or of another jurisdiction, containing the name and fingerprints of the defendant, as they appear in the records of his office; or
“(3) a certificate of the chief custodian of the records of the United States Department of Justice, containing the name and fingerprints of the defendant as they appear in the records of his office.”
There is no indication that the prosecutor knew of the pardon and was attempting to deceive the court. We therefore have no occasion to consider what the result would be if the case were otherwise. Cf. Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U. S. 667 (1982).
Prior to 1981, the Arkansas statute assigned responsibility for determining whether the State had proved the requisite number of prior convictions to the jury. Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1005 (1977). In 1981, the Arkansas General Assembly amended the statute to reassign this responsibility to the trial court. 1981 Ark. Gen. Acts 252 (Feb. 27, 1981) (codified at Ark. Stat. Ann. § 41-1Q05 (Supp. 1985) (current version at Ark. Code Ann. §5-4-502 (1987))). Though respondent’s trial took place after the 1981 amendments became effective, the trial court, evidently unaware of the amendments, permitted the jury to make the factual finding as to the number of prior convictions proved by the State. No objection was made by either side, and the error has no bearing on the double jeopardy issue before us.
Respondent challenged the use of the pardoned conviction to enhance his sentence on direct appeal. The Arkansas Court of Appeals rejected this claim because of respondent’s failure to make a contemporaneous objection to the use of that conviction. Nelson v. State, No. CA CR 83-150 (May 2, 1984), App. 13. Respondent later petitioned the Arkansas Supreme Court for posteonviction relief, which was denied on the ground that respondent’s “bare assertion” of a pardon, unsupported by any factual evidence, was an insufficient basis on which to grant relief. Nelson v. State, No. CR 84-133 (Nov. 19, 1984), App. 15.
The District Court made clear, however, that the Double Jeopardy Clause did not prevent the State from resentencing respondent for the class B felony itself, under the sentencing rules applicable in the absence of proof of habitual criminal status. See 641 F. Supp., at 186.
The State has attacked the ruling below on a single ground: that the defect in respondent’s first sentence enhancement proceeding does not bar retrial. To reach this question, we would ordinarily have to decide two issues which are its logical antecedents: (1) whether the rule that the Double Jeopardy Clause limits the State’s power to subject a defendant to suecessive capital sentencing proceedirigs, see Bullington v. Missouri, 451 U. S. 430 (1981), carries over to noncapital sentencing proceedings, see North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711, 720 (1969); and (2) whether the rule that retrial is prohibited after a conviction is set aside by an appellate court for evidentiary insufficiency, see Burks v. United States, 437 U. S. 1 (1978), is applicable when the determination of evidentiary insufficiency is made instead by a federal habeas court in a collateral attack on a state conviction, see Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon, 466 U. S. 294 (1984). The courts below answered both questions in the affirmative, and the State has conceded both in its briefs and at oral argument the validity of those rulings. We therefore assume, without deciding, that these two issues present no barrier to reaching the double jeopardy claim raised here.
We are not at all sure that the. Court of Appeals was correct to describe the evidence of this conviction as “inadmissible,” in view of the Arkansas statutory provision and the colloquy between court, counsel, and defendant referred to above. Evidence of the disputed conviction was introduced, and it was mistakenly thought by all concerned that the conviction had not been pardoned. Several years later it was discovered that the conviction had in fact been pardoned; the closest analogy would seem to be that of “newly discovered evidence.” For purposes of our decision, however, we accept the characterization of the Court of Appeals.
See, e. g., United States v. Gonzalez-Sanchez, 825 F. 2d 572, 588, n. 57 (CA1 1987); United States v. Hodges, 770 F. 2d 1475, 1477-1478 (CA9 1985); Webster v. Duckworth, 767 F. 2d 1206, 1214-1216 (CA7 1985); United States v. Marshall, 762 F. 2d 419, 423 (CA5 1985); United States v. Bibbero, 749 F. 2d 581, 586, n. 3 (CA9 1984); United States v. Key, 725 F. 2d 1123, 1127 (CA7 1984); United States v. Tranowski, 702 F. 2d 668, 671 (CA7 1983), cert. denied, 468 U. S. 1217 (1984); United States v. Sarmiento-Perez, 667 F. 2d 1239 (CA5), cert. denied, 459 U. S. 834 (1982); United States v. Harmon, 632 F. 2d 812 (CA9 1980); United States v. Mandel, 591 F. 2d 1347, 1373-1374 (CA4), rev’d on other grounds, 602 F. 2d 653 (1979), cert. denied, 445 U. S. 961 (1980); Harris v. State, 284 Ark. 247, 681 S. W. 2d 334 (1984); People v. Rios, 163 Cal. App. 3d 852, 870-871, 210 Cal. Rptr. 271, 283-284 (1985); People v. Sisneros, 44 Colo. App. 65, 606 P. 2d 1317 (1980); State v. Gray, 200 Conn. 523, 536-540, 512 A. 2d 217, 225-226 (1986); Hall v. State, 244 Ga. 86, 93-94, 259 S. E. 2d 41, 46-47 (1979); People v. Taylor, 76 Ill. 2d 289, 309, 391 N. E. 2d 366, 375 (1979); Morton v. State, 284 Md. 526, 397 A. 2d 1385 (1979); Commonwealth v. Mattingly, 722 S. W. 2d 288 (Ky. 1986); Commonwealth v. Taylor, 383 Mass. 272, 283-285, 418 N. E. 2d 1226, 1233-1234 (1981); State v. Wood, 596 S. W. 2d 394 (Mo.), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 876 (1980); Roeder v. State, 688 S. W. 2d 856, 859-860 (Tex. Crim. App. 1985); State v. Lamorie, 610 P. 2d 342, 346-349 (Utah 1980); State v. Van Isler, 168 W. Va. 185, 283 S. E. 2d 836 (1981).
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 Harlan
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents a question concerning the limitations which §8 (a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 452 (1935), as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 158 (a)(1), places on the right of an employer to confer economic benefits on his employees shortly before a representation election. The precise issue is whether that section prohibits the conferral of such benefits, without more, where the employer’s purpose is to affect the outcome of the election. We granted the National Labor Relations Board’s petition for certiorari, 373 U. S. 931, to clear up a possible conflict between the decision below and those of other Courts of Appeals on an important question of national labor policy. For reasons given in this opinion, we conclude that the judgment below must be reversed.
The respondent, Exchange Parts Company, is engaged in the business of rebuilding automobile parts in Fort Worth, Texas. Prior to November 1959 its employees were not represented by a union. On November 9, 1959, the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Shipbuilders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, AFL-CIO, advised Exchange Parts that the union was conducting an organizational campaign at the plant and that a majority of the employees had designated the union as their bargaining representative. On November 16 the union petitioned the Labor Board for a representation election. The Board conducted a hearing on December 29, and on February 19, 1960, issued an order directing that an election be held. The election was held on March 18, 1960.
At two meetings on November 4 and 5, 1959, C. V. McDonald, the Vice-President and General Manager of Exchange Parts, announced to the employees that their “floating holiday” in 1959 would fall on December 26 and that there would be an additional “floating holiday” in 1960. On February 25, six days after the Board issued its election order, Exchange Parts held a dinner for employees at which Vice-President McDonald told the employees that they could decide whether the extra day of vacation in 1960 would be a “floating holiday” or would be taken on their birthdays. The employees voted for the latter. McDonald also referred to the forthcoming representation election as one in which, in the words of the trial examiner, the employees would “determine whether . . . [they] wished to hand over their right to speak and act for themselves.” He stated that the union had distorted some of the facts and pointed out the benefits obtained by the employees without a union. He urged all the employees to vote in the election.
On March 4 Exchange Parts sent its employees a letter which spoke of “the Empty Promises of the Union” and “the fact that it is the Company that puts things in your envelope . . . .” After mentioning a number of benefits, the letter said: “The Union can’t put any of those things in your envelope — only the Company can do that.” Further on, the letter stated: “. . . [I]t didn’t take a Union to get any of those things and ... it won’t take a Union to get additional improvements in the future.” Accompanying the letter was a detailed statement of the benefits granted by the company since 1949 and an estimate of the monetary value of such benefits to the employees. Included in the statement of benefits for 1960 were the birthday holiday, a new system for computing overtime during holiday weeks which had the effect of increasing wages for those weeks, and a new vacation schedule which enabled employees to extend their vacations by sandwiching them between two weekends. Although Exchange Parts asserts that the policy behind the latter two benefits was established earlier, it is clear that the letter of March 4 was the first general announcement of the changes to the employees. In the ensuing election the union lost.
The Board, affirming the findings of the trial examiner, found that the announcement of the birthday holiday and the grant and announcement of overtime and vacation benefits were arranged by Exchange Parts with the intention of inducing the employees to vote against the union. It found that this conduct violated §8 (a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act and issued an appropriate order. On the Board’s petition for enforcement of the order, the Court of Appeals rejected the finding that the announcement of the birthday holiday was timed to influence the outcome of the election. It accepted the Board’s findings with respect to the overtime and vacation benefits, and the propriety of those findings is not in controversy here. However, - noting that “the benefits were put into effect unconditionally on a permanent basis, and no one has suggested that there was any implication the benefits would be withdrawn if the workers voted for the union,” 304 F. 2d 368, 375, the court denied enforcement of the Board’s order. It believed that it was not an unfair labor practice under § 8 (a) (1) for an employer to grant benefits to its employees in these circumstances.
Section 8 (a)(1) makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7.” Section 7 provides:
“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, arid 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).” 49 Stat. 452 (1935), as amended, 29 U. S. C. § 157.
We think the Court of Appeals was mistaken in concluding that the conferral of employee benefits while a representation election is pending, for the purpose of inducing employees to vote against the union, does not “interfere with” the protected right to organize.
The broad purpose of § 8 (a)(1) is to establish “the right of employees to organize for mutual aid without employer interference.” Republic Aviation Corp. v. Labor Board, 324 U. S. 793, 798. We have no doubt that it prohibits not only intrusive threats and promises but also conduct immediately favorable to employees which is undertaken with the express purpose of impinging upon their freedom of choice for or against unionization and is reasonably calculated to have that effect. In Medo Photo Supply Corp. v. Labor Board, 321 U. S. 678, 686, this Court said: “The action of employees with respect to the choice of their bargaining agents may be induced by favors bestowed by the employer as well as by his threats or domination.” Although in that case there was already a designated bargaining agent and the offer of “favors” was in response to a suggestion of the employees that they would leave the union if favors were bestowed, the principles which dictated the result there are fully applicable here. The danger inherent in well-timed increases in benefits is the suggestion of a fist inside the velvet glove. Employees are not likely to miss the inference that the source of benefits now conferred is also the source from which future benefits must flow and which may dry up if it is not obliged. The danger may be diminished if, as in this case, the benefits are conferred permanently and unconditionally. But the absence of conditions or threats pertaining to the particular benefits conferred would be of controlling significance only if it could be presumed that no question of additional benefits or renegotiation of existing benefits would arise in the future; and, of course, no such presumption is tenable.
Other Courts of Appeals have found a violation of §8 (a)(1) in the kind of conduct involved here. See, e. g., Labor Board v. Pyne Molding Corp., supra; Indiana Metal Products Corp. v. Labor Board, supra. It is true, as the court below pointed out, that in most cases of this kind the increase in benefits could be regarded as “one part of an overall program of interference and restraint by the employer,” 304 F. 2d, at 372, and that in this case the questioned conduct stood in isolation. Other unlawful conduct may often be an indication of the motive behind a grant of benefits while an election is pending, and to that extent it is relevant to the legality of the grant; but when as here the motive is otherwise established, an employer is not free to violate § 8 (a)(1) by conferring benefits simply because it refrains from other, more obvious violations. We cannot' agree with the Court of Appeals that enforcement of the Board’s order will have the “ironic” result of “discouraging benefits for labor.” 304 F. 2d, at 376. The beneficence of an employer is likely to be ephemeral if prompted by a threat of unionization which is subsequently removed. Insulating the right of collective organization from calculated good will of this sort deprives employees of little that has lasting value.
Reversed.
See, e. g., Indiana Metal Products Corp. v. Labor Board, 202 F. 2d 613 (C. A. 7th Cir.); Labor Board v. Pyne Molding Corp., 226 F. 2d 818 (C. A. 2d Cir.).
The italics appear in the original letter.
The inference was made almost explicit in Exchange Parts’ letter to its employees of March 4, already quoted, which said: “The Union can’t put any of those . . . [benefits] in your envelope — only the Company can do that.” (Original italics.) We place no reliance, however, on these or other words of the respondent dissociated from its conduct. Section 8 (c) of the Act, 61 Stat. 142 (1947), 29 U. S. C. § 158 (c), provides that the expression or dissemination of “any views, argument, or opinion” “shall not constitute or be evidence of an unfair labor practice under any of the provisions of this Act, if such expression contains no threat of reprisal or force or promise of benefit.”
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 |
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